Mamas On The Web

Avoiding distractions when working online - simple trick

April 13th, 2007

Working from home is not for the weak. It can actually be harder than having a regular J-O-B. At least when you’re working outside of the comfort of your own home, you don’t have distractions like housework or kids to keep you from your daily tasks.

At home, my biggest weaknesses are games like Heroes of Might and Magic and Final Fantasy. Once I get playing those, I never stop. I literally have to rip myself away from the game if I want to get anything done. It takes a lot of physical effort to put down that controller or click the close button on the game window. But that’s just me. I’m a dork.

However, I know that a lot of you find distractions like instant messengers, forums, email, and social bookmarking sites nearly impossible to stay away from. So what is the trick to getting as much work done as possible with all these glorious distractions calling for you all day long?

Time yourself!

Being your own boss is great, but that also means you have even more responsibility. One of the tricks I use is to time myself using my oven timer. I set it to 30 minutes, then I get to work. It’s funny that it works so well, since I could easily open up my game, or my Outlook Express, but for some reason knowing that timer is on makes me work hard and fast. It’s almost like a game I’m playing with myself to see how much work I can get done before I hear the beep of the timer go off.

Once that half hour is over, I’ll reward myself with some MSN action or I’ll plop down on my couch with a new magazine. So I guess the moral of this story is to have ‘work-bursts’ if you’re like me and you can’t stay away from the inevitable daily distractions of working online.

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Entry Filed under: working efficiently