How-to Stay Focused when you’re a Work at Home Entrepreneur

Guest Post

Working from home is an amazing opportunity not just because you get to complete your work without having to report into an office but because, depending on your situation, you’re the boss so you get to call all the shots. You’re no longer under the pressure of other people’s ideas – everything you do directly benefits your business (no more trading time for someone else’s money).

There is, however, one issue when you’re working from home and that’s distraction.

A work at home environment can seem like the ideal space when you first get your start but you’ll eventually find distractions because there is little to no accountability being forced from managers and bosses – it all has to come from your will to stay focused.

Rich Gorman, a business/online marketing consulting expert, does a great job at explaining what really needs to be done when it comes to working in a productive manner:

“Lot’s of new ventures, opportunities, and invites will come your way as you climb the latter of excellence. You’ve gotta avoid these distractions like the black plague.  I respectfully turn down the majority of these distractions. Unless it makes absolute sense, and will add greater value to an existing project that I’ve committed to, then it’s simply not something that I’ll get involved in.”

Every day you sit at your computer, pounding away at work, reading blogs, connecting with people, and keeping up with social media is another day that you’ll find existing projects. Some of these could be viable ventures to explore but the majority of them are time wasters.

We love to jump into new projects because it’s exciting and fresh. We’ll spend hours upon hours learning what we can about the income method and maybe even start setting up the business only to hit a stalemate half way along the process because we’ve been distracted by the next shiny object.

One of the key ideas that Rich mentions is that new projects, tasks, and distractions need to build upon your current success. Now, you don’t want to put your eggs in one basket but you can’t truly know how successful you may be, in your current business, if you’re constantly overreaching. You only have so many hours a day so it’s vital that each and every action goes towards growth – if you have spare time only then should you try those other opportunities.

Now, if you’ve managed to dig through this wall of text than bravo to you, but if you’ve skimmed then at least pay attention to these bullet points to fight stressful distractions:

• Create an environment where others cannot wander in and start conversations
• Utilize a simple, straight-forward to-do list that only includes the most important actions
• Delegate and outsource time-wasting activities that bog down your ability to work
• Learn to say no at every new opportunity and distraction – become self-aware

In all, it’s a combination of our ability to eliminate distractions and have a clear, logical set of goals for our business that will make working from home a possibility otherwise you won’t be fit for this type of work style and it’s back to the office for you.

Agree? Disagree? Share your thoughts on the matter in the comments!