When working from home you will be overloaded at times with requests on your time.
Your family, roommates, partner, kids, pet, or boss might call or email you at any moment asking for your help and your thoughts. Your clients or business partners might need feedback on an urgent memo or product launch.
In addition to that, you will want to have your own time to exercise, watch Netflix, and get some peace and quiet. In the current environment, we all need a tropical vacation to Hawaii, but we are confined to our houses and apartments, which are loaded with distractions.
So how to you avoid these distractions? The answer remains simple. Work on your focus.
Multitasking Doesn’t Work
Trying to do more than one thing (multitasking) is a productivity killer.
Here are the facts
- Microsoft Says that trying to focus on more than one thing at a time reduces your productivity by as much as 40%.
- Nicholas Carr observed this in his 2008 essay “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” that the average employee loses 2.1 hours a day to distractions and interruptions. That is a full day every week
- A 2008 study found that employees who do the majority of their work on computers are distracted every 10.5 minutes.
- Distractions make you dumb. Distractions such as emails and calls are proven to lower employees’ IQ by as much 10 points.
- A study from the Georgia Institute of Technology states that software developers for ReactJS take an average time of 10-15 minutes to resume work after an interruption.
Multitasking and distractions are killing your productivity. Here are some things to try to fix that.
5 Quick Strategies to Focus
These numbers and statistics are shocking. If you are struggling with productivity while working from home, try new things to help you focus.
- Make a Daily “To-Do” List and Keep It Nearby
- Prioritize Tasks Using the Eisenhower Matrix
- Set Digital Boundaries With Chat Statuses and Email Blocking
- Stay Away from the Social Media
- Choose a Great Chair-And-Table Combo to Maximize Ergonomics
Focus For Productivity and Happiness
During an interview the Dalai Lama was asked what surprises him the most. He said:
Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.
Source
Living in the present is important for you life and for your working from home productivity.