Discipline Yourself

Working from home comes as an option to those people who need to give  attention to house hold chores, especially young children, as well as earn a decent sum of money. While working from offices, discipline comes natural to most individuals as it is imposed upon them. There are specific working hours, break time and deadlines to meet. Working from home does relieve one from all these impositions but discipline is still necessary. Once you are your own boss and no one is looking over you, practicing self-discipline becomes all the more difficult.

Here are a few tips on how to stay focused and disciplined and make the most of the opportunity of working from home.

Setting A Schedule: – You cannot work from home thinking that now you can do whatsoever you want at your sweet convenience. No doubt, you will be able to accomplish tasks, but the things that really need to be taken care of may be left undone. Not good.

It may prove helpful to determine a range of working hours, at least a day ahead, hopefully much longer. Start whenever and finish at whatever time but stick to the plan. Make sure you work the required number of hours. Also, remember to have days when you don’t work. Just because you work from home doesn’t mean you work the whole week as well as the weekends. Working 24/7 will only make you exhausted and sick. And when do you think you are going to enjoy the fruits of your labor! Remember that having fun is as important as work.

Accomplishing All That “Needs” To Be Done: – Make it a point to have your agendas clear for the day. Don’t waste your time surfing the net and checking personal mails at a time you should be working on a presentation. Assign specific time to specific things. Make a schedule that you can follow and stick to it.

The Cake And The Cream: – You need to start eating the cake first in order to get to the cream. It simply means that you should accomplish the hard tasks of the day, which will require your mind to be at its best before you tend to the daily mundane tasks. Don’t spend time reading mails first thing of the day. Instead, get down to work right away.

Keeping Distractions At Bay: – Doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done is the key. Turn of that e-mail program that constantly buzzes you while you work. Get a separate phone line for business and install an answering machine. Check your mails only at a specific time. Not doing so will only break your concentration.

Being Flexible: – So, you have planned the whole week ahead and are following the schedule quite well. What if something important comes up that you need to attend to? Be flexible and attend to the situation and cover the your time later. Life is unpredictable and it wont always be smooth sailing. You need to learn to sway in the direction of the wind.

Once you have applied these tips in your daily work schedule, don’t forget to reward yourself!