The second article in this series is about the home office or the place where we can do our work at home. The first one was about scheduling your work hours.
When you start to work from home there is always the temptation to do the work in the wrong place. What is the wrong place? The living room where we have a lot of distractions like the TV, noise, children …
The ideal is to have an extra room at home that we can set up as our home office space. Even if you live alone it is better to have this extra room because it divides physically and psychologically the living space from the working space and believe me, divide psychologically the two spaces is one big step to improve your work time at home.
If you do not have this extra space, you need to find some procedures to reduce the distractions. If you live alone there is no big deal here. You only need a bit of self-discipline to not switch on the TV and watch show after show and do not receive friends during your working hours.
If you don’t live alone and you don’t have this extra space it is more difficult. Setting up your schedule to minimize the presence of the other people that live with you and buying good anti-noise earphones can help a lot. Sometimes I do my work in places outside my home office and the thing that help me most is my iPOD. I hear music and I focus in my work. This way no one distracts me until they do not touch me or call me deliberately. But people usually don’t deliberately disturb someone that is focused in his computer and wears earphones.
Next Monday’s Tips and tricks: Work from Home.
How to setup a home office. How to avoid disorder in the home workplace.
