I’ve been working from my home office since early 2004 and have learned quite a lot about what it takes to successfully do such a thing, both as an employee and as a business owner. This post is second in a series about working from home where we’ll discuss many things to benefit not only entrepreneurs and professional bloggers, but also talk about things to help business owners put telecommuting to work for their company.

Regardless of whether or not you telecommute or are running your own show, working from home can be quite difficult sometimes when it comes to distractions. Here are some tips to get you through it and get back to being productive.

• Family members breaking your boundaries?

  Take a look at your setup. Does your office have a door? Explain to the spouse and kids that when the door’s shut, that means that with the exception of a TRUE emergency (fire, injury, etc.), you are simply not to be disturbed. No knocks on the door, no little “tap-tap” and “Sorry to bug you” exceptions allowed. Explain that your door’s not ALWAYS going to be shut, but when it is, it means that you need some strong, solid solo time.

  Similarly, working from home tends to invite random visits from friends and family. While you surely don’t want to be rude and not invite them in, you simply can’t entertain even for a cup of coffee without some kind of planning. So ask that “randoms” be pre-empted with a phone call, and explain that if you’re unable to answer the call, it likely means you’re unable to accept company. That way you’re also not being distracted by 20 minute “chats” on the phone either. Turn the phone off when you need to. Which brings me to my next tip…

• Email Overload? Clients that call every 10 minutes?

  Unless you’re in the process of responding to emails, turn off your email client when you’re working on other projects. If you need it to pull info, pull that info and put it into a Word document or notepad and then shut it down. With few exceptions, it’s highly unlikely that whatever is coming into your email is urgent. If it is, they’ll likely call, and if you need to check your voicemail after the call comes in, that’s okay too. It’s definitely important to be available to your clients and coworkers, but not to the point where it’s detrimental to your productivity. Set two times a day (but no more than three) to open the email and check the voicemail. A couple hours isn’t going to really kill anyone. (Again, depending on the nature of your business, this may be untrue. In that case, set up an emergency phone number and an autoresponder for clients only.)

• Getting antsy for the outdoors?

  Part of the benefit of working at home is that you can create your own schedule. But think of it like dieting… If you deprive yourself for too long, you’re going to inhale, in one sitting, an entire double fudge chocolate cake… a la mode!

  Give yourself time to break away. If you’re in the middle of something and you find yourself frustrated and fraught with the urge to just get OUT of the house, then go for a nice 15 minute walk. Grab a cup of coffee and go sit out on the deck with the dog for a few minutes. It’s okay to take a break! Just don’t let 15 minutes turn into the rest of your day - don’t decide you’re going to go on a hike when you’ve got deadlines looming.

  Now that you’ve got that down, remember to make sure to schedule yourself some daylight fun time every week. Go have lunch with a friend every Wednesday or take the kids to the park every Thursday afternoon. Better still, simply schedule Fridays off! (Even better, do all three!) If you put in 10 hours a day for the rest of the week, you’re not hurting anyone by not working on Fridays. (Unless of course you’re telecommuting, and your boss needs you there, or you have a project that’s due. There’s always exceptions!)

• Have one huge project and a bunch of tiny ones? Don’t know where to start?

  Consider outsourcing the smaller stuff and spend one of those 15 minute coffee breaks outside with a pen and paper. Make a to-do list and just write everything out that needs doing. Prioritize them, and then figure out what you can pay someone else to do and still make profitable. Make goals for the number of things you want to be able to cross off every day, and revise the list daily. Then go back and tackle them one at a time, by priority. Reward yourself with another 15 minute walk or some play time with “Scruffy”.

• Ready for a nap at 2:00pm?

  Figure out your daily energy levels and schedule your most important tasks during high-energy times. This again, a bonus to working from home on your own - If you’re a night owl, do all your non-client contact projects at night, and schedule client meetings and phone calls for lunch or early afternoon when you’re most alert. This of course is dependent on your type of business, but all in all it’s perfectly okay to make phone calls and manage emails at 7am, work on a project until lunch, take a two hour nap (or go to a matinee with the kids even), and then work on important projects the rest of the night until it’s time for bed.

All in all, it’s most important that you give yourself the chance to make changes when necessary. Don’t spend your time playing computer games if you have a project due, but rather take that time to re-organize and think about when you can be the best you for your business.

Popularity: 19% [?]