Interruptions are a part of an ordinary day—whether you work at home or work a traditional job. Trying to stay focused is challenging, but getting pulled away for one thing or another is typical and often we cannot even control it. I find that the additional challenge comes when I have to try to get BACK to work after an interruption…
Those of us who run home businesses can get very used to interruptions. Whether we have children at home who need our attention or other responsibilities—the phone rings, someone knocks at the door, we have to run out for supplies or run errands. Unless we are able to get things done completely before we get pulled away, there is going to be the need to get back to things if possible. I don’t know about you, but when I lose my momentum it can take an act of congress for me to get it back. Over the past couple years, however, I have developed a few “tricks” to get myself back to work after I have had to deal with other things:
Breaking up my day into chunks of time can help. For example, if I get two hours of work done in the morning and then have to run errands or be with my kids, I try to make a commitment to get back to work at a certain time. I might say to myself that I’ve got 1 1/2 or 2 hours to attend to things and then after lunch, I need to be back at my computer for three hours. Just scheduling out my day when I get pulled away can help me to force myself back to work.
Additionally, I try to set daily goals instead of weekly ones or hourly ones. That way, of and when I do get interrupted, I can consider my productivity for the entire day instead of getting discouraged and giving up. Reminding myself that I am still working and that the work day isn’t done just because I’ve been interrupted helps me to get back into work mode too.
I do think we need to cut ourselves some slack. Working from home can be a big invitation to interruptions. We just don’t have the firewall that those who have a designated workspace and place have. Even if we do set boundaries and expectations around our work time, we generally will get interrupted or we might even have to attend to other obligations by choice so it doesn’t help to beat ourselves up when we do. We can just stay focused on getting back to work as soon as possible.