Time Stealers

Working from home comes with its own hazards. Friends dropping by, toddlers under the table, spouse not being supportive…..

The main hazard in working from home is the good ole ‘time stealer’. Time stealers can come in a variety of forms but typically look like your closest friend/sister/mother-in-law dropping by for a cuppa because ‘oh but you’re at home now’. It can also look like the washing waiting to be hung out to dry. It can also be you procrastinating by surfing the internet instead of doing client work.

How you deal with these time stealers will help to define you as a professional.

Begin with defining your boundaries to family and friends. Tell them you are working at to come back at 4pm. Once you do this a couple of times, not only is it liberating but they will start to understand. AND you’ll start to feel better and perhaps see yourself in a different light.
Remove all distractions. You’d be surprised at how much you can get done without that basket sitting there looking at you. If removing a distraction includes outsourcing certain things around the house, then do it.

Be mindful of the time you waste doing non-billing activities. If its to build your business or if its for educational/research purposes, then so be it. But if you are just flat out wasting time then you need to look a bit deeper and see why you are procrastinating. There is a stack of open source software out there on the internet that can log every stroke you make to enable you to analyse where you are spending your time. You might be unpleasantly surprised to just see where you time is going.

So share with us your time wasters. What are they and what do you do to prevent them from stealing your time?

Tagged as: Business Management, professionalism, Time Management, working from home