Image by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi from Pixabay
You thought when you work from home you won't be disturbed or distracted, however, your pets, toddlers, other people or matters keep asking for your time & attention. Here are some suggestions to minimize distractions and stay focus on your remote work or online job.
1) Whenever possible, secure a secluded or private space to work in.
If you are single and you have your own bedroom then that's great, where better place to work inside your house but in your own private space i.e. your bedroom.
However, if you are someone who shares a room with a sibling in case where both of you are still young, unmarried and living with your parents or if you are someone with a friend whom you share the cost of renting a studio or 1-bedroom apartment, it's best to create a work area outside of/separate from your common room/area. This is so that you can respect the other person's privacy and also that some work requires privacy due to sensitive documents and information that you are probably handling.
If you are living with your parents, perhaps you have an unused room in your house like a guest room or a family member who are now living/working afar & seldom goes home. Perhaps you have a corner somewhere within your house where there are minimal visual & auditory distractions.
If you are married but your spouse is working in the office, you still can use a part of your couple's room as a work area. For sure there's a corner or side that your spouse can spare you with and leave you to work privately and comfortably.
Some work requires not only privacy but a quiet environment especially when you usually make or take phone calls or video calls. Here's what you can do to seclude your work area out of a common area.
a) Hang a curtain or use a modular partition stand
b) Use a cabinet and/or drawers to compartmentalize your area
c) Line up some tall indoor plants
2) If your workspace is in your bedroom, place a partition wall or something to hide your bed from your work area.
Thank you for the background effects in Zoom & Google Meet, you can hide your actual background in virtual meetings. However, the purpose is not only that your bed will not be seen in your video meetings but to avoid or minimize the instances of you wanting to lay down/sleep every time you see the sight of your comfortable bed. Sometimes the bed can be enticing specially when boredom strikes from your monotonous or repetitive tasks.
3) Keep your child and pets away during work hours.
If you have toddlers, make them understand when the right time for play is and needed time for work, why you need to do this and be away from them for a while. Don't underestimate a young child's capacity to grasp situation where he/she needs to adjust & behave accordingly. However, be sure that they have a guardian taking care of them to give you peace of mind, so you don't worry about them while working.
If you have a pet or pets, take them out of the room. If you're working outside of a room, place them somewhere else or put them temporarily in a cage if they're insistent.
4) Maintain a clean and organized work desk/area.
You are feeling that great momentum at work when suddenly you need a pen, and you can't find it. For some if not most, there's this tendency to forget what's currently in one's mind or at the tip of one's tongue when we get distracted and it takes a little time to recall where we left of, especially when you have a lot on your mind. Maintaining a clean and organized work desk will minimize instances of losing seconds or minutes trying to find a misplaced needed item and hence minimizes the times when we lose that gained momentum at work.
