Now that you’ve created your home based business online and you’ve decided what you’re going to promote on the web you must now sit down and draw up a schedule for the amount of time you’re going to spend each day working on your enterprise and when you’re going to do it from the comfort of your own home. Once you have your timetable in place you must dedicate yourself to following through with your plan on a daily basis.
This is where most home business owners fall down on the job. It’s one thing to write down what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it, however it’s a much different situation entirely when you have to follow through and actually do it. Most people believe that working from home would be the ideal situation for becoming successful on the web.
You don’t have to fight traffic to get to work every day, you don’t waste the time necessary for travel to and from your workplace, you don’t have to contend with delays and time lost for snow days here in the east or torrential rain out west and you don’t have to put up with a boss breathing down your neck on a daily basis. We all should be so lucky. Well maybe not, it all depends on how well you’ve planned on how to handle all the distractions you’re going to encounter every day while at your home office.
Here are what I believe to be, from my experience, the 5 biggest distractions, disruptions, diversions or whatever else you would like to call them and how I try to overcome them .
1. Family and friends are a wonderful thing however there’s a time and place for everything including the people who are most important to you in your life. This is after all your living; how you pay the bills every month, how you put food on the table, how you save for retirement, how you save for the kids college fund and you should treat it as the priority it should be during your scheduled work hours.
Have an office in your home as far away from the high traffic areas in your household as possible, especially if you have young children. Make sure everyone one knows, including your friends and neighbors what your work schedule is and when you’ll be available and unavailable to them. Tell everyone including your wife you’re only to be disturbed for an emergency and for nothing less. This may sound a tad drastic but very necessary if you’re going to succeed online.
2. Electronic media is also a wonderful thing but once again only when the time is right. You shouldn’t have a television, radio or home telephone in your home office. Only use a work phone during scheduled office hours and eliminate the temptation to click on CNN or the food network via your flat screen TV and eradicate the lure of wanting to listen to your favorite talk radio show by abolishing this medium from your work space.
3. One of the most effective Internet marketing strategies being used today is email marketing. However, as I’m sure we all know, it’s very easy to waste an hour or more reading all the latest offers and get rich quick schemes being unveiled in your inbox while your article isn’t being written or your back links are backing up. Email can be and is, a tremendous asset but not unlike any other asset which can turn into a vise it works best when used in moderation.
Schedule a time at the end of each work day to check your business email unless you’re expecting a very important message then its ok to check periodically through out the day but only for that particular message. By reading your email at the end of your day this task won’t interfere with your regular work schedule or create any delays because of time wasted on your inbox.
4. The weather can be a major distraction as well as a great temptation especially during the summer when the temperature hits the eighties and the sun is splitting the rocks. It would be very easy to say I think I’ll take a break today and go to the beach and I’ll make up for it tomorrow by working overtime. However, we all know that the overtime never usually happens and taking an unscheduled holiday can quickly become a habit at the expense of your home business and your bottom line.
Self discipline and focus are the only ways to overcome this enticement. Keep reminding yourself how important this venture is to you and your family and how they’re depending on you to succeed so they to can succeed with whatever endeavor they may be undertaking. Whether it’s your children going to school or your wife at her place of work, they don’t have the luxury of being able to leave at a moment’s notice and take the day off and neither should you. Focus on completing your daily tasks and concentrate on making more money for you and your family.
5. I’ve found that sometimes I’m the major obstacle to accomplishing what I want to accomplish on a particular day. For whatever reason, you just can’t concentrate on your work. You can’t write the article you need written, you can’t make the number of business calls you need to make and you can’t make the forum posts you need to make. This is a time when you really should take a break. Maybe not the whole day but an hour or two away from the office to relax and think about something else entirely, other than work.
For example, you can read a book, watch TV in your living room for an hour, go for a walk, call a friend or whatever you decide to do that will help you relax and become re-focused on the task at hand. We don’t want to take too many breaks however; on the other hand, we don’t want to burn out either. There’s a fine line we have to be aware of so as not to cross it and become unable to continue working for an extended period of time.
These are 5 of my ultimate time wasters which I’ve fought to overcome and continue to fight every day. However, the battle becomes much easier when you’ve settled into a daily routine and a regular work schedule with your ultimate goal of online home business success always on your mind.