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Welcome to a new video!
Whoever says working from home is easy – is ABSURD!
Working from home is not easy – you need rock hard discipline, more time management skills than one would initially think, and that’s just the beginning. There’s a whole other level of self discipline we need to apply to succeed as self employed people. But … … it absolutely CAN be done very successfully.
I… LOVE working from home, and if you are currently working from home or you’re about to, then I’ll share with you some of my key tips to success.
8 of those tips are in this video, 10 additional ones have been sent out in this morning’s email to my email family. You CAN join us too and every week, relish in all the perks of being an email subbie.
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Use #askAlexandraP for any questions, comments or feedback. I love you for watching, and to thank you, let’s dive right in!
Tip #1. I’d like to start the conversation with your Office layout, because it’s critical.
You have to love and feel good where you work. Some of my personal tips are to make sure you get a lot of natural light in the space. Use appropriate artwork and images that symbolize what you want to accomplish. As you’re sitting at the desk, a wall behind you or at least a chair with a high back can psychologically add a feeling of comfort and support so that’s good.
And if you don’t have an actual room where you can shut the door, make sure that your work area is very clearly separated from the rest of the house. The moment the line gets blurred between your home and office life, it will be very difficult to stay on track, motivated and productive, so that separation is very important. And you can accomplish that using curtains or screens. More on this tip + a couple of ideas that will help feng shui your space are included in the email from me.
#2. Schedule Out Your Day.
This is something I do religiously. Every Sunday I make the week’s To Do list and revise along the way as needed. Now, do you recall the quote at the beginning of this video?
RIGHT… I need you to not go crazy with your daily To Do’s so you don’t risk getting disappointed with yourself. This happens a lot with just about everybody but as your own boss, you’re your own motivator, so you can’t allow for too many self-disappointing moments to happen. So here’s my solution: when planning out the To Do’s you have ahead, I recommend you block 1 hour out of your day. Every working day.
In other words, as you’re planning your tomorrows, image that every business day, you have an hour-long appointment and during that time, you can’t do anything from your list. So that hour is blocked. I hope that makes sense. This strategy is what worked for me, because I have the tendency to pack my day with tons of stuff no person in the right mind can do in one day. So that hour buffer, allowed by default for my list to become more realistic and manageable. On your To Do list, I also recommend factoring in time for the Pomodoro technique. Keep watching because I’m going to explain.
Tip #3. Pay attention to what you’re wearing.
When you’re working from home, it’s so easy to work out of bed or in your PJ’s, am I right? My advice to you? If you want your home business to be a success, avoid doing that at all cost.
What comes to mind when you think Pajamas – I know: sleep, laying down, lounging,, laziness maybe – ALL, opposite of what you need to succeed: PJ’s don’t equate to determination, focus, wit…
You see… You have to create daily habits that set the tone for the kind of success that you want. Here are some ideas: wake up, time 5 minutes with a stopwatch during which time you give thanks for some of the things you have, and set the day’s intentions in your mind. 5 minutes later get out of bed. Turn on the shower and take a glance at your messages to make sure nothing needs your immediate attention. Don’t start typing and responding to anything yet. Get the coffee going then jump in the shower. Take a quick shower to wake up, get out , put yo creams on and then get dressed. You don’t have to put on a suit and tie. Casual is fine, just dress in something that shows you care about your business. I’ll post on instagram a picture of what I’ll be wearing the day of this video release, to see me in my everyday “work attire” and maybe that will inspire you more.
The idea is that what you wear impacts how you feel, and how you feel helps guide your stamina and even quality of work, so remember that! No PJ’s no messy hair!
Ambiance is another important factor when working from home.
If you have room mates, a partner or kids at home while you’re during your work hours, you need to block a couple of hours at a time, when you give strict instructions to not be bothered unless an emergency happens. Put the pets somewhere where they won’t be stimulated to bark or make lots of noises. You need to shut your door, and have a do not disturb sign in plain sight.
Now, in the event that you need to be on a business call… When you’re speaking with somebody, you can tell when that person gets distracted. To sound distracted because of outside noises – or worse – step away from the conversion to address the noise is not good for your business because you lose your power and credibility. So if you have a call but you know you have a full house, the best approach in my opinion is to let the person on the other end of the line, at the beginning of the call, know that you apologize in advance if there’s any background noise, you’re working from home today, but your attention is entirely on them as the caller. That’s the best approach in my opinion.
If you don’t have any distractions at home during the day, it’s still very important to figure out what kind of ambiance works for you.
While I work out my office – room – place, I personally like putting the TV in the living room on a movie channel. Commercials can be distracting, so I prefer something more fluid. I do this, because if the sound is too close, like music from my laptop – that’s kind of distracting for me, but if it’s quiet I freak out. So that’s my solution. Some folks however, function best with white noise, or white noise disguised in harmonic sounds, so I found 2 apps that could help you with that:
One is called WhiteNoise Concentration and the other: Sound Curtain.
I’ve linked them both in the video description. If your house is noisy for example, you can use these apps with your headphones and mute all the outside noise. You just have to try different things and see what works best for you.
Tip #5. Block out distracting websites for set amounts of time.
One of the biggest crutches for @ home business owners is falling into the dark pits of social media. We spend more time on Facebook, Twitter, instagram, LinkedIn, etc. – than we think.
I simply silence my phone and don’t have any social sites open in my internet browsers. I set a timer that rings every 90 minutes and THAT’S when I personally take a break and check my phone and my sites. Then I silence it again and repeat.
If it’s more complicated for you, one app I think could help is Anti-Social. It’s linked below. You can block distracting sites from your computer anywhere from 15 minutes to 8 hours if you want, the settings are up to you. And the only way to break those settings once you committed, is by restarting your computer all together. This app seems pretty cool but in the interest of time I linked it below for you to check out all the features.
#6. The Pomodoro Technique.
In the very beginning, while building up my self-management skills and concentration, I followed the Pomodoro time management technique.
A video explaining this in great detail is also linked below. Giving you lots of resources my love!
In a nutshell, this system breaks down tasks into time blocks of 25 minutes, with short, 5 minute breaks in between. After 4 pomodoros, you take a longer break, of about 15-20 minutes. Give it a try and see how it works for you, it might work wonders. As a workaholic, this really helps keep my mind fresh and agile, it helps my eyes avoid getting strained and it helps me to rebuild energy throughout the day, so I really recommend this system.
But if you’re like me and 25 minutes is too short of time, you can still apply this formula, just change the timelines. As I write a lot, it’s best for me to break after 90 minutes and my breaks are 10 minutes long, with a 4th break of 30 minutes. Adjust this concept to fit you.
Tip #7. Sync all your notes.
I write on my laptop, I write on my phone and iPad as I get ideas, I also work on my desktop computer, so I have scattered notes everywhere. Simplenote, Evernote, Dropbox or Google Drive are great ways to sync. So if you’re on your tablet but need to access a note made on your desktop, you CAN get to it, with any of these platforms. Being organized is a HUGE asset!
#8. Track your time.
Especially in the very beginning, it will be instrumental for you to audit how you’re spending your time. So monitor and write down what you’re doing as you’re doing it. You might find that between 2:40 and 4:15 in the afternoon not much is getting done. That’s a great opportunity to see if you can boost your energy maybe.
You could set an alarm to go off at 2:30, that’s when you can take a quick break, brew some fresh coffee, open a window to get fresh air and re-energize, which you otherwise wouldn’t know you should do at that exact time and you’d continue being less than your full productive. You may discover that you get most done while listening to a specific genre of music. Etc. By thoroughly logging everything that you do every day, you can really learn how you produce, what works and what doesn’t, so you can find alternatives, solutions, and dramatically improve your productivity.
Remember to check the other 10 tips I emailed you. If you’re not signed up to get the email, you can do it now, and I’ll shoot over the links to all the private content you may have missed so far – this one included and please subscribe to my YouTube channel. The greatest thanks you can give me for all this content is to be part of the family.
The 2 winners of my recent YouTube and Instagram giveaways are being announced today in the description of the video about the giveaway – if you didn’t win, please don’t be sad – it’ll break my heart, I promise you that giveaways will be a staple of this channel, so another one is coming sooner than you think. I’m already working on it!
Today’s fan shout out goes out to Christopher Coughlin – thank you for watching Christopher! :)
I wish you all you good luck with all your plans and endeavors. Thank you so much for being here, I love you for watching and I’ll see you again next week.
Kisses,
