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This is my first thread. It has a simple but powerful message... If you have any trouble organizing your daily life or focusing on your work, take the time to read through this.
There is also an upside to the "office life" as I like to call it. The upside is that there is a boss who is telling you what you need to do and you do not have the freedom you want. "What?? Isn't that a downside? Isn't that what I'm trying to get away from??" you may ask.
The reason it's an upside is that it keeps you on track. Yes, we all know the "30% of office time is wasted" and "employees aren't as productive as they could be" statistics that float around, but there is only so much time you can be distracted at work. Working from home, you have unlimited possibilities to distract yourself. For example:
In an 8 hour workday with a boss breathing over your shoulder, how often could you not be working on the particular task assigned to you to progress the company? Maybe you could get away with 10-minute bathroom breaks every hour. Maybe you could get away with talking with a nearby coworker when the boss isn't looking every 30 minutes. Those distractions may add up to 2 or even 3 hours. Sounds unproductive right? "I will be so much more productive at home!" you tell yourself. Let's compare that to the distractions of working from home.
Say you assign 8 hours of work each day to yourself. Now how long could you possibly be distracted for out of those 8 hours? I hope you see where I'm going with this. If your eyes catch a glimpse of a movie going on in the background and you give in, you've just wasted 1-2 hours. If you notice the nice weather outside and decide to go for a bike-ride, you've put aside work for 1-2 hours. Neither of those things is bad, but they are not productive. Work time is work time and you need to get your work done to succeed.
Not only could you be distracted the full 8 hours, but you can also be distracted for multiple days! Say its Friday night and you get invited to a weekend getaway or road trip with a friend or two. You think to yourself "I can do this! This is why I became my own boss. This is the freedom I've been working towards! I deserve this!" And off you go on a 2-day trip. I'm not saying that there is something wrong with taking time off to relax and enjoy life. That's the point of working! However, when comparing the efficiency of office life to home life, an office has a boss to keep you in check and force you to work.
You're the bossWorking from home or being your own boss has nobody helping you stay on track. You have to be the one to push yourself to work. I know I'm going to get the replies sounding something like this; "Well that's what successful people do!" and "If you can't do that, you belong in the slowlane." The problem that many face is that they have the right intentions, the right mindset, the right goals but it is hard for them to change. People are accustomed to the idea of a 9-5 life with trading time for money. Many people hate their job and look forward to taking time off from work. They begin associating a negative connotation to work and a positive connotation to anything that distracts them from work. A lot of this happens in the subconscious which is why people find it hard to change.
Not everyone has this 9-5 mindset. Us entrepreneurs hate the 8 hours workday. We always have and always will. We strive towards financial freedom and living the way we want. Sometimes, that mindset can lead you in the wrong direction. You may begin to feel like you're overworking and deserve to work less. You may see yourself having lazy days where you know you should be working on something but have convinced yourself you don't need to.
There is another group of people with a different problem. They simply don't know how much time is being wasted. If you work from home, it begins to get hard to keep track of work hours. You may find yourself researching something for work and then 2 hours later, you're reading about the next car you want to buy. "Crap, when did I stop working and when did I get distracted?" you think to yourself. This happens multiple times throughout the day and at the end, you don't know if you've been productive or not.
Say you keep a little notepad with you and just jot down the start and end times of when you work and watch Netflix(or play video games, or any other big distraction). At the end of the day you add up the numbers, and you spend a total of 3 hours watching Netflix and only 4 hours working. Wouldn't' you feel a little embarrassed that you spend almost as much time watching Netflix as you do work? You would realize that that time could have been better spent reaching towards your goals and working towards the future you deserve.
I am a little embarrassed to admit how recently I discovered this powerful effect. About two weeks ago is when I saw my productivity almost double on some days and my mindset change towards distractions. All I did was download a simple app on my phone that gives me an easy way to track my daily activities without carrying a pen and paper around. Before I go on let me say this; I am not in any way associated with this app or have any benefit of you downloading it. I'm sure there is a vast collection of apps that do the same thing but this one just caught my eye one day, so this is the one I have firsthand experience with.
The secret to using this strategy effectively is never lying to the app. It may take a day or two to get accustomed to using the app, and you find yourself forgetting to set times for certain things. This is fine as long as you stay truthful to yourself and keep track of everything. You will see no results if you do not keep honest time just to make yourself feel better. Make a promise to yourself to take this seriously.
Over these past two weeks, I have found myself not getting distracted and focusing 100% on my work, and I have moved along towards my goal tremendously! Seeing the "work" section get larger and larger and the "distractions" getting smaller and smaller is a great feeling. The same reason that smartphones and social media are addicting will be motivating you to work for yourself! This also has the effect of helping me track the amount of time I work. Having a history of the time it took me to complete helps me with pricing my services more accurately. This leads to fewer mistakes in pricing and better reactions from customers of new services.
It seems a little silly how a simple thing like this could help organize your daily life and have an impact on your work ethics which will change your future. I suggest anyone that is having trouble concentrating on work or would just like to keep themselves organized, download this app (or any other one like it) or use pen and paper and see the results for yourself!
If you have any questions or have your own person experience about organizing your time at home, I'd love to hear it!
Thanks for the long read
Where are the distractions?
Achieving success requires a certain mindset and particular action to be taken. An important step in keeping your mind on track and your actions related to your goals is to organize your daily life. A lot of people on this forum are looking for ways of (or already are) working from home. There are many benefits of not being tied down to an office with a boss telling you everything you have to do and not having the freedom to do what you want. You can work from anywhere. You can take time off at any time. You can travel. You gain confidence by being your own boss. You do whatever you like and whenever you like. Sounds great right? There is also an upside to the "office life" as I like to call it. The upside is that there is a boss who is telling you what you need to do and you do not have the freedom you want. "What?? Isn't that a downside? Isn't that what I'm trying to get away from??" you may ask.
The reason it's an upside is that it keeps you on track. Yes, we all know the "30% of office time is wasted" and "employees aren't as productive as they could be" statistics that float around, but there is only so much time you can be distracted at work. Working from home, you have unlimited possibilities to distract yourself. For example:
In an 8 hour workday with a boss breathing over your shoulder, how often could you not be working on the particular task assigned to you to progress the company? Maybe you could get away with 10-minute bathroom breaks every hour. Maybe you could get away with talking with a nearby coworker when the boss isn't looking every 30 minutes. Those distractions may add up to 2 or even 3 hours. Sounds unproductive right? "I will be so much more productive at home!" you tell yourself. Let's compare that to the distractions of working from home.
Say you assign 8 hours of work each day to yourself. Now how long could you possibly be distracted for out of those 8 hours? I hope you see where I'm going with this. If your eyes catch a glimpse of a movie going on in the background and you give in, you've just wasted 1-2 hours. If you notice the nice weather outside and decide to go for a bike-ride, you've put aside work for 1-2 hours. Neither of those things is bad, but they are not productive. Work time is work time and you need to get your work done to succeed.
Not only could you be distracted the full 8 hours, but you can also be distracted for multiple days! Say its Friday night and you get invited to a weekend getaway or road trip with a friend or two. You think to yourself "I can do this! This is why I became my own boss. This is the freedom I've been working towards! I deserve this!" And off you go on a 2-day trip. I'm not saying that there is something wrong with taking time off to relax and enjoy life. That's the point of working! However, when comparing the efficiency of office life to home life, an office has a boss to keep you in check and force you to work.
You're the boss
Not everyone has this 9-5 mindset. Us entrepreneurs hate the 8 hours workday. We always have and always will. We strive towards financial freedom and living the way we want. Sometimes, that mindset can lead you in the wrong direction. You may begin to feel like you're overworking and deserve to work less. You may see yourself having lazy days where you know you should be working on something but have convinced yourself you don't need to.
There is another group of people with a different problem. They simply don't know how much time is being wasted. If you work from home, it begins to get hard to keep track of work hours. You may find yourself researching something for work and then 2 hours later, you're reading about the next car you want to buy. "Crap, when did I stop working and when did I get distracted?" you think to yourself. This happens multiple times throughout the day and at the end, you don't know if you've been productive or not.
The Lifehack
A very powerful lifehack that I have discovered is to organize your daily life. What I mean by that is to keep track of what you do throughout the day and organize it into categories. This seems like such a simple task but has a very powerful effect on your productivity. All you need to do is take note of the amount of time you spend working, watching tv, browsing social media, driving, eating, etc. "But how will this help me organize my life and improve my work ethic?" you ask. Doing this simple action every day brings to light how much time you spend working and how much time you spend distracted. Now as you track your work time, you feel good about yourself. You feel good because you're working towards your goals, you're working towards what you love, you're working towards your better future. And when you begin tracking your time for your distractions, you will realize that this isn't bringing you any closer to your goals. You might feel a little bit of shame for wasting that precious time. You will begin associating distractions with the negative connotation that they are. Say you keep a little notepad with you and just jot down the start and end times of when you work and watch Netflix(or play video games, or any other big distraction). At the end of the day you add up the numbers, and you spend a total of 3 hours watching Netflix and only 4 hours working. Wouldn't' you feel a little embarrassed that you spend almost as much time watching Netflix as you do work? You would realize that that time could have been better spent reaching towards your goals and working towards the future you deserve.
I am a little embarrassed to admit how recently I discovered this powerful effect. About two weeks ago is when I saw my productivity almost double on some days and my mindset change towards distractions. All I did was download a simple app on my phone that gives me an easy way to track my daily activities without carrying a pen and paper around. Before I go on let me say this; I am not in any way associated with this app or have any benefit of you downloading it. I'm sure there is a vast collection of apps that do the same thing but this one just caught my eye one day, so this is the one I have firsthand experience with.
The Simple Solution
The iPhone app is called "ATracker - Daily Task and Time Tracking." There is a free version and a paid version for $4.99. I have the free version, and it is enough to do everything I'm describing here. This app lets you set up tasks that you do every day and then with one tap, it begins timing how long you've been doing that task. It then will show you the amount of time you've spent so far for the day, the week, or month. The app also shows comparison pie charts of how you spend your time. Now whenever I think about browsing some social media and putting off work, I realize that I would have to open the app and admit defeat. I would have to start a timer which will make the distractions larger and the work smaller on my pie chart. Such a simple thing is very powerful because of the way the mind works. This task will feel like a reward to your brain, and your brain is addicted to rewards. The reason why long term goals are hard is because your brain wants to get a result now and you must always remind yourself to stay on course towards your endgame. The default setting is: reward now, don't worry about later. Once you begin connecting tracking your work time to a reward, you will find yourself craving work. The secret to using this strategy effectively is never lying to the app. It may take a day or two to get accustomed to using the app, and you find yourself forgetting to set times for certain things. This is fine as long as you stay truthful to yourself and keep track of everything. You will see no results if you do not keep honest time just to make yourself feel better. Make a promise to yourself to take this seriously.
Over these past two weeks, I have found myself not getting distracted and focusing 100% on my work, and I have moved along towards my goal tremendously! Seeing the "work" section get larger and larger and the "distractions" getting smaller and smaller is a great feeling. The same reason that smartphones and social media are addicting will be motivating you to work for yourself! This also has the effect of helping me track the amount of time I work. Having a history of the time it took me to complete helps me with pricing my services more accurately. This leads to fewer mistakes in pricing and better reactions from customers of new services.
It seems a little silly how a simple thing like this could help organize your daily life and have an impact on your work ethics which will change your future. I suggest anyone that is having trouble concentrating on work or would just like to keep themselves organized, download this app (or any other one like it) or use pen and paper and see the results for yourself!
You have nothing to lose and only everything to gain.
If you have any questions or have your own person experience about organizing your time at home, I'd love to hear it!
Thanks for the long read
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