Home Office Productivity

When productivity tools become counter productive...

All too often we buy productivity tools, software and gadgets designed to help us get more done...but in the end they simply make us more busy and overly stressed.

When I wait at airports and see so many people thumbing their Blackberrys and speaking into their Blue Tooth phones, I ask myself, “Do these guys never just relax? Is it essential that they collect those messages and take those calls right now?”

For myself, I enjoy a little time when I’m out of contact with my email and phone. It gives my mind space to wander, to relax. While others are filling their time and minds with messages and phone calls, I’m taking it easy, and allowing my brain to wander off in different directions.

I might go into an airport bookstore and browse the bestseller business titles. Or check out the self-help section. I’ll glance at some magazine covers.

I can make a phone call at any time. But I rarely have the opportunity to browse through a bookstore. And sometimes I find gold in those titles and magazine covers. They give me ideas for articles and web pages. Even blog entries.

But I wouldn’t get those new ideas if I were being “productive” and catching up with phone calls.

Sometimes our efforts to be super-productive backfire on us. All we do is fill our time, and exhaust ourselves.

Far better, I think, to allow yourself some free time, and give your brain the opportunity to wander, and take you in new directions.

If you have a To-Do List, you had better use it...

I imagine everyone who works from home has a To-Do list of some kind. Maybe in a paper scheduler, or online, or even on a scrap of paper.

But if you have a list...you need to make sure you add absolutely everything to it. Or get as close as you can.

Here’s a problem I encounter from time to time. I have my list for the day and the days ahead. I have added all my work tasks to the list. Plus other work-related items, whether it be to go to the bank or call my accountant.

But once I have the list, I then seem to depend on it absolutely. In other words, my brain will no longer “take responsibility” for remembering what to do...because that responsibility has been passed on to “the list”.

That’s not a problem, unless I forget to add things to the list.

Just a few minutes ago I realized I received an email yesterday to which I should have replied.

However, the email had slipped beneath the “fold” in Outlook, and I hadn’t added that task to my list of things to do. So I forgot about it.

Now, I KNOW that I won’t always remember to add every single task to my list, so I make a point each day of asking myself, “What else do I need to do? What isn’t on the list, but needs to be done?”

Get ahead of your deadlines.

When you have a task to complete and the deadline is in four days’ time, it’s tempting to put off starting work.

After all, it will maybe take you only six hours to get the job done. And with a four–day deadline, you have plenty of time to spare.

Some of the time you’ll get away with this approach.

But when you work for yourself, you have to be prepared for the unexpected.

Maybe a regular client will call with a rush job. Maybe you’ll have a last minute invitation to speak at a local business meeting.

Maybe one of the kids will get measles. Or your car will break down. Or you’ll get the flu.

The point being, when you’re a solopreneur, you have no support services - no colleague who can step in and do what you do. Whatever happens, you have to deal with it.

So when you leave things until the last minute...it can happen that you won’t actually have that last minute available.

It is for this reason that I get jobs done as soon as I can. I may not send them to my client until the day of the deadline. But I will try to get them completed as soon as possible.

There is another productivity benefit to completing jobs in advance of the deadline.

It makes you feel good. It gives you a boost. It lifts you up. It gives you some extra momentum to move forward and start the next task.

Flying Solo Down Under

I was just told about a terrific Australian site focused on solopreneurs working from home – FlyingSolo.com.au.

The guy who told me about it is Peter Crocker, a freelance copywriter and the marketing guy at FlyingSolo.

It’s a great site for anyone working from home, with plenty of content relating to productivity.

Be sure to check it out.

Are you super productive, all of the time? (I’m not).

I am constantly reading about people who seem to manage a blistering work pace, every day.

They have their systems and their passion, and seem to be able to work at a fast, constant pace.

Well, that’s not me.

Some days I really am extremely productive and can get almost a “day’s work” done by ten in the morning. I barely notice time passing and am amazed by how much I have managed to achieve.

Other days, my pace is more like that of a slug. I struggle through each task and, at day’s end, am disappointed by how little I have managed to get done.

Are there others like me out there? I suspect there are. But it’s not everyone who wants to advertise the fact that they are not a finely tuned working machine, capable of an amazing level of productivity every day of the week.

And in some ways, I’m glad my level of productivity is not “constant”. There is a rebellious part of me that would hate to submit to a machine-like way of working.

But then again, it doesn’t help when I am having an off day...but still have a few deadlines to meet.

What do I do? How do I try to speed up?

Usually, if I find myself working inefficiently in the face of a tight deadline, I walk away from my desk.

Maybe for ten minutes. Maybe for half an hour. I do something completely different. Maybe I’ll sit and read a magazine. Or do some physical work out in the garden.

Either way, the purpose is to jog my mind out of that “slug like” condition.

And it usually works. Most times I can return to my desk and slip into a faster pace.

How about you? Do you find your own productivity rises and falls? And if so, how do you deal with it?

Finally, I did try something different once, and it helped me quite a bit. I bought a self-hypnosis CD that was created specifically to help people increase their productivity. You can read about my experience here, on my freelance writing site.

Decorate your home office as a reflection of your goals.

Take a look at Nettie Hartsock’s comment on the post below. She has decorated her home office to look like a beach house, complete with a recording of crashing waves.

Why? Because that’s what she wants, and is working towards. She wants a real beach house.

This struck me as a very imaginative and, as Nettie says, it builds an important internal connection between the work she does now and her desires for the future.

Has anyone else done anything like this? If so, please add a comment.

Creating a workspace in your home...physically and mentally...

I got some great feedback on the topic of working from home from Debra Helwig, a reader of one of my newsletters.

Happily, she agreed to let me post her comments here. I think she has got the discipline of working from home figured out pretty well.

"I actually have an honest to goodness Herman Miller cubicle in my basement - salvaged from when my company went "virtual office" and sold off all the office furniture.  I have it set up in such a way that it's a completely contained work area, with all the equipment and supplies I need to work within two steps' distance and completely separated from my personal stuff.  When I go to work in the morning, I go downstairs to the office and really "go to work" - it's exactly the same as when I worked in a big office, just 10 steps' commute instead of 40 miles. 

I've discovered that I really do have to keep the two parts of my life (work and home) discrete; my focus & mindset for each is very different, and if I try to blend the two they both become muddy and less efficient.  So when I work, I work - and I work hard.  When I'm home, I'm home, and I don't check email every 10 minutes or try to do "one more thing" in between dinner and the baby's bath. 

I tried that for a while and just wound up working 24/7 and became exhausted.  Successfully being productive in a home office environment requires the right mindset than anything else - but having a completely separate physical space definitely helps too."

Where and how do your set up your work area at home?

Some time ago, through one of my newsletters, I asked people how they set about creating a work area in their homes.

The variety of responses was amazing. People can get pretty creative when deciding where and how they want to work in their homes.

Here are some of the replies I received...

“I have a separate building for my office. It's in an old logging shed that was here on our property in the woods when we bought it a few years ago. The whole thing (11x19) is on 'skids' so it was easily put on a truck and moved. It gets chilly sometimes, but it's away from the house, so I can Rock out and talk on the phone, while others are asleep or whatever. I love it!“

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“Over the years I have worked a lot at home, both for my daytime employer and for my own more immediate cash flow. Whenever possible I've tried to keep the computer out of the bedroom (to keep the amount of dust inside the computer as low as possible). A separate office whenever possible (to keep the amount of noise and annoyed comments as low as possible). As for laptop, I've always coveted one but when it comes to the crunch I still go for power over portability (Still an engineer at heart, I guess).”

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“I'm a freelance print and web designer - I live in a townhouse that had a basement apartment in it when I bought it. I've since enlisted the help of my husband to renovate the apartment to create a studio with a separate entrance for clients. This works out great for me - I work at home, but it still has the feeling of an office so I'm never tempted to veg on the couch watching TV all day (like so many people assume when they hear you work from home).”

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“I started out in the dining room, then took over a spare bedroom.“

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“In truth my entire house is my office - I run 4 small biz: 2 clothing/quilting pattern companies; one selling novelty/sewing buttons; and my Web design stuff. All online and shows - no brick and mortar. I work alone except for the 3 fur-kids helping (we offer free cat fur with every purchase!). While there really IS a full office and sewing room, the garage also has stock and displays; in fact everyone room has something relating to work. Impossible not to.”

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“In the kitchen where I can be available for my 15-month-old twins, but behind a baby gate where they can't reach the laptop. Oh, to have a separate room for an office....!“

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“I have the loft in our A-frame overlooking the Puntledge River just outside Courtenay BC.“

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“My house is a one room place, so bedroom is sitting room is kitchen ... one table I call desk. Too bad my laptop screen does not show anything I can read outside (therefore, the publicity of happy people with their laptop sitting at the lake side, really irritates me, as I get a headache trying to read my LCD screen outside).”

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“When I started my home-based copywriting and communications consultancy a few months back, the original plan was to create a separate, dedicated work area in the basement (for access to the family printer, and to maximize privacy while minimizing impact on my wife and daughter). But once I learned that my new cellular was essentially useless in the basement, everything changed. I got a laptop, and we set up a secure wireless network, so now my office is wherever it needs to be. The basement for land-line phone calls (interviews for articles) and printing; the living room and dining room most of the time; and the master bedroom when my wife wants to chill out and watch some TV. I can literally be anywhere in the house, with or without a power cord, and continue my work without interruption.”

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“We have a separate room that serves as an office. However, our 1 yr old daugher doesn't like to play in the office so we often work on our laptops from the living room or kitchen.”

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“I work full time at home, and a separate office is the only way to escape our determined dog, and my wonderful wife and kids who find endless ingenious ways to disrupt my productivity.”

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“I have a desk in an office space at home, but I find that most of the time I work either from the living room (where the light is good) or from the coffeeshop downtown, where other people's conversations make great white-noise (and where I'm not tempted to do laundry).”

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“I do have a home office, where I keep records, work at the computer and attack the email. But I also like to work in my comfortable lounge on occasions - specifically, when I'm reading research and brainstorming concepts. I find that it helps to be in a different state when I want to switch on that part of my brain that makes odd connections and sparks new ideas. (I'm a freelance copywriter, so it's an important part of my job.) Different space, different brainwaves. I'm fortunate to have options for both work modes.”

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“The hardest part is keeping all of the home and family stuff out of my office!”

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Where and how do YOU work at home? Feel free to add a comment...

Do you have a best time of day, when you can get the most work done?

People working from home have all kinds of individual quirks when it comes to their working environment. Some work best early in the morning, while others get in their "zone" late at night.

Some need the formality of a neatly organized work desk, while others prefer a laptop on their knees in the living room or even outdoors. Some even prefer the noise and quasi-companionship that comes with taking their laptop to the nearest Starbucks.

One thing is certain, many of us have that "zone" - a time, place or mood that enables us to work faster and better.

Pay attention to your environment, internal and external, and identify the factors that influence your productivity.

Find your best work environment, and use it.

And one more thing...if you do have a “zone”, at a certain time of day in a certain place, use that opportunity to address your most important or pressing tasks.

It makes sense to tackle to most demanding tasks at the times when you are feeling most focused.

By the same token, if you typically have times of day when you feel a little blah, use those times for tasks that are a little less demanding.

Like filing, or cleaning the cookie crumbs from under your desk. : )

Are you ready to quit your day job and work from home?

I have been busy...writing a short e-book for people who are thinking about quitting their jobs and working from a home office.

There will be more in the series (one on productivity, for sure), but this first guide is for those who are at the planning stage.

If you are thinking of quitting your job and working from home, there are some key issues you need to address...BEFORE you quit your job.

Before you take the plunge, you absolutely have to ask and answer some key questions about your plans.

Without getting clarity at this planning stage, your chances of succeeding with your home business will be significantly reduced.

This short e-book takes you through 7 key questions, and helps you find the answers you need in order to ensure your success.

Find out more here...