Overcome These 5 Common Distractions when Working from Home

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In another article we talk about 5 Things To Remember When Working from Home. Things to make working efficiently, while in a good mood easier. Now lets go into even more detail about the little distractions that can creep up during the day and take you off course to sabotage you.

1. Hunger Distractions

This one creeps up on us so much it comes with a colloquial name: Hangry. Being in a state of hunger has been proven to sour our mood and make us more prone to frustration. If you’re into science there’s a deeper explanation you can look into, that goes more into sugar spikes and drops and how it affects our body.

For this keep some healthy snacks on hand that you can freely mindlessly eat or have a set time for lunch.

2. Fatigue, the most hidden Distraction

These are the most subtle yet pervasive distractions of all. Often the preparation for these come hours before you even start work. Think of it this way, the same way you would marinate prep and cook a main dish for hours although the other parts of the meal is important, think of your mood and energy levels as the base of everything.

The best way and foundation to prevent fatigue will always be sleep. When pigs fly it will always be quality sleep that can give your more pure energy than any cup of caffeine. Now even more dire, Mood can also supersede any rest you get and drain all the energy right back out of you or have you spill out all your energy towards something unproductive. You may ask you mean my mood can ruin my day. No no. what I mean is once you are able to soothe and change your own mood, youre going to be walking on sunshine. This work starts to become a cake walk

3. Dopamine and Boredom Distraction

As we all know human minds tend to drift. When you are trying to get into a flow state to work for a set time without stopping, your mind can sometimes wander off to other fun things it would rather do. In this case on days where you can’t just tune things out and get to work, make your work more exciting. Get some music playing in the background. If you’re like me and can get distracted by lyrics of songs, try Jazz, Lo-Fi or Classical music instead. Another thing I sometimes do is play music videos on my tv, on mute.

4. Frustration and Procrastination Call Distraction

To shut down your mind whining about wanting to do more fun things when you are actually in a flow state, like a toddler you promise they’ll get their reward later after something gets accomplished first or errands are handled.

You can save your fun for a set time during your work day or when you complete a certain set of tasks. Practicing delayed gratification, is an invaluable skill. Tasks that actually impact forward progress; I had to be specific because I want no cheating by “cleaning out your Emails.”

5. Friendly Human and Little Human Distractions

Some of us aren’t so lucky to work at home alone and have to work WHILE caring for small children who seem to have teleportation powers or live with a chatty inquisitive partner or roommate. In this case, with adults you want to set polite boundaries and let them know what it looks when you’re very busy or come of with a sign even literally if need be, that is a sign of you being busy.

With children of course, although you don’t want to be bothered, you must keep an eye on them all seconds of the day to make sure they don’t skydive from a stovetop. You want to busy them with something fun yet beneficial, that improves their cognitive ability, like Lego blocks. You can even help them in the responsibility of cleaning it up after, well mostly for your sake.