6 Tips for Not Getting Lost Working from Home

Since the pandemic took firm hold and kept everyone locked in, I’ve read about all kinds of problems people have about working from home. It’s interesting, because it’s a similar set of problems people have had trying to be self-employed. 

I’ve always been a bit mystified by this. I’ve been self-employed (freelance business writer) for over 15 years, and never really had a problem working from home. So for those who have such issues, here are my tips for working from home, which can be transposed to being self-employed, if that also means working from home. 

This isn’t an article about creating a business from scratch, so this article assumes that you have a business already set up, or a job. 

I’ll take these tips from the easiest to the hardest. 

1. Create a stable and distraction-free workspace.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a home office, that’s obviously ideal. But if not, you can set up space in another room, such as the kitchen or dining room, or even a corner of the living room. It should be a place where you can reduce distraction to as close to zero as possible. 

Make this workspace sacred. As you can, do not allow it to double as a place to eat or the place the kids also do their homework or anything else.

Gather up everything you will need to do your job and organize it in the space you will be working.

Tip: Avoid the bedroom as your workspace if you can. There was a time when I had my workspace in my bedroom—and after a couple of months I felt like I was never leaving work. It was awful. What was really nuts about it was that I was living in a large apartment, and could have worked just about anywhere else. I finally moved downstairs to the dining room, and it made all the difference in the world. At the end of the day I was able to physically leave work behind. 

2. Avoid distractions. 

Once you have set up the best possible workspace, keep distractions to a minimum while you are working. If you have kids, and they’re old enough to take instructions, get their agreement to leave you alone during work time unless it’s an emergency. Don’t have the TV on where you can hear it. If you can listen to music while you work and still be productive, great (I can and do); otherwise, keep it off. Don’t answer the phone unless your business depends on taking incoming calls—let them leave a voice mail. Don’t answer texts, messages or emails unless you’re on your scheduled time to do that, as you’ll find yourself constantly pulled away from more important work. 

If you can do your work at any time, schedule your work hours for the most distraction-free time of the day.

Tip: Keep business and personal email, phone and other contact mediums separate if you need to be reachable on work matters or have a lot of business traffic that must be monitored during your work hours. Just as you would avoid personal calls at work, do the same in your home-work environment.

3. Stick to a schedule. 

Start work at precisely the same time every day and start working. Take a scheduled lunch and dinner break. A schedule helps you keep yourself disciplined.

Set times to handle calls emails and messages and handle them right there and then. 

4. Have a “to-do” list and get it done. 

Planning means everything if you’re going to get things done. I keep a plan for the week which I do on Monday morning. I then look it over before I compose a to-do list every morning throughout the week. Your to-do list should include specific times to handle email and return calls. A to-do list is another form of discipline. 

Keep this list simple, practical and realistic. You don’t need to include every possible detail and unfinished project, just what you envision you need, can and will get done in the week or day to come. 

There are many programs available that can assist you with planning and managing your work and day. I prefer keeping it simple and just make up my list in Notepad. 

5. Keep an orderly workspace. 

That means keep a good filing system, if you have physical items that need filing. Keep a neatly ordered system on your computer. Keep your email regularly cleaned out, and have folders for different projects clients or different jobs. 

When filing becomes backlogged; when you’ve got an email inbox with 100+ email messages, some of which haven’t been answered and some which have been answered but have just been left there; when you’ve got unfinished work piled in and around your desk or workspace; you’re going to find it more and more difficult to concentrate and accomplish what you need to. It’s like trying to focus your sight through dirty glasses. 

Where this will really bite you in the butt is when you suddenly have a work emergency and must find some item right away, and you have no idea where it is. This is the kind of thing that loses clients, or might get you fired. 

On the other hand, I’m constantly amazing clients by being able to locate something I was working on months or even years ago, in less than a minute. 

6. Maintain self-discipline.

Now let’s talk about that issue which many seem to have the most trouble with: self-discipline. 

I’m a freelance writer, and have known many other great writers over the years. The best writer I personally ever knew had a hell of a time going freelance because he couldn’t discipline himself enough to actually produce written products on his own. He once told me he couldn’t write at Starbucks, because if one person even said “hi” to him, he’d be off talking to them and would never get to work. I’ve heard similar stories from others that said they just couldn’t buckle down and get to work when they were at home.

This complaint is most common from people who had regular office jobs all their lives. Regular employment carries its own discipline, which you can’t avoid if you’re going to keep that job. You show up on time. While you’re there, you get your work done, and you make sure it’s decent work, because if it’s not, again, you might lose that job. 

When someone decides to go freelance, they’re most often walking out from under all that control and pressure—which can be one of the attractions of going freelance in the first place. Suddenly it’s just them. No push. Nobody looking over their shoulder to make sure they’re working. They can go back to bed if they want, and nobody’s going to say a thing. 

After a time, because they’re not, their attention then goes onto trying to figure out “how to get motivated.” They look around for motivational writers and speakers. They read books on the subject. They attend seminars. They watch YouTube videos. They keep motivational memes posted on their desktop. They ask others like myself “how they get and stay motivated.” 

Yeah…I never did any of those things. Why? Because the honest-to-God truth is this: outside motivation is never going to fully do the trick. The only motivation that will ever really work comes from you.

I once had a very interesting conversation with another freelancer, and we ended up laughing heartily at this “lack of motivation” phenomenon from people trying to go freelance. Because both of us went through the exact same thing—how do we get ourselves to sit down and get to work every day? The answer is amazingly simple: WE JUST DO IT. When it’s time to go to work, we sit down and get going. Neither one of us look around for something to motivate us, or to some inspirational quote. If there is any kind of motivation, it comes from wanting to do a great job for clients so we get paid. 

For anyone working from home because of the pandemic, it’s exactly the same. The only motivation you’ll find is within you. You just need to pick yourself up, walk over to your workspace, and start. 

Try it. When it’s time to do something, just sit down and do it. 

Final Tip: Sometimes getting to work can be harder when you realize you have some particularly difficult project to do. My solution to this is not to do the easy work first, as some might suggest, but to tackle the hardest job first. Trust me, this one really works. 

Hope this helps!