6 Ways to Stay Focused While Working From Home

Are you working from home, but finding that somehow you have LESS time for yourself than you ever did?

While I've heard this again and again, what I've found is that people actually have more time than they think, they just have difficulty creating and maintaining boundaries between work time and non-work time.

As you think about your own personal and professional boundaries, take a quick self assessment:

1. When you are supposed to be working, are you 100% focused, or are you switching attention between emails, text messages, and other alerts?
2. When you have free time outside of work hours, do you allow yourself to check work emails, or do you cut yourself off from the office?

If you aren't focusing 100% on the task at hand, consider these tips for reclaiming your work-life balance so you can make sure you're resting, administering self-care, and avoiding burnout:

1. Start your day in the right mindset.

Set your alarm to allow for enough time to do whatever places you in a positive space: pray, meditate, shower, or listen to music. NOTE: If watching the news or scrolling through headlines is going to put you in a negative mindset, I would avoid that!

2. Carve out a physical space specifically for work.

Make sure you communicate to your family that when you're in that space, you're not to be interrupted unless it's an emergency.

3. Write out EVERYTHING you need to do in a day and how long it will take to accomplish each task.

Often our perception of how long things take needs radical adjustment -- this is easier to figure out when it is written down. To see if your assessments are correct, track your time for a week! That way you can see if the amount of time you are allotting to each task is correct.

4. Create a schedule around those tasks, and adhere to that schedule as much as possible.

A schedule will keep you organized and focused!

5. Designate break times for exercise, eating, and relaxing.

Keep in mind that four 10-minute workouts is just as good as a single 40-minute workout! Taking those breaks will also increase your productivity when you get back to work because you gave yourself a brain break.

6. Decide on your "hard stops."

These are times when you disconnect from work completely to focus on something else:

• your meal
• your family
• your method of self-care

If 12:30 is lunchtime, then at 12:30, step away from your work area -- finishing that email can wait! -- and physically move to the area where you eat your lunch. Refresh, rejuvenate, nourish your body, and then come back to your work area to complete your work.

Recognize that being mentally "at work" without true breaks ironically decreases productivity. By making non-work time TRULY non-work time, I suspect you'll soon find yourself getting through your daily work load more efficiently.

Your stress levels and your loved ones will thank you for it!

About Angela Moore

For over two decades, Angela Moore has helped corporate groups and individuals reach their fitness and life goals while motivating countless others to live more purposeful, powerful, and healthier lives. Through her integrative health programs, she provides fitness programming, mental health and nutrition counseling, and empowerment coaching to teams wanting to improve the quality of their workplace. For more information, email Angela.