Avoiding Work at Home Distractions
Belinda Sandor
Leading Women to Start, Grow, and Scale Successful Virtual Assistant Businesses | Speaker | Coach | Amazon #1 Best Selling Author
When you’re a Virtual Assistant, likely working from home, it can be difficult to stay focused and in your seat all day.
Let’s face it, working from home is awesome, but there are distractions wherever you look. Linen closets to be reorganized, laundry to fold, errands to run, right?
But if you want to be successful and hit your revenue targets, it’s important to have some techniques in your back pocket to do what I think of “settling down” – getting the work done and shutting off the chattering in your head.
Here’s what works for me:
- Take a few deep breaths. I find this is the first step to transitioning into productive work time. Changing my breathing somehow shifts my energy.
- Turn on some music. Music has a soothing quality for me, so I listen to country music all day long. My favorite music is a Pandora station I’ve created called “Luke Combs Radio,” featuring my country faves: George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Chris Young, Jason Aldean… and, of course, Luke Combs.
- Do one task at a time. The best part of doing one thing at a time is that you actually get to check something off your list. And as VA’s we LOVE checking things off. I find that this gives me a feeling of accomplishment and momentum, which makes the work feel good. That keeps me in my seat??
- Make a deal with yourself. When nothing else works, and I’m having a particularly hard time staying focused, I decide what I absolutely need to get done, and then choose a way to reward myself. For example, finish X, Y, and Z and then go for a walk, eat an ice cream cone, fill in the blank. Try it – it works.
Nothing about being a VA feels better than “dropping into the zone” and doing really good work. And while we might think it should always be easy, it’s not. So figure out what works for you, be gentle with yourself, and get down to it!
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A business workflow and productivity expert with 25 years of experience, RocketGirl Solutions Founder Belinda Wasser is hired by small businesses on a contract basis to act as their part-time, “business manager.”
In addition, she is the Founder of the VA Connection, a professional online community with the goal of educating and connecting independent virtual assistants around the world. Join her free online classroom here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevaconnection/