Work at Home Productivity Tips –

Look at the picture to the left.

What comes to mind?

Does it look like something that you have around your office to read? 

Or does it look like a folder you may have that contains your latest writing project, your collection of articles or information product? 

Is your first thought that it is full of papers written by someone else? Or by you? 

Your answer probably depends on where you place your FOCUS during your daily activities. 

INFORMATION OVERLOAD AND FOCUS

You can have one without the other. But not usually both. 

If you are finding yourself running in place in your business, not accomplishing as much as you would like to be, you might be a victim of information overload and lack of FOCUS.

Take a minute and examine your habits. Do you read more in a day – things that are not resulting in action or knowledge that will help you with what you are doing NOW?

Or do you write?

Are you struggling with OUTPUT but your days seem to be filled with INPUT – input that you don't really need to be inputting?

I have been struggling with this issue for a few years – it is so insidious and a habit that is as hard to kick as coffee. 

I'm a bookworm by nature. I have been since I learned to read. I used to stop to read every soup can when I helped put our groceries away as a new reader. The power! The possibilities! The glimpse into the adult world that I knew nothing about.

And I'm still doing it today. Well, I've graduated from soup cans, but I'm still reading anything and everything that peaks my interest. And that is a lot of things. The power! The possibilities! The glimpse into the adult world that I still don't know that much about.

In the days when I used to have to go to the library or book store to get my reading, I still managed to read a lot – cozied up on the couch with my book – and nothing else to focus on – except perhaps a few interruptions or more from the peanut gallery. 

When I got my computer, I thought that I had hit the jackpot. WOW! I could read what ever I wanted, when I wanted. FREE!

I remember being fascinated with the idea that every link on every page went to a whole new world of information. Each link was like a magic doorway. A portal leading to more… unending. 

Soon I found that when I did read a book, I could no longer concentrate, I would flip pages, looking for the interesting part.

For awhile, I read no books and my concentration capacity seemed to fly out the window.

With it, my ability to remember things. Details. I skimmed everything, even when away from the computer.

I found myself living the "instant world". Rushing from one thing to the next, as if I could access the world with one click and then quickly on to the next.

This translated into my working habits as well.

It's just so darn easy to do. 

THE RULE OF 1

The internet is a smorgazborg of valuable info. My favourite saying is "go google it" when ever we need to know anything around the house. It has made keeping reference papers and books unnecessary. In seconds you can have anything you want at your fingertips.

That's perfect around the house, but if you are working online it is more of a challenge.

You need to follow the rule of 1.

It's simple.

You need to have 1 predetermined FOCUS before you sit down to the computer.

And then you need to work on that one thing until you are finished.

HOW TO FOCUS 

A good way to do this is to use project time pockets in your schedule.

Set up a basic plan for each day, it may be on a rotating basis depending on how the rest of your life works.

Just be sure to look at your computer time in this way.

For example, you may want to have a traffic time block every other morning between 8 – 9.

And then a content time block every morning between 9:30 – 10:30.

In time you will adjust to the schedule and it will come naturally.

Fill in the details of what project and tasks you want to work on during the particular time pocket.

Plan a day or a week or even a month in advance.

As long as you have the time pocket put aside, you can label each generically (example – work on traffic, work on product etc) and fill in the details as you have them – at least a day ahead is a good idea.

Work on 1 method or project in each category until you see results and only then go on to another.

It is similar to using batch processing to be more effective and has the same advantages. You do not need to regroup every time you start your work. You will remember from you last session. You won't need to find things. You won't need to figure it out "again" every time you sit down.

If you need to work on more than one, you can do this on a rotating basis to keep a balance, but keep the FOCUS on one at a time.  Don't spread yourself thin. 

Keeping with the traffic example, you could name each week of the month for a method and FOCUS on that for the week.

For example, you could use your traffic time block to do articles for submission week 1, to do forums and comments for week 2, to do content for SEO for week 3 and todo joint ventures for week 4. 

And it allows you to get more from your efforts. FOCUSED effort is always better than SCATTERED effort. 

And it keeps your brain from getting overwhelmed. Saves your brain cells for the real thinking that you need to do. 

WHAT ABOUT THE GURUS?

Gurus for me have been a good thing and a bad thing. I've learned a lot. It's been interesting. But I have been so distracted that I didn't do my own work.  

There is a lot of good information and good online courses circulating the internet. In fact, there are too many.

It is always good to learn, but if you are jumping from one course to the other and not using any, the effort is futile.

Choose a small few experts in your field that you would like to learn from and don't search out or fill your inbox or computer with any more until you are finished.

Unsubscribe from all but a few favourite newsletters. The ones that you always look forward to and read. Even if the others are good, they are only sidetracking your right now.

You can always rejoin later, when you are ready.

If you sign up for a course, take it seriously. See it through. Or don't waste your money. Or your time.

If you are tempted, ask yourself how many courses you can reasonably work on at one time? If you can't do it now, there is always later. Just don't buy it until you are fully ready to use it in your business. 

MAKE ACTION  THE THEME OF YOUR DAY

• Read and subscribe to everything and anything with ACTION in mind.

• Do you need the information before you can DO your task or project?

• Do you see concrete results from this association?

• Do they give you traffic? Do they improve your website? Do they increase skills that you need to do your work IN A CONCRETE WAY.

THE AFTERNOON IS JUST ONE CLICK AWAY

It is so easy, as I don't have to tell you, to fritter away your time LOOKING instead of DOING. 

We were taught at an early age that learning is key. Reading is good. But we weren't taught much about output, standing out or TAKING ACTION on what we learned. For instance, we learned about nutrition through textbooks and maybe a few films, but there was no system in place designed to see that we used it in our every day life.

There was no logical step to turn what we had learned into something useful and productive.

Too much info (input) = not enough action (output). 

Ask yourself, will your business see more benefit through INPUT or OUTPUT?

Do the business successes that you see online consentrate on OUTPUT or INPUT?

Hint: if the answer was input, you wouldn't have so much to read!

Do you want to READ. Or do you want to WRITE.

That is the bottom line.

If you have a business were reading is making you money, then you want to read.

But if the success of your business depends on what you are writing, then you better get writing.

Right now.

ACTION TIP

• Close all of the open windows on your computer. 

Ask yourself what is your most compelling project. What will see results when it is finished. What has been nagging you.

Open it up. Outline your plan and write something.

When you are finished I can guarantee that you will feel 100x better than you would have felt surfing the net for the next hour.

Even if it meant clicking out of my site :0)

If you found this helpful, be sure to come back and subscribe. I'd appreciate a stumble so that others can read about it spend some FOCUSED time in OUTPUT too.

It's addicting once you get started.

I'd love to hear how you make out.

What did you write?

What is your project.

Work on it and then come back here and let us know. 

• Create time blocks so that you can continue to work on your project regularly until it is finished. During this time, close any windows that you are not using and commit to FOCUS for your set time period.

• And the first spare minute you have, go to your inbox and unsub from anything and everything that is a distraction and that you are not USING to give you CONCRETE RESULTS.

• If you could use more FOCUS in your business, try our free WAHM IN FOCUS weekly business focus tip.