How easy (or difficult) is it for you to say "No!"

Those of us who make a living working from home are keenly aware of what it takes to manage the various aspects of our business and stay on track to reach our goals. There's much to do, and -- depending on how organized or not you may be -- so little time to do it.

One thing we know for sure is that working from home requires focus and there is power in focus.

But focus involves much more than keeping your attention on the prize. It also includes the ability to just say no to distractions that would detour, delay or derail your progress. I'm sure you've met many of these imposters.

They appear in many guises:

• The telephone call from a friend who wants to chat while you are in the middle of an important project.
• The suggestion from your spouse to drop what you are doing and "let's do something together."
• Your own inclination to postpone a task when you know you ought to tackle it right now.
• It's such a nice day for hiking or biking, or whatever outdoor activity catches your fancy.
• The self-imposed deadline you're not going to make so you simply extended it... because you could.

So what system do you have in place that helps you to say "No!" when you know that's exactly what you should say?

Hermas

None? I'd choose hiking over working any day!
That's why I do my best work at night, no distractions.
Help!

I have a home office with a door and I do close it sometimes.

I really like your post Hermas. At first, it was difficult for me to say no to distractions, but it's gotten easier to say no over the years. A lot of the time, instead of saying no, I'll say I can do it later.

I believe in keeping a list and not taking anything off of it until it gets done. It's best to prioritise and do the most important things first so the least important things don't become distractions. I also believe in doing the hardest things first because they tend to be the things you would normally put off.

The one thing that works for me is that I make a list of what I want to get done the next day and just do it even if there are a few distractions here and there.

If I know that there will be small distractions like kids in the house, I get things done really early.

I have also found that making a list in the order of importance works the best for me. Rather than do it daily, I usually do it for 3-4 days at a time so that if outside distractions do occur, I can still stay on track. This is because sometimes I can become too focused on working my business' and have to remind myself that the reason I am doing them is so I can stay home and go on more walks at the park and visit my mom more often during the week, and talk to my son's on the phone.

One thing I've found helpful is to actually set a schedule for myself. I allow myself specific time in the day for all kinds of things...working out, followed by writing in the morning (when I get my best work done and I'm freshest), then lunch, followed by some social media, another break, then reviewing analytics and planning for the next day. After that I'm free. I take care to set hours for myself so that I don't feel cheated out of a beautiful day.

Just like working at job, you need lunch and breaks when you work from home also. Otherwise you'll find that you don't focus well on much of anything. Or at least, that's the case for me...

One more thing. I don't plan work on important days...birthdays, anniversary, holidays or days where I'm traveling. I know that I'm less likely to get anything done and to receive the most outside distractions on those days. So instead, I build a little extra time into the days surrounding those important days so that everything is accounted for and I don't feel like I'm slacking off. I even schedule tweets and blog posts and the like in advance to help.

Wow!!!!!! I needed to hear that! Mainly because most of the distractions you're referring to apply or applied to me at some point in this business.

I know for a fact most of my life procrastination has been a problem of mines, but the last couple years I've made it habit taking action and over time I'm getting pretty good at it! I must admit good reads like this however sometimes help give you that extra boost you need to power through a task

Thanks a million

The key to staying focus and working at home is creating a schedule to go by. Understand what you must do and just get too doing it. Always member, if you treat your business like a business, then it will pay you like a business. If you treat your business like a hobby then it will pay you like a hobby.

People have a hard time understanding you are working at home, so I've had to learn to be firm with phone calls that interrupt my day. If it is an emergency, that is one thing. But, I can't take the time to chat during work hours. Yes, it's a real job like any other.

If it's something I enjoy and that I want to do, I don't say no. I do it! That is the reason I am an online marketer. To have freedom to do what I want to do when I want to do it. So If I want my mind to believe what my heart already knows, I must give it the experiences to motivate my dream. In other words, I act as if I already have what it is that I desire, and the desires are met every time! Am I a law of attraction girl? You bet!

When I was younger and more driven and OCD-like, I used to make lists. As I've gotten older, I quit making them and really forgot that I ever used to make them. I started thinking this week about things that I used to do 10-15 years ago, when I was more successful, versus what I do now and the list thing came back to me.

So I started making lists again and my productivity immediately picked up. I'm actually working on one now that I'm going to laminate and then use one of those dry erase markers with so that I don't have to waste so much paper. My online business basically needs the same steps done daily. If I have something extra, I can always go back and add it in as well.

I do agree with Robin as well, though. I went into IM because of previous business-owning experiences. I owned a retail store for 5+ years and loved it, but I put in 70-80 hours every single week. The money was great, but I never had time to spend it. With IM, the potential is there for even more money, but I want to make sure I can do what I want to with it this time around.

-- j

I have implemented a working rule in my house which is two hours a day of my choice when no one is allowed to interrupt me. I go into my room, shut the door and leave my mobile downstairs. I have got to the point that everyone knows that if I don't have these two hours a day there is no money and no money means no fun things, (applies to my kids). I have a ready prepared list of things to do that with experience I know only takes an hour and a half. The rest of the time I spend on reading up on whatever I think is necessary.
The best part about all this is that having a couple of hours to myself is also luxurious when running a family and I am having fun!

I keep a schedule for myself, I make sure that I spend quality time with my family, my girlfriend and my friends just to balance everything out. It may be difficult sometimes as I tend to work long hours especially if I am learning something new.

I developed a schedule last year where weekends should be NO WORK days. And I am keeping that this year!

I posted before about keeping a list and that's important. I too am an Internet marketer partially because I like the freedom. I feel it's important to say that I put my success ahead of anything else because without it I cannot enjoy that freedom. I want to continue to do what I do and therefor succeeding at it makes it easy for me to say "NO" to things that I know are not conducive to my success. I recently added a blog and a forum to my website and it was a lot of work. I wanted to do something else, but I stuck it out and now I am glad I did!

I guess this helped! Twice this week I chose work over hiking.
Had to choose between fixing computers or hiking, chose helping others.
Still got in 3 days of hiking and catching up now that the sun is down.
So tomorrow is free for more hiking unless someone else gets a virus.
Do what you love and love what you do, it all works together.
Or, "Where there's a will, there's a way".

Sometimes there's got to be a strong will to be productive when working from home. My biggest distraction is the delightful noise of my family (OK not always so delightful with 2 young boys) so I slip on my headphones and blast some relaxing audios of nature sounds or instrumental music.

And I do sometimes choose family/personal time over work, but isn't that the beauty of working from home? As long as it doesn't happen too often, and maybe set aside another time to get that work done when you choose the leisure activity, then it all works out - at least it has for me so far. Like Just2EZ says, 'do what you love and love what you do' and you'll find that making time for 'work' comes naturally (although I do need to set a bit of a rough schedule to make sure I'm doing the productive stuff while I work)

Since I only work from home a couple times a week, I try to treat this environment exactly like my office cubicle environment. Luckily, I don't have any small children at home anymore so there isn't that distraction like there was when they were younger. I must admit it's a little tougher in the summer months to stay away from the temptation of working in the yard (one of my hobbies) but if I do, I just make up the time later. The fact that I don't have my typical 1.25 hour commute each way frees up a lot of time when I am at home so I have a little more liberty in the use of my time.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I use a Trello.com board to keep track of my ToDo list so I just open up the site and continue where I left off the previous day.

Thanks for that reference to Trello, Bob Just checked it out and it looks like just the thing to keep my 'To do list' in one place. I'm regularly switching between my desktop in my office to my laptop, so this will be GREAT to have one list I can access wherever I am. Now I just need to get over the learning curve and figure out the best way to use it.