Time Wasting And Time Wasters
As I’ve mentioned previously time is something that is extremely valuable to everyone and especially to business people like you. Once time is gone you can never have it back because you’re always working with a fixed amount of it. Therefore it’s important to get the most of out of each working day in as much as you possibly can.
People working from home offices tend to have the same general problem though. You can be the most efficient time manager in the world but you will always suffer from at least one time “vampire”. Time vampires are those distractions or events that take away from your working day in a very big way.
The worst time vampires are friends and family I’m afraid to say. When you work from home friends and family tend to assume that even though you’re working from home it’s not really a serious job. Based on that they decide it’s ok to stroll in on you at any time of the day. As much as I love and value my friends and family this is annoying. I’ve had friends “drop in” for 4 hours at a time. I recently had my sister and her 3 kids appear out of the blue with no warning. These events suck up your time like a vampire.
So what do you do? I’m afraid you need to establish rules. This may seem harsh but you couldn’t just walk into their workplace for a few hours to chat so they’ll need to offer the same courtesy to you. If they don’t understand this then you’ll need to make things more formal.
What can you do?
Simply establish your working hours and stick to them. Let your family know that between 9am and 5pm (or whatever your timeframe is) that you won’t be avaiable except over the phone briefly. Post your working hours outside your home office door. Make it known (politely) that your home based business is serious and that you can’t just goof off for 4 hours because somebody else is bored.
For persistent offenders who “forget” you’re working then after the quickest cup of coffee possible simply inform them that you have to get back to work urgently and in future if they could “…just phone me to see if I’m available”. This is being assertive yet polite and gets the message across.
If you wind up with a die hard case who won’t listen to reason then simply don’t answer the phone or the front door if they decide to come calling. That may seem a bit cold and harsh but you have a business to run, right?
Talk soon
Niall