Many people who traditionally went to work utilizing their home as a place for rest, relaxation, entertainment, and recreation. The workplace was meant to be the no-funny business zone where work was the main priority and there are minimal distractions. With the transition to work from home, the two worlds collide and suddenly you are trying to accomplish work with distractions coming left and right.

Whether you are struggling with work from home or are simply looking to sharpen your concentration, this article can help you. Below is a guide for creating a concentration strategy that will help you focus more on the task at hand and become a pro at limiting distractions. By utilizing your time more wisely you will allow yourself more time to relax and enjoy life.

Observe your workflow

The first step to creating your own personalized concentration strategy is to change nothing and observe your day. By taking a step back and keeping tabs on how you work, you can gain many helpful insights into what distracts you and what motivates you.

When you are observing your workflow you should pay specific attention to times that you get distracted by something as well as times where you feel like you aren’t really doing anything. While days can vary and your level of busyness will change, having a general idea of what times of day you are busy and common distractors will be helpful.

Distractions

A good way to think about concentration is that it is the means of working without distractions. For you to minimize distractions you need to understand the things, people, or environments that contribute to you losing your focus.

It can be hard to identify every time you are distracted and a good method you can utilize is to create a make-shift sign-out sheet for every time you need to leave your workstation. This can give you an idea of all the time that you spend away from your work and why.

How your time is utilized

Taking note of the parts of the day that are slow can be of use when creating a tailored concentration strategy. An example would be if you aren’t very busy in the morning but feel like you are cramming to get stuff done in the evening. Observing this pattern could help you to try and more equally disperse your workload so you can feel a little more at ease in the afternoon and stay concentrated throughout the day.

Limit distractions

With a list of what distracts you in hand, you can begin taking actions to remove these distractions from your workflow. Limiting distractions is essentially about controlling your environment and making it conducive to concentration.

A prime example of this is music students practicing their instruments. In order for them to perform well, they typically need a quiet and distraction-free environment to concentrate on playing the right note. You wouldn’t expect even the most talented musician to perform their best show at a rowdy kids’ playground.

While it can be difficult to limit distractions, with practice you will build almost a sixth sense that can detect and avoid distraction. To stay in the zone and concentrated on the task at hand, distractions need to be at a minimum.

Create a workspace

One of the best ways you can help yourself to stay concentrated is to create a designated workspace. This is incredibly important while working from home as it will not aid your concentration, but it will also make it easier to disconnect from your work when the day is over.

Your designated workspace can be tailored to you and your specific needs. The only requirement of your workstation is that it is free of distractions that could divert your concentration. While your workspace doesn’t need to be spartan and bland, you should do your best to remove distractions like your phone. Setting up your workstation correctly will make it much easier to sit down and simply get to work.

Control your environment

Your environment is most likely the largest contributor to distractions. Cars honking, people talking, people trying to converse with you, and even the temperature of the room can distract you and divert your concentration to something else.

While you cannot control everything in your environment, you can limit your exposure to them. One of the best ways you can limit environmental distractions is to purchase a good set of earplugs or noise-canceling headphones. These devices act as a barrier between you and the noises of the outside world. They also act as a human “do not disturb” sign that lets people around you know that you are unavailable to talk.

Another way to control your environment is to find the optimal location for your workstation. If you work from home, you could set up shop wherever you please. With this in mind, you should select an area that is the quietest and utilized sparingly. Setting up your workstation near the kitchen for instance is only asking for you to get distracted by others making food and making noise.

Have a conversation with those around you

People can be the biggest and most time-consuming distractions. When people want to converse with you it requires you to stop concentrating on the task at hand and focus on what they are saying and the conversation. While it can be fun to converse casually with coworkers or family while working, it comes to the detriment of your concentration.

Having a conversation with these individuals can go a long way in allowing you to stay concentrated. A good compromise would be to set up a specific time that you will be available to chat. You could also make a rule that when your headphones are off you are available and when they are on you are not.

Focus/Concentration We Have A Patch For That