Home distracting home

May 20th, 2007

Lifehacker had a fun post a couple days ago on how to effectively work from home, and readers weighed in with their own homepreneurial productivity tips. Keeping a set schedule and creating a fixed office space for yourself were two biggies. So was doing the most onerous part of a project at the start of the workday and later rewarding yourself with an ice cream sundae or some such for a job well done.

I dove deep into this topic in Chapter 5 of the book, which is why I couldn’t resist chiming in with these suggestions on Lifehacker:

1. Have a theme song like Ally McBeal did. (Seriously.) Play it each morning to signal that the workday is about to begin. (Here’s mine.) Cheesy dancing and stupid flannel pajamas optional. Say hello to your new morning ritual.

2. Use caller ID. Never answer when telemarketers, your mother, or procrastinating/lonely freelance friends call. Eventually they will get the hint that you’re working (lo and behold, just like them!) during the day.

3. Cancel your cable TV subscription and unplug the TV during the day. Better yet, get rid of it. Unplug the modem if you can’t stop compulsively checking and responding to email. As a writer who’s tried every procrastinating trick in the book, I’ve absolutely had to go to extremes like this. If you’re not getting anything done, go for a 30 minute walk and try again when you return.

Thanks to Vanessa Carr for pointing me to the LH post.

Update: If you, too, have a get-to-work theme song, won’t you post a link to it in the comments? Let’s have some Monday morning fun…

Entry Filed under: This freelance life