Aug 11
4
Everyone in my world wishes they could be a consultant and work from home. If I had a nickel from every time I’ve heard a Nurse say she wants to “get out of the hospital” I would be rich! My constant suggestions to these would be home-bound workers is to be careful for what you ask for. Being a home office consultant isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. I often feel like my office is actually located at Willow Lake (A very nice Starbucks location where they know my name.)
Working as a Legal Nurse Consultant is a major life change from that of working in the hospital environment. It requires a good deal of distraction free working and concentration on singular tasks which is not necessarily the similar to the harried and chaotic pace of nursing. Eliminating the number of distractions every day is mission critical to any successful Legal Nurse Consulting practice. One of the fundamental principles of productivity is that in order to get things done, you gotta focus. And that necessary focus requires that you eliminate as many distractions as possible — not always an easy task with the Internet, kids in summer break and busy phones calling to you from every direction make it tough.
Here’s how to block out the Siren’s call of distractions, in 9 steps.
First, let me say that there should be room in your life for distractions. Work should be fun, and without a few distractions, things can get boring. That being said, when it’s time to do a task, there’s no reason to do it while handling a million other things. (Like nurses are prone to do.) You’ll never get things done that way. When you’re ready to work on a task, block out all else, and really focus on it. Do your best on that task, and get it done as quickly as possible. Then reward yourself with distractions.
That’s all easier said than done, I know. So here are 9 of the best ways I’ve found to eliminate distractions and really focus on a task.
- Turn off email notifications. And IM and Twitter and phones and other ways people communicate. Instant communication is great, but when you’re working on a task, they are nothing but interruptions. Constant interruptions means you’ll never be able to really focus on what’s before you. Batch process your emails and phone calls, set a time to be on IM or Twitter. Other than the times you set for these communication tools, stay off them. It’s hard at first, but once you give it a try, you’ll realize you can live without them. I have.
- Utilities. If you absolutely need to use the Internet (for “research”), you don’t need to have access to every time-wasting site on the Internet. Try Time To Go to only allow you to surf a site for a certain amount of time. Great choices for those of us who have no social media self-control.
- Headphones. Music is a great way to block out the cackling laughter of your I’m–bored kids in the next room Put on a pair of headphones, and crank up the Radiohead or if music is a distraction in itself, just put on the headphones with no music. It will help block out the surrounding sound, while making people think you can’t hear them. Whatever you do DO NOT do laundry!
- DND Sign. Make a Do Not Disturb sign to put on your desk/make-shift office door when you need to concentrate. Let kids, hubby and even friends know that when you have the sign up, you really need to focus and can’t be disturbed. Then be sure to take the sign down and be available when you’re not focusing on a task. Don’t be a smarty and leave it up the whole day.
- Clear workspace clutter. For me, visual clutter is distracting. I like to clear my desk completely or make nicely aligned piles of things that I am going to tackle the following day. I work in a Zen space (sans the sandy Zen garden). Here’s how to do it: take down everything from your walls except the photo of your kid with ice cream all over her face; put all your papers on your desk (and on the floor around you) in your inbox (if you don’t have one, get one, or create an “in pile”); now process through that pile of papers: trash, delegate, file, put it on your to-do list to do later (and in an “action folder”), or do it now if it takes 2 minutes or less. Process quickly through your inbox, and your desk is clear. Do this once a day to keep the desk clear.
- Clear computer clutter. I am notoriously bad at this one. I have lots and lots of icons on my desktop. But they tell me to reduce computer clutter you should take all the icons on your desktop and put them in a folder in My Documents (or something similar). Sort them out later. Now close all unnecessary programs. Turn off any notifications and widgets and other distractions. Only have the program open that you need for this task. Be sure to come back later and sort through the files in your “to be filed” folder. I’ll try to work on that one this week.
- Handle interruptions. Even if you do all of these things, there will inevitably be interruptions from time to time. The kids will still want a Popsicle while you’re on a client call, there will be a snow day the day before you have a big case review due, your hubby will want you to run out and run an errand while you’re in the middle of something. Learn how to handle them efficiently and get back to your task without letting the client know you’re a stay-at-home mom/nurse. If someone interrupts to make a request or give you information, quickly jot tasks and information in a notebook to be processed later. If others want to chat, let them know you’ll get back to them when you’re done. If the interruption is unavoidable, write down where you were in your task, so you can come back to it with the least possible effort.
- Use good programs.
I’m a fan of all things software. If there is something that you need to do to convert a file, change a graphic, etc. there is a program that will help you do it. I try to work smarter rather than harder. Use your installed software to its fullest and keep copies or templates to make future projects easier. Then sit down and crank it out. - Distraction time. Have a time for distractions. You can either schedule times for your email processing, reading your feeds, and taking kids to story time, or set aside 10 minutes at the top of every hour, or give yourself 10 minutes after every 30 minutes of focused work.
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