4 "trap" of productivity, trapping every freelancer

Photo: Alexander Melnik

People who do not work outside of the office routine "from 9 to 17," perceived as a freelance opportunity to "play the fool" and stare at the sky from time to time for an hour or two will do the job. But this is not the case as I have already mentioned earlier, the relationship between work and personal life from freelancer greatly disturbedEspecially if you do not manage to avoid the 4 "traps" productivity. How are these traps and how to deal with them - this and propose to talk about today.

Traps number 1: Inability to concentrate

Freelancer is surrounded by sources of information and distractions. "Delivers the garbage," "walk the dog" and "have to go for bread" - this is not the most terrible and prolonged, that will be regularly distract you from work. Households, livestock and interesting sites with news and strive to distract you from your current task. Bottom line: it's been 4 hours, and a tab with the paragraph of Article 1, or 1 line of code has been left open, and nothing useful done.

To get out of the first productivity trap, you should not experiment with multi-tasking (Most of the people, by the way, it did not fit), but clearly and meticulously plan your day. In the end, iron and wash clothes or "go for bread," you would not have, whether you are in the office all day on the "standard" work (and your family / loved ones too in the head would not come to tear you from your workplace for the sake of these "emergency" Affairs).

Radical solution - his own private office or in coworking, where you have no one and nothing can disturb / distract. If you are tired of home environment and new ideas not recommend you try a change of scene: Operate a day or two in a cafe, the business center. In an extreme case - just walk an hour through the city to "clear his head."

Trap number 2: loss of boundaries between "work" and "personal"

Office workers to share "life" and "work" easier: the clock struck 5/6/8 PM - and he went home, leaving all the work behind and forgetting about it until the next morning. For personal questions during the day, too, especially not often call. But for a freelancer, and even working at home, all the borders are erased: you leans mixed set of work tasks and personal priorities, and work becomes a kind of permanent "replacement" of life.

Way out of this trap, too, there is: simply revise your schedule and the structure of the tasks that you do every day. During working hours (the ones that you yourself set to work), remove the case from the list all the tasks, phone calls and meetings, which are personal, "non-working" character. Respect their time costs will be repaid more productive work.

Trap number 3: Workaholic, and chronic "recycling"

No need to repeat that work in your pajamas, "one left" and sleep till noon remain in dreams, but in reality you are no longer distinguish where end "office", and begin where "home" Watch - and running first through 6 instead of 4, followed by 8, followed by 10 hours day. Your "freedom" comes to an end - and you become a workaholic or always did not have time to "semi-zombies" with lack of sleep, and lots of health problems.

Way out of this trap difficult, but he has: his name - Samoditssiplina. In any industry, in any job it is always "a little more work tasks", which in theory can be done "right now." But if you learn not to postpone these "little more problems" for later - you will be stress and "recycling". If you are forced to work for a long time, you need to plan your work and life schedule so that you will long weekend remained outside of the computer and the Internet.

Trap № 4: Self-isolation and loneliness

Office commotion and harassing employees you do not threaten; but also the social life you reduced to an avatar on the screen and full physical loneliness. We do not even suspect how important for us this part of our life and how emotionally and psychologically important was our interact with "live" colleagues in the office, while do not start to work alone in the format of "I and a laptop." And meanwhile, productivity decreases.

Get out "recluse traps" can be: just right to create a source of social interaction. There may be several:

• Lunch / meeting in a cafe with colleagues, acquaintances and friends during the workday
• The conversation on Facebook and Twitter with friends as a way to "switch" the account and remove the mental load (not overdo)
• Chats, conference calls, and chat with colleagues, partners and friends of video calling in Skype as a break
• BarCamp / mitapy / meetings / special interest clubs / local mini-conference
• Jobs coworking or "anti-café" with their colleagues or associates (or even surrounded by strangers: will be able to make a couple of useful contacts).