How Staying Focused Can Help You Stay Motivated

Everyone has times when they lack motivation. On the other hand, you may be so motivated and full of ideas that you lose your focus because you are trying to juggle too many tasks at once. However, multi-tasking may do more harm than good. When your mind is divided by too many tasks, your productivity decreases. Here are some tips to help you stay focused and motivated on your business.

Choose a Niche
Once you know what your niche market is, you will be able to focus on tasks that will help you with that particular market. Try to narrow your market as much as possible. For instance, if you have a coaching business and want to help people work from home, perhaps you can target a certain field, such as web designers or virtual assistants. You will gain a reputation for being an expert in that field and will be able to help people create specific plans while coaching them to success.

Set Goals, and Write Them Down.
When you set goals for your business, you are defining the direction in which you want to take your business. When you write them down, you are greatly increasing the odds that you will accomplish the goals you have set.

Create a Business Plan
When someone wants to start a brick and mortar business, they need to create a business plan and submit it to a bank to secure a loan. A business plan is a summary of how a business will be organized and a listing of activities that the owner needs to complete. For instance, a business plan will explain when a business owner expects to make a profit, as well as the type of marketing they intend to do. Creating a business plan for your home business will increase your chances of success.

Stay Away From Distractions
It is easy to lose track of time when reading email, blogs, and surfing the web. Set aside a block of time in the morning and evening to take care of email. Try to limit your internet during work hours for tasks specific to work, such as research. Wait until you are done with your work to read the celebrity gossip.

Prioritize Your Tasks
When you write out your to-do list, prioritizing your tasks will keep you working on what is important. Some items may need to be accomplished as soon as possible, while other things can wait a day or two. Take a colored highlighter and highlight the things that need to be done ASAP. When you look at your to-do list, your eyes will be drawn to the items that need the most attention.

Outsource When Possible
As you look over your to-do list, do you notice items that can be handled by someone else? By delegating tasks to others, you will have more free time to work on things that require your attention.

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of The Wish Place. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

Tips on staying focused and motivated as a work at home mom

Moms are busy and by necessity you have to wear many hats.  People tell you to focus in order to succeed in business, but how can you focus and stay motivated when so many things demand your attention?  Here are some tips for busy moms who need to keep their focus and motivation.

Choose the Right Job.

If you are just trying to bring home some money and are willing to take on jobs you dislike, you will burn out before long.  This is not to say that you can just do what you want and earn money at it, but it does mean that finding the right work at home job is important to your motivation.  Choose topics that you care about, and use skills you enjoy using.  Just because you are good at something doesn’t mean you want to do it all day.

Establish a Routine.

New and intersting things are fun and exciting, but routine helps keep you grounded.  It’s a good idea to set your alarm for the same time each weekday morning and to head to the home office/computer at approximately the same time each day.  Trying to scramble and figure out your work hours each day only wastes time and energy, and hampers your productivity.

Stay on Task.

It’s amazing what you can do if you buckle down and shut out distractions.  It’s easy to think you spent two hours writing and article, but if you cut out the trips to the refrigerator and the bathroom, the email reads and replies, and the few minutes here and there you spent on social networking sites, you probably spent less than one hour actually typing.  Taking breaks is fine – in fact, it’s necessary to avoid burn out – but schedule your breaks into your day rather than taking them at a whim.

Delegation is Fine.

Presumably, your family is going to benefit from the extra income you plan to generate with your home business.  It would behoove everyone to support your efforts.  Delegate some of the household chores and errands to the kids and husband (or whomever is in your family).

Ask others to help.

You might consider getting a friend to act as a motivational partner who can hold you accountable if you haven’t accomplished your business goals.  He or she can check in on you at regular intervals to see how you’re doing and to encourage you if needed.  Tell this person what your goals and intentions are so that he or she can check your progress.  For some people, it really helps to know someone is ‘looking over their shoulder.’

Be a Nice Boss.

Just because you are your own boss doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be a nice one.  Give yourself time off and frequent breaks, but also crack down when things aren’t getting done. 

Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.