Working from home always comes with an extra share of distractions. When your job is to take care of the home, they can be even harder to resist. But we still have so many responsibilities that we need to take care of! From cooking dinner, to keeping the garden under control, we have things we need to prioritize over distractions. It is easier said than done though. Here are my top 8 homemaking distractions and tricks I have found for overcoming them.
The quest for perfection
I chose this one to be first because for me it is truly the biggest of my homemaking distractions. Suppose on my list for the day is to clean our bedroom, bathroom, and do laundry. Sometimes I get caught up making our bedroom PERFECT. Then I spend way more time on little things in our room that won’t make a difference. By the time I have meticulously cleaned our closet, desk, and my craft cubby, as well as wiped down every conceivable surface, I may not have enough time left to adequately clean the bathroom and do the laundry.
How I overcome it: There are deep cleaning days where you totally should focus on getting on area fully clean. If you’ve got other tasks for the day though, don’t let a quest for perfection on one task keep you from doing the others. Embrace the saying “Done is better than perfect”. And let go emotionally of the idea that you have to do everything 100%. Break down a big task into smaller ones and only do the smaller tasks that you really need to do.
Looking through old things
Similarly, if I try to go through our storage closet in the morning then have other plans for the afternoon, I could come across some little box with trinkets from my past that I had forgotten about. I could spend way too much time going through that box and fiddling with all the stuff. And then sometimes I just end up keeping all of it anyways! So no progress was actually made. I have again been derailed by one of my homemaking distractions.
How I overcome it: If I come across a memento or box of mementos when my goal is decluttering or cleaning, I decide first if this is something I want to go through right now, with the goal of getting rid of stuff. If it is, I try to go with my first gut feeling on each item on whether I want to keep it (it makes me happy) or I want to get rid of it (it doesn’t make me happy). By focusing on my gut feeling with each item, it helps to make the process quicker. If I find stuff that I can’t make these quick decisions on, I put them to the side for now. I can come back to them a day when I have more time and emotional energy.
TV
It is easy to say that you are just going to take a quick break and watch a few minutes of a show. But it is so easy to just finish the episode… or just one more episode. How can they expect you to leave without knowing what happens to so and so? Before you know it you could have wasted multiple hours in front of the TV.
How I overcome it: If I feel like I need a break and am tempted to use that time to watch TV, I try and use that time instead to do something that will help me feel better than TV would. So things like doing a bit of yoga or deep breathing, going for a walk or even just stepping outside for a few minutes. All of these things help more to give your mind and body a break than zoning out in front of the TV would. And you can get back to work easier when you are done with these activities.
Social media
This one is similar to TV, but it is even easier to say you’ll just spend a couple of minutes. And if you keep your phone in your pocket all day long, that distraction is always there. It is so easy to give in to and becomes a big part of homemaking distractions. If wasting your time wasn’t bad enough, a scrolling session on social media may be enough to make you feel discouraged and decide to take a longer break, maybe with some ice cream.
How I overcome it: Put your phone away while you are doing things around the house. If you are worried about people being able to get a hold of you if they need you, put your ringer on loud enough that you can still hear it from the other room. There are also focus apps that you can install to help you focus and avoid getting on your phone.
Emails and texting
Especially if you work or run a shop or other business, it can be tempting to check your emails constantly. And sometimes you don’t even respond to emails immediately when they do come in. The same goes for texting. Especially if you have friends that want to text back and forth about everything that happens in each other’s lives.
How I overcome it: I recommend setting 1-3 specific times of the day where you can check your emails and texts and respond to the ones that need attention. For me, since I run an Etsy shop and want to provide quick shipping to my customers, I check my emails once first thing in the morning, once at lunch, and once at the end of the work day. This helps me to package and send off items quickly without the emails derailing my focus for the day.
The news and google
So you heard someone mention this big new thing that happened. And you decide it can’t hurt to do a quick google and just read an article or two about it. Or your mind was wandering and you want to know the answer to a quick but random question. I have been there a lot. And by there I mean 10 articles deep into something that doesn’t actual matter at all.
How I overcome it: Although it may seem like you are obligated to know about every event going on it the world, know that you aren’t, especially trivial events that don’t really matter. Don’t get me wrong, people should be educated on societal and political events that are important and will influence the decisions they make (like voting and activism decisions). But most of the stuff we google really isn’t the important stuff. And remember that reading this stuff isn’t work, so give it the proper time and place in your life. If this is something important to you, make room for it in your free time. Just don’t use it to procrastinate the things that you need to do.
Snacking
For me this tends to go hand in hand with spending time in front of the TV. I’ll thing “I can just grab a snack and watch my show and then I’ll get back to work”. But am I actually hungry? Definitely not every time. Most of the time it is just another one of my homemaking distractions.
How I overcome it: Having healthy snacks throughout the day is important for taking care of yourself. However, make sure that you are eating them because you are actually hungry. Don’t eat because you are bored, sad, or procrastinating something. It helps me to pause for a minute before going to get a snack to check in with myself. I check if I am actually hungry or if it is motivated by something else. And when I am hungry, I can take a small break where I can truly enjoy my snack, without the TV being a distraction to that.
Talking
In this one I’m not meaning talking with your children. Ultimately a huge part of homemaking is taking care of your children and spending time with them. I’m meaning talking with other adults being a distraction while you are trying to do your work or spend time with your children. Whether it is on the phone or in person, stopping to chat with someone can really derail you from what you need to do. This doesn’t mean to just ignore people when you are busy, but there are ways to prevent it from causing problems.
How I overcome it: First off, if you would prefer some time where you don’t have to talk to anyone, there is no reason you can’t set that boundary to give yourself some space. That is perfectly valid. But if you do want the company, my favorite solution to this one is to invite them to join you in your task. And then you can keep going, while having the company of a loved one. If they called, maybe you can put them on speaker phone and enjoy your conversation as you fold laundry or weed the garden.
So there ya have it, my top 8 homemaking distractions and how I overcome them. Us homemakers have a lot to do every single day and getting past our distractions is so important. Ultimately it it a process learning how to do this. And it will take time. But it will get easier and easier to overcome the things that distract us on our homemaking journey. I hope you found these tips helpful and can apply some of them to your everyday life.
