Today, with all the distractions online and offline, how do you stay on task when you are working from home?

More people are choosing to work from home either in a traditional type business or running an online business. With this some, probably most, are finding that their main challenge is time management. I know that there have been times when I just feel like I spin my wheels all day long and at the end of the day I have nothing to show for all the time I have spent working.

We all know that making lists will help us be more productive, but we can take this much further and get so much more done if we will just follow a few guidelines. Do you have some time management tips? Have your written them down? Do you follow them?

Here are a few of mine and maybe they will help you.

1. Make sure your family understands that this is your business and you cannot tolerate disturbances. This is probably the most important thing for time management. Set aside time throughout the day to take care of their needs and let them know what times you are available for them. Then make sure you take care of those things during that time. This can be your biggest time killer thing in your business when family don't respect your business or working hours.
2. Make a task list or to-do for the day. Do this each day or the night before. I know I never get everything I want to get done on any given day. A task list helps me. If it's not on the list don't do it until you have everything on your list done. Of course, you will have to be flexible in case something else ends up taking priority, but this should be an exception and NOT the rule.
3. Put everything -- EVERYTHING on the list that you want to do for the day. Include visiting forums, research, Facebook for business, lunch, breaks, household chores, errands, etc. Set a time limit and stick to it. This avoids wasted time.
4. If your business is not dependent on email or social networking, do those things on your down time and not on work time, just as though you were at a brick and mortar job.
5. Close all windows on your computer except what you are working on. Don't check email, Facebook, Twitter, cell phone, nothing, while you are working on a task.
6. Turn the T.V. off.
7. If you need to have noise, only play music without lyrics. Just play the music and turn it down low. It is proven that words from songs will intertwine with what you are trying to do and can be distracting to your thought process.
8. Take breaks. You can't work effectively for 8 to 10 hours without breaks. Take a break at least every two to three hours. It doesn't have to be any more than 10 to 15 minutes, but it will revive you and help you get back on task. Make sure you eat regular meals too.
9. At the end of the day write your blog what you have accomplished for the day. This will help you see what you have accomplished and also be a record of when you did things. You never know, you may be able to use this at a latter date for writing a book or a website.

I use a spreadsheet and have month set up at time so all I have to do is go in and put in my daily tasks. Some stay the same, so I can just copy them over to each day. I set several times a day to check my email because my business is online so I need to communicate to my customers within a reasonable time,

I am sure there are other time management tips that could be added to this, but this list has really helped me become much more productive and each day I feel as though I have really accomplished something. At least if I don't feel like I have accomplished anything that day, I can look over the day and see what I did accomplish and know that even those little things help my business.

To your success!