In Part one of this series I am going to share a secret that was shared with me 8 years ago.
Get up. Get dressed. Be ready for work at the same time every day, just like you would if you were in an office.
I am not going to tell you that to be successful you need to mediate for 30 min every morning followed by 45 min of exercise and a healthy balanced breakfast. This is not my reality and not the reality of most of us. I recently read an article that stated getting up early and meditating were the key habits that successful entrepreneurs exhibited. When you dove down into the numbers, the actual statistic was 50% attributed success to getting up early and meditating. 50%. That is only half. The other half of successful entrepreneurs they surveyed did not in fact get up early and or mediate. I hate these types of articles and their click bait titles. (Yes, I see the irony of my own click bait title, however mine is sarcasm).
I can’t state this enough. Get up. Get dressed. Be ready for work at the same time every day.
I learned this valuable lesson from a colleague who worked from home. I was 7 ½ months pregnant with my first child and she attempted to make an early entrance. I was put on bed rest to try to keep her baking a little longer. My employer at the time was very good about accommodating any needs I had and so they allowed me to work from home until the baby arrived. I was worried that I was not going to be successful working from home and so I called up a colleague who works from a home office every single day. He told me the secret to success is to keep the same routine and work hours that you would if you were going into an office. This advice, although simple, is hard to execute at home. You are home, there are things that need to get done around the house that you are staring at all day long. You need to put yourself in the office box and stay there until work hours are complete. I am not saying don’t take a 5 min break to throw some laundry in. Just do this at scheduled break times.
I get up, get myself dressed and then help get the kids dressed and divide and conquer school drop offs with my husband. It is a mad crazy dash EVERY SINGLE MORNING. I use check lists, routines and yelling to motivate my tiny brood to get their butts out the door. We are out on time 99.9% of the time. Which I consider a successful track record. The key to adding work into this is simple. Have a scheduled start time for your work. Sure, I wake up and answer emails while eating breakfast and drinking coffee. However, my actual work start is 9:10am every morning. That is the time I am able to sit down at my desk after getting the kids out the door and dropped off. That is the same time every single day.
Also it is best to have a dedicated office space in your home. Don’t hold up on the couch with your laptop trying to pretend that you are not going to turn on the TV. Get a desk, set it up and have a space you go to.
It is simple. 100% of entrepreneurs have the same habit every morning. They get up, go to work and get it done. Like a boss.