Ask yourself these questions:

• Am I working effectively?

• Is the work I do efficient?

• Do I have many productive hours of work or am I always distracted?

There are a number of time management tips to help you organize your office or workplace time more effectively and efficiently. You will get more out of your work day and have a greater sense of accomplishment when you practice these time management tips.

Here are Six Work-at-Home Time Management Tips:

1.) Use an Answering Machine or Hire an assistant/Virtual Assistant to Answer Your Phone Messages

Rather than constantly being distracted by answering your telephone, hiring someone or using an answering machine to take your phone messages for you will help you better manage your time. You can then plan that at certain point in the day you will return those calls. By separating the time you spend doing your work and taking phone calls, you will be able to focus more clearly on the each task at hand so you can get more out of your time. Having and practicing effective time management skills will help you focus on the more pressing tasks. With this, an important time management tip would be to minimize distractions as much as possible, such as using the phone and reading/answering emails.

2.) Make a To-Do List for the Days Ahead

To-Do lists can be an effective time management tool. Practicing effective time management skills and techniques means that when you head to your home-office, you already have a prepared to-do list for the day. To-do lists help you focus on your more important tasks while at the same time accomplishing the smaller yet important tasks necessary to achieving your goals.

3.) Do Things That Would Take 5 Minutes or Less Immediately

Another time management skill for the work-at-home professional is that if you have a task that would only take you 5 minutes or less then do your best to complete the task as soon as it lands on your desk or your to-do list. Doing this means you get the less important things out of the way immediately and you won’t waste time thinking about doing it later. You will be better able to focus on the more important tasks at hand.

4.) Keeping Your Workplace Clean and Organized

One of the major causes of ineffective time management, especially in the workplace, is not keeping your desk or office organized. Keep your home-office well organized, like putting things back in the place they belong. This way you don’t waste precious time searching for things that you need. Doing this also minimizes loosing things because you would know exactly where you left them.  Having the right tools that help to keep your workplace (home office clean and organized) is important. These can include the right desk, filing cabinets, shelves and more. MyStyles2Go has a large selection of Work from home furnishings that are available at substantial savings.

5.) Prioritizing

Setting and listing your major priorities is vital. Therefore, an important time management tip would be develop both long term goals and daily actions steps to accomplish those goals. It is easy to get distracted when you work from home, therefore prioritizing all your daily activities will help you to “see the light at the end of the tunnel,” in terms of getting things done.

6.) Setting Smart Goals

Setting goals that would be achievable, rewarding, specific, and timely will help you maintain focus, and give you a reason to complete the “small steps that lead to the big prize. The sense of accomplishment that comes along with achieving your goals.  Goals are useful in presenting to you what kind of steps you need to take in order to fulfill your dreams for the future.  I would also add that goals that are written have a much higher potential of being done than those that are not. Write down those Smart Goals and start working toward them, one task at a time.

Working from home is not always easy and in fact can be a very lonely place. The sense of solitude can be comforting at times and at others make the work at home professional want to break free from the mundane tasks by finding things that distract you.  By setting goals, writing them down and working toward them a little bit at a time, you become a more effective and skilled professional who has something to show for all the hard work of working from home