Working from home can either become comfortable and nice or too comfortable for you to work. As a home-based medical transcriptionist, you need to deal with a very big challenge – distractions.

Let’s look at how you can avoid distractions. Start treating your home-office as an actual office from where you cannot attend to your household responsibilities. Do not let domestic worries trouble you at work. If you have small children at home, you cannot expect to take care of them and work at the same time. Ask another member of the family to take care of them, or get a baby-sitter. If you have a household job pending, don’t tend to it until you have finished your official work.

Let family and friends know that you are at work, and they should call on you or call you only if there is an emergency. Let your children know that you are working, and inform them of the time you plan to take breaks.

Switch off the television. Some people work with the television on, irrespective of whether they are watching it or not. It may work for some professions but when it comes to medical transcription, it is a complete no-no. You cannot let other sounds distract you while you are transcribing.

Close all e-mail clients and networking websites. As a home-based professional, you may be tempted to check your e-mails every few minutes or log on to a networking website to connect with friends. However, these temptations are most likely to become major distractions, from a minute stretching to hours and you losing the continuity in work.

Do you have more ideas to keep distractions away? Please share them with us.