You're sitting at home and your head is constantly spinning with laundry, dishes, need to cook something for lunch. I've been working remotely for a year now, but I still can't manage to concentrate properly. Maybe there are some tried and tested ways to do it?
Listen, I struggled with this too when I started working from home. The main thing is clear separation of space and time. Set up a specific spot where you only work, and try to close the door if you can. Here's an important tip - tomorrow morning do your main chores before you start working. I mean get the laundry going, wash yesterday's dishes, prep at least something simple for lunch ahead of time. What helped me was I wrote down all my household tasks and scheduled them by time: like laundry from 7 to 8 in the morning, 30 minutes at lunch for cooking and dishes, cleaning after work. When you know it's all already planned and you won't forget it, your brain feels calmer.
One more thing - try the "25 minutes work, 5 minutes break" technique. During the break you can quickly do something around the house and it won't distract you while you're focusing. And the main thing is don't keep a to-do list in your head - write everything down in notes or a planner. Once you've written something down, it stops eating away at your brain. I noticed that if I get anxious about forgetting the dishes, I keep thinking about them, but if I wrote it down - done, I forget about it and work calmly.
I work from home and a simple rule helps me - I do all the household chores either in the morning before work or after, or I set aside specific time during my lunch break. The main thing is not to keep a "need to do later" list in your head, otherwise your brain constantly gets distracted by it. It's better to write it down on paper and forget about it until the break.
Here's what I'll say - I had the same problem in my garage when I started spending more time there. The thing is, your brain just won't switch into work mode if you can see unfinished stuff all around you. My advice: do your cleaning and "prep" the apartment at the beginning of the day, before you start working. Do laundry, wash the dishes, prep something simple for lunch ahead of time or at least take food out of the fridge. It'll take an hour, hour and a half, but then your head will be clearer. The main thing isn't doing it all at once, but having a clear division: first home stuff, then work. Once you've started your workday, everything else is off-limits.
Second thing - physically separate yourself from home. If you have a separate room or a corner in your apartment where you work, that space needs to be your work area. Close the door, remove anything unnecessary from sight, put on instrumental music or white noise if you need to. When I started working more focused, I noticed that even just changing where you work helps. One more tip - set a timer for 90-minute work blocks without distractions, then 15-minute breaks. After a year of working from home you've gotten used to being able to get distracted anytime, so you need to retrain yourself. Try working like that for a week or two - you'll see results.
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