Work from Home Tips
For decades, a person who was going to work would literally have to leave their house and go. They would depart their home early in the morning, spend their day elsewhere (be it an office, a shop floor, a factory, or similar), and then return to their abode in the evening. As a result, they were able to keep their personal and professional lives separate, because no one was working from home.
Nowadays, things have changed, and working from home has become a standard part of the modern world of work. A popular choice for both employees of a business and entrepreneurs who are running their own companies. Working from home has really gained popularity, and has even moved into the mainstream. This change is largely seen as hugely beneficial! However, there could also be potential consequences for combining your personal and private life at home.
For more on this topic, check out the full Work Life Balance collection
The blurring of personal and professional life
Anyone who works from home can find themselves experiencing a number of problems, such as…
Focusing on “work time” when domestic chores need to be completed. If chores need to be done, it can be very tempting to just quickly get them done before sitting down at your desk. – Even if that means eating in to your allotted work time. When working away from home, this temptation does not exist.
[Read: Managing It All When Life Gets Busy ]
Lack of definitive “finishing time”. Working away from home always provides a definitive stopping point. When a person leaves their job for the day, and can literally no longer work as they can when on the clock, it helps them turn their work mode off. Even if they wanted to try, they’d need to make the journey to an entirely different location. But when working from home, there’s no such division. This makes finding the balance between work, home, and play difficult as people can technically work just as well at 1:00am as they can at 3:30pm. It’s also easy to pick up emails or answer a quick call from the sofa when trying to unwind and watch TV. So the professional world soon encroaches on their personal time even more.
Home stops being a haven. At home, people might have a business line that rings with clients. They might receive work-related mail to their home address. And they might even host client meetings at their own property. This could result in you no longer feeling that your home is a haven from work, or a retreat and a sanctuary that allows you to unwind and relax.
Work from Home Tips
Thankfully, it is possible to manage all of the above issues and keep your personal and private worlds very distinct – even if they share the same physical space. Use the tips below to help separate your personal and professional lives when you work from home.
Develop a chore schedule.
Learn how to organize your focus each day! This way you will be less likely to feel you have to stop working in order to quickly tidy up, start a load of laundry, or wipe down the kitchen. Instead, you can tell yourself the chore will be dealt with as per the schedule. This should reassure you it won’t be forgotten and allow you to focus on your work.
Free Daily Planner Printables
Set a finishing time every day.
At the start of every day, decide when you’re going to finish, and then make sure you do so. Set an alarm if necessary so that there is no risk of working over your assigned time.
Opt for different devices.
If at all possible, completely divide your tech. Have one smartphone and computer for work purposes, and a second smartphone and computer for your personal life. This way, when you finish work for the day, you can turn the “work” devices off. Lock them away if needed, or preferably keep them somewhere out of sight.
If your role requires you to manage a team, you may want to even consider monitoring software for employees.
Separate your work from your home.
You may be working from home, but that doesn’t mean your home is your work. Opt for a cellphone rather than an installed landline. Use a virtual address and mailbox service provided by the likes of physicaladdress.com to give you full control of what business mail (if any) is delivered to your home. And lastly, consider co-working spaces for client meetings. Thankfully there are lots of options out there that will allow you to rent a conference room for a day, an hour, or a desired length of time.
Work from Home Tips
When working for an employer, or running your own business from home, the risk of your personal and professional lives becoming blended is significant. However, the measures above can help to address this issue and ensure that a sensible, healthy division is always maintained.
For more on this topic, check out the full Work Life Balance collection
