FollowHow to Balance Working from Home
When you work at home, there are many perks that go along with that. On the flip side, when you work at home there are also challenges that you face as well. One of the biggest challenges that you will face when you work at home is finding that balance between work life and home life. Here are some ways to balance it all when you work from home.
Don’t Stay in Your P.J’s- When you work in an office, you get up in the morning, get out of your pajamas and put your work clothes on. Some people that work at home just get up and work right in their pajamas. Just because you work at home doesn’t mean you should wear your PJ’s every day. Get dressed and treat your home like you would any other work environment. That doesn’t mean you have to wear a suit but dress casually.
Create Flexible Routines- You may want to think that you can do laundry on Mondays and send out your invoices on Fridays but the fact is that when you work from home, your schedule is not always going to be predictable. If you have a set schedule and something unexpected happens, it will throw everything up in the air and cause you to be frustrated and stressed. Instead, schedule your laundry on either Monday OR Tuesday and schedule your invoices for either Thursday afternoon OR Friday. This allows you some flexibility in case an interruption occurs.
Take Some Time for You- You need to set aside a few hours each day to do something for you that doesn’t involve work. This doesn’t count the hours that you are sleeping either. You need to do something that you enjoy like gardening or reading a book. Disconnect yourself from your phone and your computer during that time.
Create Work Space- Your home is your home and not your office. You need to have a defined area of your home just for work. I can be an office in a spare room or a desk and chair in the living room corner. When you are at work, you do things dedicated to work. This means you don’t do laundry, bake an apple pie or deep clean your curtains during work hours. Just like you don’t answer business emails during your family time.
