4 Proven Strategies for Separating Work From Home
There’s a common phrase, “what happens at work stays at work, what happens at home stays at home”. Not an easy thing to do, but especially for the one who’s work is at home. These people have unique challenges to find balance of these two roles.
Many jobs takes at least eight hours of your day sometimes more, and that being able to share time with your family is important. Talking about it is one thing, coming home and taking it out on your family is something else.
One: Use the drive home to transition from the work issues to prepare for the family needs. Try to consciously let go of the work day happening and refuse to dwell on those issues. They will be there tomorrow.
Granted this tip is more for people who work outside of the house, it’s important none the less. However long your drive from work to home is, use that time to work through work issues somewhat and then focus on what you have to look forward to at home. Look forward to spending time with your loved ones.
Tip Two: Make a Schedule
This strategy is for people that work from home, where keeping work and family separate is even more of a challenge. It is so easy when you work from home to work way more then you would at a traditional office, because you have everything right there. You need to create a work schedule, and this schedule is going to have to take two things into consideration, demands of your work and demands of your family. You may find that you need to be working early in the morning or after the kids go to bed. Create a schedule that you can stick to and that will work so that your business isn’t suffering and neither is your family.
Three: Get Different Phone lines
If you are finding that you are getting business phone calls at all hours, having a separate number for them to call can be a wonderful option. You also have the choice to making your cell phone your business phone and the home phone personal. This way when business hours are over, you can walk away and leave those calls to be picked up by an answering device. You can also separate the rings for people you know personally and business so you don’t have so much cross over. Make boundaries.
Tip Four: Create a space that is separate from the house.
I know this isn’t always realistic, but try your best to create a work space. Is there a spare room? There are beautiful little room partitions that you can get to help make a workspace. It’s important for you to be able to get up and walk away from work, plus it helps in keeping family members out of the work area.
