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Working from home shouldn’t just be a success for you and your employer (or business). It needs to be a success for the whole family.
Working from home isn’t always easy, but it is desirable for many. You get more control over your schedule, right? But do you?
A lot of people who work from home don’t actually have much of a work-life balance. There is this belief that we need to work more hours because we don’t have the commute. Or the work may just be there because the laptop is on the coffee table. It’s hard to switch off, and this makes the work at home life unsustainable and not a success for many.
It’s important to make this a success for everyone in the family. Here are my five strategies to help.
Create a working from home schedule you stick to
The schedule is the most important part of the process. You need to ensure there’s a balance between work and personal life, so that your family gets some of your time too.
Yes, there are times that events can come up at the last minute. You may end up with a doctor’s appointment for the kids during the day, which means you need to work in the evening. However, this shouldn’t happen too often. It’s nothing something to make a habit of.
With a schedule*, your kids will know when you’re available for them. Your partner will understand when you are free to talk or just hang out. You also know in your head when it’s time to step away from work. You now just need to be strict with doing that.
Make a workspace dedicated for the job
You may not have a room that you can turn into a home office. That’s okay! That doesn’t mean you can’t have a dedicated space. If you need to put the desk in another room, opt for the dining room, living room, or sunroom if you can. Avoid putting it in your bedroom as much as possible.
Create a dedicated space. This means setting up a desk, and making sure you have shelves and a cabinet if you need them. The exact items you have will depend on your work.
If you don’t have a lot of space for a desk, look out for the desks that fold away*. They are placed on the wall, and you can pull it down and get to work. Once you fold it away, everything is out of sight.
With a dedicated space, you’re less likely to want to get on with work. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
MORE: Why you need a separate desk for working from home
Create a morning and evening routine
Now you need to make sure your life is set up in a way to make working from home a success from the minute you get up. Create that morning routine.
If you have kids, it will involve getting them ready for school and setting up breakfast for them. If it’s just you and your partner, create a routine that incorporates them into it.
On an evening, you’ll want to do the same thing. The routine will help you get away from the desk.
With the two routines, you get your brain ready for work on a morning and start the decompression stage on an evening. This means your brain is ready for the evening tasks with the family, so you can be fully focused on them.
Set boundaries when you’re working from home
Boundaries are important. These need to be set with the people in the house and within your work life. It doesn’t matter if you work for someone else or you are your own boss. Boundaries are the only way to make working from home a true success.
That could mean not answering emails at 8 p.m. or returning calls when your work day is done. It could mean for your kids not to interrupt when they get in from school. When the kids come home from school, they know that I’m done with work. That’s their time with me, and they get my attention as much as they want. Other tasks can wait until they go to bed.
However, if they come home on a night that they’re supposed to be at their dad’s, things are different. Those are days that I work later hours to make up for taking time off. They understand that as it only happens rarely when their dad has to work later than expected.
Record your meetings with colleagues and managers
Always, always, always record your meetings*. You’re not going to remember everything that was said, and you won’t likely write it all down. When you record, you can go back over the meeting and remember everything. This is also great if something was mentioned and then a boss “forgets” about it.
I do let people know that I record meetings for my own personal needs. This allows me to use recordings as proof of something depending on state laws of people I’m working with. However, I don’t need to tell people while being in Ontario as we have a one-party rule. So, as long as I’m part of the conversation, I’m good.
I also like to use a recorder that has transcription software built into it. It just makes things easier when I need to go through some notes.
It doesn’t matter now if you have a meeting right at the end of the day. You don’t need to wait a little longer to finish because you’re typing up notes. Your recording software has it all, so you can check back in on things when you need to.
MORE: Is color-coding your planner right for you?
How do you make working from home a success? Share your thoughts in the comments below.