Working from home can be a fulfilling and ideal way to earn money and stay available when children and household duties need attending to. But if you aren't careful, it can become even more stressful than working outside the home. What do you do when you have to finish something but your two year old has a temperature and can't settle down? Is it more important to earn that extra dollar or to get the house back in shape?
The truth is that every family will find a different balance, and once you manage to find that balance you will find it becoming natural to keep things in check. Here are a few pointers to getting there; · Try to keep your work area and family areas separate as far as possible. Working on the kitchen table will mean you have to clear all your work away at dinner time, or risk it getting messed up. If you have the luxury of an office, use it and don't be tempted to work in other places. · When you start to work from home, family members and friends often think that you are available all the time to chat, do errands and give them attention. Some home workers don't mind this, but if you find that interruptions break your line of thought and prevent you working then you will have to do something about it. There are several things you can do ; take the phone off the hook, or put the answerphone on; sit down with your partner and explain that you really need time to work; even lock the front door and don't answer if people knock. After all, if you were working outside the home, no-one would answer, right? Usually these measures will work fairly quickly, and after a week or two you will find that people adjust and respect your privacy. · One of the hardest things for self employed workers to do is to limit the number of hours they work. When you work from home the temptation to go back after dinner and work a few more hours can be even stronger. This is one of the most common factors causing stress and friction between family members, as the partner who has been working outside the home all day wants to relax and enjoy the evening, or feels that too much childcare is expected of them. A good idea is to involve your partner in making choices about work hours- after all, you wouldn't like it if they started coming home from work at midnight every day, would you? · Plan your day so that you don't end up rushing through tasks- put aside enough time in the morning to get the house tidy, washing in the machine, meals planned and so on. You will feel much less stressed, and will be able to concentrate better on working. You might find that your cooking gets better too, when you take a minute in the morning to plan. This is actually one of the positive sides of working at home, as with a little planning you can use your time efficiently and improve quality of life for the whole family. · The bulk of unplanned childcare will usually fall on the home worker. That means that sick kids will sometimes need your attention, and there is nothing much you can do about this. A good way to look at it is that if you were at work outside the home, you would have probably have to have come home anyway, so take the day off! If you do manage to do a little work, look at it as a bonus.
