Create a Division Between Work and Family Life
July 22, 2008
There is a simple philosophy that I live by to help maintain peace and harmony in life, and that is what happens at work stays at work and what happens at home stays at home. Letting the two worlds impact one another can have devastating effects on both areas of your world. This can be especially challenging for people that work from home.
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.
Strategy One: Use the drive home to focus on coming home.
This strategy is more geared for people who work outside of the house, it’s important. However long your commute 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. Think about your loved ones and what their day might have been like.
Two: Come up with 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.
Strategy Three: Get Separate Phone lines
Fortunately for me, with my business I rarely have to be on the phone, almost all communication with clients is done via email. But if you are finding that you are getting business phone calls at all hours, having a separate number for them to call is great. You also have the option of making your cell phone your business phone and the home phone is personal. This way when your work day is done you can put the phone down and walk away from it. You can also separate the rings for people you know personally and business so you don’t accidentally answer a business call after working hours.
Four: Make a designated place for business transactions.
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.
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