4 Tips to Establish Balance in Your Work/Home Life
One of the dangers of working from home is that you're surrounded by work 24/7. If you work at an office, when you turn off the lights and lock your office door for the night, you're usually done for the day. When you work at home, your office is only steps away as is your laptop. The temptation to work when you should be spending time with family is great.
Unfortunately, many work at home moms run into the trap of
working more than they should and neglecting their families, even though they
originally started working from home to be able to spend more time with family.
1. Determine when
you're most productive. Are you a
morning person or a night owl? Determine
when you're most productive and then do your best to get the bulk of your
difficult work done during that time.
Hire a sitter or see if dad can watch the kids during your productive
hours.
2. Determine your
money making work. You have work that
makes you a significant amount of money and work that must be done but doesn't
make much money. Try to make sure 80% of
your work time is spent on the money making activities; the other activities
can take 20% of your time. If you can't
get the non-money making activities done during that time, consider hiring a
virtual assistant.
3. Set non-working
hours. Determine what hours will be
non-working hours and spent with your family.
During that time, put up the laptop as well as your cell phone. Let your family know what you're doing so
they can make sure you stay on track and spend uninterrupted time with them.
4. Limit your work
hours. When work bleeds into all areas
of your life, you likely spend a lot of time doing mindless activities like
checking e-mail 10 times a day when you could easily get by just checking two
or three times a day. To resist work
creep, determine how many hours a week you need to work and then set "office"
hours for your work time. This should
help you remain productive because you know you only have a set number of hours
a week to get everything done.
What are your favorite
ways to establish work/family balance?
No comments: