Balancing Work and Home Life

One of the hardest skills to master when you are working from home is to find a good balance between work and home life. Since you are working in the same place where you play with the kids, cook dinner and do your housework, it’s hard to separate the two. That’s when you end up doing laundry when you should be finishing a report, or spend your evening working because you walked over to check your email.

One of the best things you can do to balance work and home life is to define your workspace. Set up a little home office of sorts, even if it’s just a bedroom corner. Having a defined space will make it much easier for both you and the rest of your family to determine when you’re working and when you’re “just Mom”. If you can set up in a room that allows you to shut a door, even better. It will keep distractions to a minimum and makes it easy for even the youngest child to know that Mommy is working and shouldn’t be disturbed.

Setting a schedule of when you work and when you are available for the rest of the family is another great tool. Sit down with your significant other and come up with a few blocks of time each day or week that you can work uninterrupted. Sure you may need to check email or take care of some simple tasks outside of those blocks of time, but having a few hours each week when you can expect to work uninterrupted (while hubby takes the kids to the park or plays with them) will allow you to get the majority of your work done. At the same time, set aside some time to be spent with just the family. Don’t forget to give yourself one or two days a week off from working at home – yes, that means no email or instant messaging. Once you have a schedule in place, do your best to stick to it.

Set some rules for the rest of the family. Make sure they know this is serious work you are doing and that you expect their support. For example, if the rule is don’t bother mom while she’s working unless it’s an emergency, don’t let them interrupt you to find out what’s for dinner. If you stand your ground on your work rules, they will quickly become habits for you and the rest of the family, making it easier and faster for you to get your work done.

Don’t forget to reexamine every once in a while if you are still achieving a good balance between work and home and adjust accordingly.

Work at Home Mom