People who drive into the office everyday often envy the work from home crowd. If you work at home, you don’t have to battle traffic and deal with co-workers stinky meals. You can also work in your pajamas if the mood strikes.
But working from home is not all chilling out in your pajamas and sleeping in late. The common trap that many of these people get caught in is the inability to stop working. It’s hard to transition from work when you work from home. Often professionals who work from home will find that they are still working and it’s already midnight. Having a good work/life balance is essential for everyone and when the lines are blurred between them, things can become ‘caddywhompus’.
Luckily, there are some things people who work from home can do to enable them to keep the balance between there personal home life and their work home life.
- Set up a time for your “close of business”: And stick to it. Whether its 5 p.m. or 8 p.m. you ought to resolve to shut off your computer and close your office door for the night. Resist the temptation to write one more paragraph or make one more sales call. Also, make sure that your workday is a normal 8 or 9-hour day.
- Do something for yourself: Whenever you establish your workday is over it is important to do something for yourself. This can be something simple: Maybe you want to relax on the couch and stream a few episodes of your favorite sitcom. Or it can be a bigger deal, like a dinner date with a friend or a visit to the movies. This will help get you psychologically out of your work.
- Leave the house: When you work from home it is easy to end up spending the majority of your time at home. So, it’s essential to notice this is happening and leave the house. Make dinner plans with your friends or go hiking. You should do anything to make sure that you don’t go all week without leaving the house. That’s simply not healthy.
Overwork results in stress, whether you work from home, in an office, or out in the field. The key to keeping your sanity, regardless how you work, is to reserve non-work time for yourself. So what happens if you can’t force yourself to shut off the workday? Maybe it’s time to consider returning to the office, where often there is someone around to shut off those lights and chase you out of your cubicle.
