How to Stop Blurring the Lines between Work and Home

Stay Focused on Work

How to Stop Blurring the Lines between Work and Home

By Cath McIntyre, About.com Guide

http://homeoffice.about.com/od/Work_at_Home_Issues/a/Stay-Focused-On-Work.htm

One of the many challenges we face working from home is staying focused on our work and not letting our home life distract that focus. Our work is important as it pays the bills and enables us to enjoy good things in our lives. At the same time we have our lives outside of work, such as family and friends that need us to be available for help in addition to enjoying the good things with us. Keeping ourselves balanced is key to being successful.

You may have found that when you first starting working from home you had a strong focus on work and keeping up with what needed to be done work-wise. As time goes on, it can be tempting to start blurring the lines between your work and activities that aren’t work related. Once you start working on house tasks you find that it becomes easier to go off and leave your work and your focus on work begins to waver.

Some of the biggest culprits that break our focus while working at home are:

Household Tasks:

We convince ourselves that throwing in a load of laundry or washing up some dishes while working is a great way to take a break. Yet once we get one task accomplished we let ourselves get caught up in “just one more” task and then the work day is over and we haven’t accomplished what we should have for our job.

To help stay focused on work create a schedule for yourself. If you take regular breaks and wish to do a household talk during that break, then set an alarm so that you know exactly when your time is up and when the alarm sounds - - get back to work. Another good idea is to create a chore chart so that you can schedule when you will do home related tasks and determine wisely that they will fit into your work schedule.

Non-work Phone Calls:

Once family and friends learn that you work from home, you may find that they will call at any hour and expect you to be free to talk. These conversations can be a complete distraction from your work and prevent you from staying focused.

When you begin to work from home, lay down the rules right from the start and invest in an answering machine or phone system that has a built-in answering machine. Don’t accept phone calls unless they are an emergency. Treat your home office just as though you are working in a corporate office and personal phone calls are not acceptable.

Non-work Visitors:

Just as you may receive more phone calls now that you work at home you may also have more visitors who just happen to be in the neighbourhood or feel that anytime is a good time for a cup of coffee. Again this is a situation where you need to lay down rules and let people know that while you’d love to see them it must be after work hours. You might find that you are going to have to screen visitors - - look to see who is at the door before answering.

Television:

I’ve seen many home offices that have televisions and hear requests from people that want a television included in their home office layout. I don’t have a real issue with televisions when used for work purposes and that is if you need to keep on top of news events for your work. For most of us, having a television is a luxury item in our home office and another way to lose focus on our work. It becomes too easy to start watching a favourite program or catch up on reruns.

When you begin working from home, take time to establish rules for yourself and others so that you can maintain your focus and give your best efforts to your job.