If you’re running a home business or just work from home, getting the work-life balance just right can be a bit tricky. Whether you end up totally absorbed in your work or constantly distracted by stuff to do at home, here’s a list of 5 things you can do to help strike the right work-life balance.
Now some of you may be complaining that your work is your life. What about spending time with friends and family? Or getting out and walking in the sunshine? Work-life balance means more than just work!
1. Set office hours
I tried to work for ages without office hours and found my days were unstructured, unfocused, and unsurprisingly unproductive. I either went through days like a distracted zombie or kept manically flitting from home stuff to work stuff without rhyme or reason. Determined to get myself back on track I wrote down my ‘office hours’ and displayed them prominently.
My office hours are plastered on the wall behind my computer. I don’t always work from home, but when I’m do, I have a strong, visual cue as to when I should be working.
Your office hours don’t have to be 9 – 5. They can be 2am – midday, if that’s how you roll. They can be two hour chunks with an hour break in between to play with the kids, do housework, or whatever. The important thing is to have a visual reminder of when you’re supposed to be ‘at work’.
Also let your friends and family know your office hours. It can be difficult to establish the idea of ‘working from home’ with those who are used to more traditional ways of working. They can sometimes distract you because they don’t really understand that you’re working.
2. Have a separate ‘office’ area
Not all of us are blessed with a spare room that we can convert into an office. But at minimum have a corner with a desk, a chair, and try to give it that work-vibe. Working on the couch might make you feel like that trendy-bootstrapping entrepreneur, but as Rosemary, our resident fitness expert points out, working from the couch may be detrimental to your health.
Having a separate office area can also help demarcate work and life spaces.
3. Dress for work – don’t stay around in your pjs all day
When you’re working from home, it’s very tempting to get up, grab your coffee, zombie-shuffle to your desk, fumble around for your computer’s on-switch, and start working. Waste no time with that shower! Who’s going to see/smell you anyway?
Working in your pjs can be fun. It’s one of the luxuries of working from home. But a shower and some clothes can do you the world of good. A shower and clean clothes helps me to feel fresh and productive in the morning.
Some people recommend dressing in work appropriate attire. This may help you to draw the line between work and home.
I now only work in my pjs when I’m sick. It seems fair.
4. Get outside
I have no idea how many times my partner has come home, found me slumped over my desk like the working dead. Carefully and slowly he approaches me, as if I might lunge for the throat, strokes my hair lightly and asks, ‘Have you been outside today?’. ‘No!’ I snap. ‘Busy. Work.’ My communication faculties have been reduced to monosyllabic sentences and I mash my keyboard with such woeful inaccuracy that my year 8 typing teacher would be mortified.
For some reason I equate sitting at my desk dutifully all day with productivity. Those things are not the same at all. In fact, I’ve found that dragging myself away to go tend to my garden or take a short walk actually reinvigorates me and gets me some valuable vitamin D.
5. Be flexible
I know point 1 was all about setting office hours, but sometimes life-stuff or work-stuff happens and the day’s schedule gets a little upset or tossed entirely out the window.
Just the other day I was all psyched to put in a day’s work at the library, I set up my ‘minimalist’ office, had a large coffee in hand and sat myself down. No laptop charger. Damn. My laptop battery was almost dead and home was an 8km bike ride away. A first I was angry. It was quarter to my start time, I was all set, I had big plans and lack of organisation on my part just threw those plans out the window.
While I was putting my backpack into my bike basket, it hit me. I could turn this into something fun. I hadn’t yet managed to ride home from the library in under 30 minutes. I set myself a challenge to the ride in under half an hour and get some serious exercise in.
I arrived home puffed, sweaty, but energised from the ride. And you know what? I did it in 26 minutes and felt pretty chuffed that I’d finally achieved that personal goal.
There are many other tips and tricks to help you craft out a great work-life balance. Try these 5 and see how you go. They totally work for me and I hope they can help balance you too.
Park bench Image from © Lime Lane Photography
This post was written by Stevie Schafer. Stevie is an Admin Ninja and Editorial Assistant here at the Virtual Assistant. She shares her life with her two mischievous rescue cats and her partner. She writes about working from home, freelancing, and other fun things on her own blog, Stevie Writes.
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