Working From Home: Making It Work

To the casual observer working at home seems to be the easiest thing in the world. In truth, it does take quite an effort getting used to, especially if you live with your family, friends or other half. The home working environment is very different from an office work environment. While it no doubt, can be very fun, it takes some serious commitment and discipline for it to be effective and productive.

For starters lets draw out the ‘perils’ of working from home. The biggest ‘risk’ of working in a home office is the possibility of not getting as much work done as you would in a regular office. The home is a place of rest and without the supervision of your bosses and colleagues, it is easy to take one too many ‘I’ll have a short break’ moments. The bed and the couch is never too far away, and there are no clock-in devices to monitor the length of your lunch breaks.

Another peril is that you may get a little more interruption from your family members, roommate or partner than you would if you were working in the office. Your friends may assume that you may have more time to spare now that you work at home and thus ask you out more often or ask more favors from you.

An easy way to counter these problems would be to allocate a specific workspace in a quite area of your home. If you work from your bedroom, allocate a desk or corner that is dedicated just for work purposes only. Once you have done that, be sure to enforce the rule that that desk, space and room is for work and work purposes only. Do not use that space for any other purposes at any other times, even during times when you are not working.

From there you can communicate to your family friends (directly or indirectly) that when you are in that space during certain times of the day, you are at work and you wish to be left alone. When talking to friends and family, use the word ‘work’ often to remind them that you are indeed still working despite the fact that you hang around your home in your pajamas everyday, Having a dedicated workspace would also help to cultivate some form of discipline for yourself when you are at work.

To ensure that you maintain a high level of productivity at home, it may be helpful to allocate a couple of hours a day for work. During these hours, commit to sit down at your work desk, whether or not you have anything to do. This would help cultivate a healthy work routine at home.

Another less restrictive way to maintain productivity is to set daily task-oriented goals instead of drawing out hourly schedules. Every morning, allocate the task(s) that needs to be completed within that day. Throughout the day, you can take as many breaks as you like or work as many hours you like so long as that allocated task(s) is completed. This way, you will get to enjoy the perks and flexibilities of working from home while being productive at the same time.