Maintaining A Work/Life Balance When You Work From Home

You likely already know that your work/life balance is how you choose to spend your time between home and work, while trying to strike an even balance between these different areas of your life.

But when your office is also your home, it poses some unique challenges. This can be true whether you work in a home office, the kitchen table, or on the couch. You need to really focus extra hard on improving that work/life balance when you work at home, since the lines very easily become blurred. 

Have Morning and Night Routines That Don’t Include Work
If you do nothing else, at least start and end your day without work. Stay off your work email, set boundaries, and focus only on yourself and your personal life. When you work from home, it often feels like you are always working. So, by intentionally saving the early morning and late evening just for you and your home life without work, you can draw that line between your personal and professional life.

Set a Start and Stop Time for Your Work Schedule
When you work at home, one of the biggest challenges is feeling like you should always be working because your home is your office. This is why you need to have a firm work schedule, just like you would at any other workplace.

It can take a little practice, but soon you associate the hours of work only with work, and you save other obligations for when you are done for the day. Think of it like clocking in and out of the office. Once you clock in, you go into work more and you only focus on work. But once the day is over, you are clocked out and you shouldn’t be doing anything related to your job until the next day.

Get Dressed for Work, Then for Home
As you begin your day and are about to start working, get ready and put on clothes that are different from loungewear and what you slept in. It puts you into the mindset of starting your work day and helps you stay productive. 

But when your work day is over, you should change back into lounge clothes, to shift your mindset to your personal time. This also helps to associate different tasks and habits related to your personal life and your professional life. It’s not easy to have a good work/life balance when you work from home, but this certainly helps.

Don’t Multitask Work and Personal Obligations Throughout the Day
It is really tempting to do laundry in the middle of your work day, and make business calls when you have friends over. But by trying to multitask in this way, you are blurring the line between your personal and professional life. Just like if you worked outside of the house, you should not be doing anything not related to your job when you’re working. The same also goes for when your work day is over.

Turn Off Work-Related Notifications on Your Personal Phone
If you only have one phone that you use for everything, you will need to turn off work notifications when you are done working for the day, and personal notifications while you are working. Otherwise, you are stripping yourself of these important boundaries. 

It is so tempting to be sitting on the couch at night and answering emails, or using your phone to talk to friends when you are supposed to be working during the day. If this is something you struggle with, it might be time to have separate phones and devices for your work and personal life.