Working from Home and Making it Work
Working from home offers the best of both worlds, but not
without its unique challenges. Coping with living where you
work, and working where you (and your family) live, can be more
complicated than it appeared when you first thought up those
great home base business ideas. Here is a look at a few of the
common issues and some tips on how to master them.
The end of the workday routine
The alarm goes off at the usual time. The kids head off to
school and your partner heads off to the regular work
environment. You - proud new home business owner - are suddenly
left in a quiet house. It doesn't feel like a work day. It feels
a bit disorienting, actually. Why?
We're creatures of habit. We organize our lives, to a great
extent, by recognizing cues, or signals, that psychologists call
"triggers". Triggers, simply, are the events or surroundings
that we learn to associate with feelings, and actions. Triggers
give us permission, or instruct us, to behave and feel in
certain ways. Make sense? Stay with me.
We've been learning these associations all of our lives and one
of the triggers we learned all the way back in kindergarten is
that if we are home, it's a day off, a holiday, or we are sick.
You work out there at the office - you play or relax in here, at
home. If you weren't raised on a farm, or in a family that
operated home based businesses, working at home is a foreign
idea. Its likely that all of your old associations about being
at home will trigger many feelings and motivations, but none
will tell you that you are at work.
How to cope with old triggers
If you can't keep 'em, get 'em to join up. Keep as much of your
old work related routine as possible. Get up at the usual time,
shower and dress for the office. Keep business hours for
business and as much as possible relegate yard work, laundry and
cleaning the bathrooms to after work, or the weekends - just
like you had to do when you had a job outside the home. Set
aside a room, if possible, to be the home business place. If you
don't have a spare room, set aside a corner, or nook and
seperate it from the rest of the house with a bookcase, file
cabinets, or whatever you have available. Until you have the new
home business triggers, simulate being at work and fool your old
triggers into working for you.
Nobody thinks I'm working!
You've told everyone you are now working from home, but no one
seems to get it. Your mother calls and wants to chat. Your
friends call and want to chat. You partner calls from his, or
her, outside job on break and wants to chat. Your Sister needs
you to watch her kids, your best friend needs help moving on
Thursday. Your children, even your partner who should know
better, interrupt you with problems, questions, or just to tell
you about a funny thing that happened today. What is wrong with
everyone? Triggers.
Just like you they have an adjustment period to go through. They
learned trigger associations, too. Intellectually they know you
are working, but subconciously their triggers are saying,
"He/she is at home, they aren't really working"
How to cope
Technology has made screening telephone calls are easy. Explain
to everyone that you can't take personal calls during working
hours, unless its an emergency, and then get call display. It
will leave a record of who called so you can get back to them
after business hours.
Children and life partners are another matter. You can't ignore
them - why would you want to anyway - but you do have to work.
So, teach them some new triggers.
One home business client of mine taught her family that if the
door to the home business office was closed they needed to fend
for themselves for a while. If a red bandana was tied to the
doorknob, that meant don't even knock unless somone is in need
of medical attention.
Another, who didn't have an extra room to use as an office
taught his family that if he was wearing his Calgary Flames cap
he wasn't to be disturbed. Your family loves you and wants you
to be successful. They'll abide by the signals if they know what
they are.