Working from home: separating personal time from work time
When my husband and I get home from our day jobs, we don’t waste much time before jumping into our second jobs of operating an at-home business. Now that our careers take place both in and out of the home, the line between work and personal time has started to blur. Our house now doubles as a work place, and I often find that I can’t truly relax when I’m there because I feel guilty when I’m not working on business operations.
What steps can I take to separate personal time from work time when at home?
How can I minimize weirdness when hosting clients in my home office?
I run a business from my home, and I often have to meet with clients and collaborators. I’ve been meeting in coffee shops, but I want to make a change: some meetings require lots of materials or even room to spread out drawings and papers, and I hate lugging this stuff around and then splaying out my work in a cafe. However, I want to make sure I’m projecting a professional persona even when I greet a client at my front door and lead them through the living room to my office. My house is fine — it’s neat, though doesn’t have a ton of furniture. It just feels strange to invite people to see where I live AND work.
Am I silly to worry about this? Is there anything you can suggest to allay my twinge of weirdness about mixing business and personal worlds?
How to measure the days when you work from home
GOOD DAYS:
Shower
Wear a bra
Leave the house
No internet drama to deal with
Speak face-to-face with someone other than immediately family
Quick and easy exercises you can do at your desk in 7 minutes or less
I’m not an exercise buff by any means — the most I do is yoga three times a week, when I’m really disciplined about it. Most of the time my schedule (working from home + parenting a small child = I’m all over the place) makes regular yoga attendance a challenge. However, this doesn’t mean I don’t like to at least feel like I’m being healthy while I’m sitting at my desk for a few hours each day. To combat the overall feeling of ick that I generally get, I created this series of small exercises to do to keep my circulation up and spirit happy.
How to edit your office for work-from-home productivity
Lots of sites offer tips on improving your productivity like, “Limit meetings!” and, “Delegate!” Let’s tackle the physical features that can make your home office more productive.
My neighborhood kids love playing outside — but it’s disrupting my work. Help!
A gang of kids plays in my backyard all. day. So much screaming! It’s great that they’re rocking out, but I work from home and need a little quiet.
Going into the closet: to, you know, work there
“Cloffice” kind of sounds like… I dunno, maybe an equine venereal disease. But sound it out with me and you’ll see we’re actually talking about offices built in closets. It’s genius, right?
Stock your home office with cute-mazing office supplies and gadgets
If you’re looking for fun supplies for your home office, look no further. We made a list of office supplies and decorations that are less “I got this from Staples,” more “My favorite thing in my office is this kawaii thumbdrive.”