There's a common phrase, "what happens at work stays at work, what happens at home stays at home". Not an easy thing to do, but especially for the one who's work is at home. These people have unique challenges to find balance of these two roles.
Of course after I say that I need to clarify. I also believe that your job takes at least eight hours of your day, and that being able to share that time with your spouse is important. Talking about it is one thing, coming home and taking it out on your family is something else.
Tip One: Use your commute time to shift gears mentally from letting go of the day at work, and begin thinking about your family.
Granted this tip is more for people who work outside of the house, it's important none the less. However long your drive from work to home is, use that time to work through work issues somewhat and then focus on what you have to look forward to at home. Look forward to spending time with your loved ones.
Strategy Two: Create a Schedule
This tip is for people that work from home, where keeping work and family separate is even more of a challenge. You might need to think outside of the box. There's a great tendency to put in alot more work hours when you work from home, simply because you're there. Perhaps you can work after the kids have gone to bed, or down for a nap. But look at the needs of your family and see if you can carve out times when their needs are less to use that for work hours.
Strategy Three: Get Separate Phone lines
Fortunately for me, with my business I rarely have to be on the phone, almost all communication with clients is done via email. But if you are finding that you are getting business phone calls at all hours, having a separate number for them to call is great. You also have the option of making your cell phone your business phone and the home phone is personal. This way when your work day is done you can put the phone down and walk away from it. You can also separate the rings for people you know personally and business so you don't accidentally answer a business call after working hours.
Tip Four: Create a space that is separate from the house.
Do you have an extra room that could be used exclusively for this purpose? I know it's not always possible. Perhaps you could get inexpensive room partitions to create a work area. It's important that you try to make a space so that your roles can be separate and you can walk away from it when you need to. It also helps to keep family out of your work area as well.
About the Author:
Making income from home creates mixed tensions between work and family life balance. Drop by our site to get suggestions about this for people who want a home business
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