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mahabis guide // creating a work-life balance when working from home
Working from home isn’t all lie-ins and lounging in comfortable clothes and cosy slippers. In some ways, it can be more stressful and tiring that working a traditional nine-to-five, where you at least have a clear boundary of where work finishes and your downtime begins. Read on to discover our thoughts on creating the perfect balance.
For those who work from home, be they freelancers, business owners or employees, it can be hard dictating when to close their laptops. Rather than groggily rising from bed at the crack of dawn and running out of the house in order to make it to work for 9am, they can lie in for as long as they like, starting the day at an enviable slow pace. But when you’re gleefully sipping a glass of wine in the local bar at 5.05, spare a thought for those who may well be working into the night to meet deadlines.
If you’re currently struggling to balance your work life with your off-duty life, we have pulled together a collection of tips to help you concentrate, boost your creativity and reclaim your downtime.
Working Hours
The main thing to remember, is to treat your work just like you would an office job, allocating certain times to start work, break for lunch and finish for the day. All too often, freelancers get sucked into routines where they enjoy a lazy morning only to stay up all night making up the hours, or have to turn down social occasions at the weekend because they have too much work to catch up on. Obviously, allow yourself exceptions to the rule (otherwise, where is the fun in being able to choose your own working hours), but try to stick to times that suit you.
Desk Space
If you’re curled up in bed or lounging on the sofa trying to work, you’ll find it hard to concentrate. These are places that your mind automatically associates with relaxation, and it’s all too tempting to shrink the tab you’re working on and load up Netflix. Allocate an area of your home to your work space – whether that’s an entire room or a corner where you can set up a desk. By keeping this area for your work, you’ll be starting off the day in the right mind set. Keep all of your work paraphernalia (notebooks, laptop, stationary, calendar) around the desk so that you have everything you need and don’t need to get up.
Uniform
One of the pleasures of working from home is that you can wear whatever you want and don’t have to abide to office dress codes. Whilst wearing your pyjama bottoms and buttoning up a shirt for Skype calls can seem tempting, making an effort to get up, showered and dressed every morning as if you are going out to work will help your productivity.
Break Time
You’re surrounded by distractions at home, and it can be easy to let your mind wander to tasks such as laundry, washing up and walking the dog. Take small regular breaks throughout the day, when you can dedicate yourself to these tasks or refuelling. During your working time, try to keep your mind off distractions by reminding yourself that you have a break coming up.
Change of Scenery
You can easily go stir crazy by sitting in the same corner of your home all day, without any human interaction. Mix things up and spend a couple of days a week working from a local café or a freelancer’s hub. Get to know other people in your area who work from home and meet up for work dates or to socialise over lunch. You’ll find it much easier to concentrate in the afternoon after sharing a coffee with a friend.
photos via unsplash, buatoom, and pexels