In the previous article, we spoke about the challenges of being lonely and scared when you are self-employed and working from home.
We looked at ways you can address this and practical solutions you can put into place to reduce the loneliness of starting your own business and being self-employed. This week we are going to look at the issue surrounding and the importance of getting that work-life balance correct and separating work from home life.
Are you struggling to maintain a work-life balance at home?
Whether I am working with business owners, managers, or self-employed business people working at home, one of the biggest challenges they raise with me is how to get a decent work-life balance.
Sometimes it can be hard enough for a busy professional working a 9-5 job, but believe me, it can become almost impossible for a person that is self-employed and has been unable to put a structure in place for their business and themselves.
For a person that has just started their own business and working at home, you find you now have way more freedom and time and the challenge now becomes, how do you use it... Anyway, if you stay up all night working, you are now doing it for yourself and your gain, and no one else is controlling what you do. You can though, very quickly find yourself doing this regularly and all that time you had to start, no longer exists. You now never have enough hours in the day or days in the week.
If I can recommend one thing to every businessperson and the self-employed person that works from home, that would be to set up an office area or dedicated place to work. Don't work in your bedroom, you have much better things to do there. Don't work from your living room, this is your relaxing area and place to shut off. Even better, if the area has a door that you can close at the end of the day, shut it.
Once you have your ideal working environment established, it becomes extremely important to put in place an enjoyable time management plan and make sure you start to structure your weeks properly. Make sure you get out of bed at a reasonable time, get dressed, go into your office, and make sure to work through your priority list and make the best use of your time during the day. Have lunch breaks, take a walk to help clear your mind and keep yourself fresh. And at the end of the day, close that office and leave work behind...
See the family, wife, kids, or even the dog. Have dinner, sit down and watch TV or read a book... and more importantly, DONT go back into the office unless you have some urgent work to complete until tomorrow.
The most important part of all of this is you stick to it!
In the next article, we will be looking at the issue of motivation and how we can keep ourselves motivated during those trying times. You are not always going to feel invigorated and want to work, and there will be times things may not go as planned.
As always, I am interested in your feedback and what you have to say. Please feel free to drop me a line, or even make any suggestions about what I might have missed.
For more information relating to this article or for further advice, please do not hesitate to contact the writer at ian@terrafirmabusiness.co.uk or visit our website at www.terrafirmabusiness.co.uk