So you’ve decided to work from home.  Congratulations! It’s going to be awesome, right?  Well. . . maybe.  Working at home is not for everyone.  As someone who has worked at home for more than 10 years, I can tell you that there are definitely downsides to it.  It requires a certain personality type, for one thing (i.e. someone who likes being alone (i.e. me)).  A friend of mine just started working from home through her company and she hates it.  She thrives on personal contact and loved being in the office and shooting the sh*t with people during the day.

No, working from home is decidedly not for everyone.  However, if you’ve made the decision to take the plunge and think it will work for you, excellent! I would very strongly suggest that you put some practices into place to help make your life easier and prevent you from becoming, well, a shut in.  Because it can easily happen.

No, working from home is decidedly not for everyone. However, if you've made the decision to take the plunge and think it will work for you, excellent!
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So without further ado, more than a decade of working at home has taught me the following things:

Set a routine.

I get it, it is super awesome to have freedom to wake up when you want, work when you want, go to bed when you want, et cetera.  But that can backfire on you real fast.  Before you know it, you’re waking up at 11:00, puttering around until 2:00, and ending up working until midnight before turning around and doing it all over again.  Make yourself get out of bed at a reasonable time.  Have a morning routine where you take some time for  yourself, meditate, have coffee, read the news, whatever works for you.  Then begin work by a set time as well.  Trust me, it’s important

Get dressed.

But Amy, working in pajamas is the dream!  Yes, I get it, working in your PJs sounds amazing.  And it is, at first.  But the novelty wears of pretty quickly.  If you’re not careful, you can find yourself day after day in your pajamas at 7:00 p.m. (from the night before) wondering where your day went and feeling like a loser because you didn’t even put pants on today.  So when you wake up and start your day, get into some real clothes within an hour or two of getting up.  I mean, don’t go crazy and put on a business suit; yoga pants are perfectly acceptable.  As  long as they’re daytime yoga pants (not to be confused with sleeping yoga pants.  These are distinctions that exist in my world.)

Make a designated area.

Home offices are there for a reason.  They allow you to  have a separation from “work life” and “home life,” which is very important as you get further into your WAH journey.  Even if you don’t have a separate room in your House for a home office, you can have a makeshift area where you set up that is your specific work space.  Only do work there, and don’t let it bleed over into other areas of your home.  Otherwise the stress from work can bleed over into your relaxation space, and that causes  a whole host of other problems.

Take breaks.

I am really guilty of this one, y’all.  Don’t eat lunch at your desk.  Forget that – don’t eat at your desk, period.  I have a really hard time walking away from my desk in the middle of the day for a lunch break, but it’s so, so, so important to give yourself a break during the day.  There’s a reason that laws are in place in the workplace that say you need to take breaks.  It is better for your mental health to take half an hour or an hour and do something besides work while you eat lunch.

And while you’re at it, make sure you’re standing up for about 10 minutes every hour.  Sitting is the new smoking, so they say, so stretch your legs.  Do yoga, or squats, or take a walk around the block.  Don’t sit for hours and hours at a time.  Did I mention that last year, I threw my back out doing our taxes because I was sitting for five hours (IC taxes are complex).  As a consequence, I couldn’t move for six hours and laid on my back listening to podcasts until, thankfully, my back stopped spasm-ing.  Don’t let this happen to you!

Leave the house.

Again, I’m not the best with this one.  I don’t know when it happened, but at  some point going anywhere during the day became such a hassle.  But I do observe one rule – I have to leave the house at least once a day.  Whether it’s to go to the grocery store, Cardio Barre, visiting friends, whatever, it is a rule I stick to.  Nothing is worse than not leaving the house for days at a time, losing track of what day it is, and spiraling down a hole of your work.  It’s not good for your mental health.

Track your work hours.

This is a big one.  I  remember this one month, I got a paycheck and it was super small and I thought, what the f*ck happened?  Then I decided to start tracking my hours.  Turns out, I was only working about 15 to 20 hours a week! The rest of the time I was puttering around my house, doing laundry, chores, watching the occasional TV show, and time was just slipping away.  So it’s all about balance, and it’s essential to make sure that you’re actually putting in the hours.

Stick to your schedule.

When I first started working from home 12 years ago, I was also doing a lot of theatre shows.  And theatre people like to go out on weeknights, after rehearsals and whatnot.  So I went out.  I figured, eh, I make my own schedule, I can do what I want, right? Wrong.  Straying from your routine totally sets you up for failure.  When I would go out on a Tuesday until 2:00 a.m., then I would sleep late, panic, have to catch up, end up working until  8:00, going to rehearsal, and doing it all over again.  Remember, making your own schedule is a luxury, but it’s also a responsibility to yourself.

Be clear about your working hours.

With family, friends, everyone.  “It’s great that you’re home all day now.  Can I just swing by?” Pretty soon, you’ve been chatting for four hours and now you have all that work to catch up on.  Or maybe you’re in your office, working, and your husband interrupts you to ask you 3,000 questions about Game of Thrones.  Or your kids burst in having an argument that you now have to stop and break up.  Set clear boundaries about your time and your space and save yourself some future arguments.

Keep a neat office.

Full disclosure, my office has always been a disaster, even when I worked in a corporate job.  But I feel so much better when my desk isn’t covered in papers and mail and miscellany.  Keep a clear space, a decluttered space (you all know how much I love decluttering) and do your best to maintain it.  Dedicate an hour each week to making sure your work space is clean and tidy, and try your best to do little things along the way to keep it that way.

Have a to do list.

Depending on your job, you may have your work duties lined up for you every day.  But if you don’t, make sure you’re taking time at the start of each week or each day to outline what you need to get done.  Make a list, if it helps you to write it down.  Keep track of your duties and don’t let things slip through the cracks.

Stay. Off. Social. Media.

It is incredibly, incredibly easy to fall down a Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest hole in the middle of the work day.  Pretty soon you’ve been messing around for hours and your to-do list doesn’t even have a dent in it.  While this might be okay if you’re working in an office and getting paid regardless, a lot of WAH jobs are productivity based, so every moment counts.  Do yourself a solid and have specific times and time limits for social media.

Turn off your phone.

Program a do not disturb and explain to everyone that you will only be answering during emergencies.  A phone call from a faraway relative or a good friend having a meltdown can totally derail your entire day.  Turn off the phone and keep it off while you’re accomplishing tasks for your day, and check in only when necessary or when you finish your work day.

Set an end time.

One of the pitfalls of working at home is that it can become a neverending cycle of work.  There’s just one more thing to do.  Oh, I’m just going to log on and check my email one more time.  Don’t.  When you’re done for the day, you’re done.  You’ve clocked out and gone “home.”  Give yourself down time.

Don’t allow work to consume your life.

Guilty.  Guilty. Guilty. I am so very guilty of this.  I work all the damn time.  Don’t be like me.  If you allow work to take over your life, you’ll miss all the wonderful things about working at home in the first place!  And people who you contract with or clients or whoever will be demanding of your time.  You have to set boundaries.

Look, working at home, as magical as it sounds, is not for everyone.  It takes an incredible amount of self discipline, organization, and planning.  Not everyone is suited for it, and trust me, it has taken a lot of trial and error to find what works and what absolutely does not.  But if you’re going to give it a try, put these practices into action.  You’ll thank me!

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