6 Easy Steps to Separating Your Personal Life from Your Work

A lot of us are currently working from home due to lockdown or are in the fortunate position of having flexible work arrangements on a permanent basis.  Chances are you already know that you’re really pulling “double duty” when working from home. You probably working while doing the laundry, corralling the kids or the crazy kitten in my case, or fixing dinner... and let’s not forget all the phone calls from family and friends expecting you to be able to catch up for a ‘quick chat’, partners that have a ‘quick question’, or kids that are always ‘hungry’ etc.

One of the hardest parts of working from home is separating your work from your family and social life. Here are six proven ways to keep your home life running smoothly while keeping your career on track.

1. Create a work schedule and stick with it. It may be tempting to answer personal calls during the day or take business calls after-hours but doing this actually shows that you’re expendable – not dependable – and people will take for granted that you’ll “always be there” for any little things that come up. Even though family comes first, stay true to your working hours and resist the urge to chat with friends or pick up groceries during working hours. Our friends may consider “working from home” an invitation to chat during the day or in a non-covid world just go out for coffee or shopping for an afternoon. Make it clear that your work hours are just that – for work. Leave personal calls for after-hours, and you’ll find that your friends will gradually accept your schedule without feeling slighted.
   
   
2. Just because you have to set up a work schedule, doesn’t mean that you have to keep the same hours as everyone else. One of the benefits of having flexible work arrangements can be negotiating your work hours. Work hours can be set to fit your most productive times. Whether you’re an early bird or a night owl, you’ll find that you’ll get much more done when you’re attuned to your body’s own natural rhythms. Some people work in the morning, take a break in the afternoon when the kids are home from school, and work again in the evening. Schedule your work time when you feel the most productive and you’ll find that things get done easier, faster and better than when you were dragging along during those same rigid work hours that everyone else may have.
   
   
3. If getting after-hours work calls or workday personal calls is a problem, it helps to have a separate work phone or at least voicemail, to take the incoming calls. I have a dual sim phone (esim and a normal sim) which allows me to switch easily and effortlessly between work and play. This helps you to ‘switch off’ and not be slave to just ‘answering’ that one email, reply to that one text out of hours and prevent always being ‘on’.
   
   
4. If at all possible, try to separate your “home work office” from the rest of your home. If you don’t have the luxury of a separate room, a room partition or screen can be just as helpful. This also serves as a visual cue to the family that you’re working and shouldn’t be bothered. I kid you not, my partner has literally installed a doorbell inside the house just for this purpose. I have doorbell which is connected to a flashing light to my home office which helps to prevent... those uncomfortable zoom call interruptions…nothing quite like seeing a work colleague’s partner walking around in his undies during a work call. I kid you not!!
   
   
5. Dress and act professionally while working. Some people find it helpful to dress in casual business attire during their working hours. This reinforces that just because you’re working from home doesn’t make you any less of a professional. There is something nice about ‘acting’ like you are going to into the ‘office’ by putting on your work clothes and presenting as if you were going to work and it makes a nice switch up from the at ‘home’ attire of uggies and tracky dacks. Answer the phone with your name, or employers name, and keep your children off paying games on the work phone during business hours. Also, spend money investing in the tools you need to do your job right and in pleasurable way. Be it a nice set of noise cancelling headsets for Microsoft Teams calls to block out the noise from the neighbour’s barking dog, a beautiful plant or the addition of a nice desk instead of using the kitchen table will turn your ‘home office’ into a true workspace that you love.