Working from the comfort of a home office provides the opportunity to create a productive and peaceful environment, set your own schedule and work in accordance with your own rules. But, it also comes with a lot of responsibility and requires a great deal of self-discipline. This is where boundaries come into play. Failure to set and enforce clear boundaries leads to distraction and damages productivity. It’s difficult enough staying motivated at any place of work, but when your office is in such close proximity to your personal spaces of sanctuary, it’s even more of a challenge to stay focused and achieve your goals.
How to set boundaries. Think about the types of distractions you frequently encounter when you’re trying to work—telephone calls, unexpected visitors, your partner or children vying for attention, the television, chores. The potential list is endless, so you need to take control to minimize the likelihood of these distractions and the impact they have on your ability to focus and work efficiently.
There are four simple ways to achieve this and create a controlled environment that is conducive to creativity, productivity and success—define your hours of work and take regular breaks, create a dedicated workspace, schedule and prioritize your day, and communicate your boundaries and expectations to other people.
- Defined hours of work
Taking a lackadaisical approach to working hours is not a great idea. Without some semblance of structure and routine, you may find that much of your time is spent procrastinating, or you work all day every day with no end in sight. The flexibility of home-working is great, but you need to manage this autonomous setup effectively, lest it becomes more of a hindrance than a benefit.
Setting defined hours of work—a fixed start time and finish time with regular breaks in between—will help you get into the right mindset, motivate you to work hard during allocated hours and allow for essential down time. That’s not to say you have to work exactly the same hours each day—you can alter your working hours as and when required to accommodate changing needs.
- Dedicated workspace
Your home is your sanctuary where you go to relax and rest—your workspace is where you go to focus and be productive, so there needs to be a clear boundary between your personal space and your professional working environment to be able to achieve a healthy work-life balance.
Graeme Donnelly, managing director or 1st Formations Limited, believes the best way to achieve this is to create a dedicated workspace that is used exclusively for work: “When I was a new business owner working from home, I found it incredibly challenging to separate my professional life and home life – it all blended into one. Without a doubt, the most effective way to maximize work productivity is to set up a home office or create a dedicated workspace that is organized, functional, appropriately designed and free of distractions.”
- Scheduling tasks
Create a to-do list for each month, week and day—what you need to do and when you need to do it. Trying to maintain an organized schedule in your head is a recipe for disaster and can make you feel overwhelmed. Instead, use a notepad, whiteboard, wall chart, spreadsheet, app – whatever you like.
Prioritize the most urgent tasks, make time for on-going administrative work, schedule your breaks, make time for eating, incorporate exercise and set aside time for family, friends, personal commitments and restful solitude.
Writing things down and checking off completed tasks from your to-do list will let you see what you’ve achieved and what you still have to do, remind you of important commitments and deadlines, encourage you to take breaks and make it easier to enforce boundaries.
- Clear communication
Your ability to establish and maintain boundaries requires cooperation from other people—your partner, children, friends, colleagues, employees, clients—so you must communicate your availability and reinforce these boundaries when they’re not respected. Let people know when you’re working, tell them when you can accommodate them, and schedule appropriate time in your day to manage these boundaries effectively.
Rachel Craig
