How do you separate work + life … when you work + live at home?

Question

I'll be honest — I struggle to separate work + life now working-from-home is the norm.

What are your tips for keeping the boundaries clean & clear??

Jim Morrison · Accepted Answer

What's your schedule @henry_jacob1? I try to get up super-early and work for a few hours before the rest of the world wakes up... but as soon as you have to schedule meetings or deal with another country (for me the US is awake in my evening time) then that all goes to pot.

Samuel Noriega · Answer

I have the same question. I usually can not stop working and I hit 1 am easily on a regular day I can really easily sit at the desk during the weekend to work for "a few hours" and end up working 8-9 shifts without notice. Let me know when you find the answer!

Lewis P · Answer

This is a tricky problem. A lot of writers, computer programmers and web designers work at home. The problem with working at home is that you have no separation between work and home. The only thing that you can do is – focus.

Answer

You have to separate your entire workspace from the rest of your house. This can be difficult because the workspace is your house. So the way to do this is to make your workspace a separate building in your house. This will help you separate it from the rest of the house. You can even use headphones to listen to your favorite music and block out the noise from the rest of the house.

Answer

The important thing is to schedule your time.  Sometime you will have to work and sometime you will have to live, but you should never combine the two.

Samuel Lake · Answer

@jimbomorrison Yeah I do which defiantly helps, I can for sure see how hard it would be if it was in a common area

Jim Morrison · Answer

@lewis_ppp yeah, WFH can be great for focus if you can lock yourself away somewhere secluded... Do you have any tips on how to create a healthy separation Lewis?  What do you find works best?

Jim Morrison · Answer

This makes a lot of sense @allen_deck, if you have the space to do that.  In a way I find keeping my life away from work easier than keeping my work away from my life.  If you separate your workspace entirely, how easy do you find it to avoid getting pulled back into your workspace for that extra hour or two... when someone Slacks you, a bug report hits or you see that email you need to get back to...?

Jim Morrison · Answer

@samuelnoriega I will do! I usually work from the early hours and stop before lunchtime but if you're working with other people, especially in other timezones then it's almost impossible to segregate work + life... and if you start replying on your phone everything takes three times longer.

I find having a laptop handy and doing short, focus stints (standing up!) replying to people during the day helps... rather than going back to my desk (sitting down) and getting sucked in for hours.

Jim Morrison · Answer

Great plan @sam_drotar ... but tricky when you walk past your workspace all day every day.  How do you keep yours separate? Do you have a separate room?

Samuel Noriega · Answer

@jimbomorrison I agree, it is specially hard when you work on different time zones. In my case I am in CET and my team is on EST/PST. 9-hour difference now! but we make it work!

How do you separate work + life … when you work + live at home?

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