Working At Home Has Perils And Pluses
Liz Schroeppel was happily working in her home office when neighbors gathered on the sidewalk under her window. She tried to tune out the conversation, but she had just moved into the area and longed to get to know the neighbors.
The computer screen beckoned. The neighbors chatted. She dragged her mind back to the project and finished it, grumpier by the moment.
“I felt like I was a kid stuck doing homework and couldn’t come out to play,” said Schroeppel, who publishes a newsletter for small-business owners from her home in Foothill Ranch, Calif.
The perils of working at home: Are you the business professional or the friendly neighbor? Can you be efficient enough in the home office that you have time left over to spend in the living room?
Millions of telecommuters and home-based business owners have proven Americans can play dual roles under one roof. But they’re still struggling with the great myth about working at home: Since you’re in both places at once, you can do everything.
You’re at home, so you expect to be able to answer the doorbell, finish the dishes and take calls from salespeople.
You’re also at work, so you figure you can compile data for your report, write four memos by noon and review the new sales strategies.
With that mentality, you soon will have worked a 16-hour day and lost your train of thought eight times. The project might be complete, but you will have been pulled in and out of your work mode so many times that you’re bound to feel drained, if not frazzled.
Successful home workers say the key is to separate working and living. Barking dogs and needy children should not interrupt work, nor should the job infringe on social time.
“The challenge is to keep the quality of service high in the business and at the same time maintain your quality of life,” said Michelle Rochwarger-Vered, president of Strategic Resources Consulting, based in her Irvine, Calif. home. The challenge is at a peak because her 10-year-old company is growing and so is her family. She just had her third child.
“I carefully choose where to spend my time,” she said. “I focus on business development and making sure business systems are in place.
“It’s important to have help. I have four staff (members) and help with the children. I want to make sure they always feel they’re loved and cared for.”
Two traits have served her well: a knack for time management and a high level of energy. She works at both.
Some people are better than others at juggling multiple tasks, but we still have natural limitations: two hands and one brain. To produce quality, your core work generally requires the undivided attention of those tools.
If you’re working, you’re inputting, analyzing, writing - whatever it is you do. Concentrated periods of time need to be devoted to those tasks, the same as in the traditional office.
If you take time to do a load of laundry and read the mail, you’re deviating from your work duties.
Home workers need to choose their deviations wisely. If you work at home to be more available to school-age children, save your “break times” for when the children get home and they have questions about homework.
The greatest danger in working from home is the tendency to work all the time. But that only torpedoes the intent of this work style: improve the balance between your work life and personal life.
Working at home can be part of the solution. Beware the traps.
Women and Work appears Tuesdays on the IN Life People page.
xxxx Tips to work at home efficiently Honor your time-management system. Set daily deadlines to avoid procrastination and overworking. Separate office and personal space. Discourage interruptions but set up a communication system with family members. Limit time at the computer; a concentrated six hours is more than you’d ever work in the normal flow of office interruptions.