Your daughter broke your favorite glass. Your husband forgot to take the trash out. The boss made some last minute changes to a project forcing everyone to have to work longer hours to make a deadline. These things can cause you to stress out. You could become irritable and snap at your co workers because of home. You could wind up fussing at your family about stuff that is going on at work. This is not a good thing to do and you won’t be productive at either place if you let one affect the other one.
Here are some tips to help you keep work at work and home at home. These tips will help you achieve a good work life balance.
Set boundaries
- This is extremely important when you work and have a family. Once you have kids, your time is no longer your own. Whereas before you might have been able to stay at work two or three hours extra, you can not do that when you have small kids.
- Make sure that your employer understands the change in your availability. You will not be able to answer work questions when you are at home taking care of your family.
- Make sure your employer understands that you won’t take work home with you or try to handle work related issues at home.
- Also don’t bring home problems to work. If you had an argument with a significant other, leave that stuff at the door. It is not fair to your co workers or customers for you to be distracted at work because of something that happened at home.
Get enough rest
- I know it can be challenging to get enough sleep when you are juggling family and a career. However, it is crucial to the success of your work day. You will not be productive if you do not get enough sleep.
- If you have small children, you must establish a sleep routine early on. Make it so that they have to go to bed at least one hour before it is time for you to go to bed. This way if they have the usual tantrums and stalling techniques that most kids have, you will still be able to get to bed on time.
Incorporate transitions
- This is important because it helps you focus on what is going on where you are. This lets your brain know that one activity is starting and the other one is ending.
- Try to get to work at least 15 to 30 minutes early so you have time to get yourself ready for work. That might mean listening to some music or motivational tapes while you drink your coffee or tea. Maybe you can even read a book during that time. It is important that you have some sort of routine that lets your brain know that it is time to get down to business.
- You need a transition time at home as well. Take a shower or a bath as soon as you get home to wash away whatever happened at work that day. Change into some comfortable clothes that you can clown around with the kids in. Once you get into home mode stay that way. If something comes to you about something at work, write it down so you can deal with it the next day.
The key to having a proper work life balance is to keep everything as compartmentalized as you can. I know sometimes family issues will creep into your work time. Sometimes work winds up coming home with you anyway. It is important to consistently strive for an environment where work is not affected by home and vice versa.About the authorDeAnna Troupe is a small business coach. She runs her business while she works a part time job and raises four kids with her husband.