The biggest complaint we hear from work-at-home professionals is that the work never ends. We work more hours for ourselves than when we had a boss. Did you think that working from home would be lead to a better work-life balance? Embrace the imbalance like we do with our work-at-home tips and stop keeping score by holding yourself to “normal” work-life standards.
Home-based professionals work longer hours, have quicker response times and are less likely to claim a work-life balance than traditional office employees. If our Lifehacker Chat Session is any indication, they are in desperate need of work-at-home tips to balance life and work.
Our friend and design client, Kiersten Hathcock of Mod Mom Furniture knows firsthand how hard balance is to achieve, especially when you have kids. She said, “I laugh when someone says they want to work for themselves so they can have balance. Balance is bullsh**.” We couldn’t agree more. With over ten years working from home and for ourselves, we have yet to find balance. It is more like a teeter totter – there are ups and downs. Hopefully no one falls off, but the chances of exact balance is elusive. So how do we do maintain our sanity and get closer to a balance, especially with two work-at-home professionals in the house?
Our Work-at-Home Tips
We play a long game. Whatever “it” might be at any given time – maybe dishes, laundry, a work project, or extracurricular activities, we let “it” go. We give ourselves permission to not be perfect at everything. We give ourselves permission to be regular loving parents, not Supermom or Superdad. We don’t count how many times we each change a diaper, do laundry or clean dishes. We play a long game, not a short one. We may not win a clean house award this week, but we got our oldest daughter off to college and closed an important new partnership for our business. How is that not a win?
We team up. This may seem obvious for us because we are business partners as well as married, but it is required whether or not you are married to your business partner. They are your team. They may be unpaid, but they are more critical than any employee and should be treated with the same respect and inclusion. Pat Flynn, writer of The Smart Passive Income blog noted in a recent post that he needed to give “a special shout out to the most important member of the SPI team, my wife…(she) is one of the most important reasons why my business has taken off like it has.” Just like you would communicate with your clients, employees or business partners, you need to include your spouse and family in your business planning and goals. They need to have an intimate understanding of what they are supporting and why it is important to your business and your family.
We don’t keep score. The biggest benefit to working-from-home is the flexible hours, so take advantage of it. When income is tight, we take a “date lunch” together instead of a dinner. Prices are cheaper. No added babysitter costs. We get time together, work will still get done in off hours and it’s not like the boss will complain.
Taking our own work-at-home tips to heart has helped us free ourselves from preconceived notions of what constitutes work-life balance has helped us set a new norm for our business and family. We work whenever and however much is required for the current project and our business goals, allowing non-priority things to float. We shift the load (for family and business) to whichever of us has time or the capability at the moment. There are no assigned positions or duties. We enjoy the few perks we have like flexible hours. Most importantly, we don’t keep score! That is why we got out from under the thumb of a boss. Why would we do it to ourselves?
