Is It Harder to Cope With Personal Problems in a Home Office?
Long before I shuffled into work this morning, I began drafting my mental list of problems that needed fixing: a cellphone plan that needs to be changed, trouble with my tax return, a phone call I'd forgotten to make, a cable bill that needs to be paid. By the time I sat in my chair, I was mentally stammering for a break.
Few things are as regularly challenging as setting aside personal difficulties to focus on your job—the thing that pays the bills. My problems are minuscule. Circumstances like divorce, personal illness, family illness, or financial distress create tremendous conflict for people trying to stay on top of their job without neglecting their struggles outside of it.
I have generally believed that working from home—with all the freedom, ease, and lack of accountability that it affords—would be the easiest way to take care of both personal and professional obligations. Yesterday, however, I was reporting on a story about potential telecommuting troubles, and I realized that heading to the office may in fact be easier.
When you work from home, it's hard to scrape the putty of your personal life away from your professional obligations. The home-office experts I spoke with all touched on the struggle to keep the personal and professional separate. You're not only working to find that balance for yourself; it's difficult to convince others of your priorities. (It's tough to explain that you are, for example, actually doing work between 9 and 5 and not really able to do the ironing or call about the hospital bills.) By getting up and going to work, it seems you can draw clearer borders—particularly when dealing with major personal challenges.
I'm curious to hear the thoughts of anyone who works from home.
Is your home office distraction central, or a haven of productivity? Our friends at Betty Confidential want to know.
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Ugh
I came across this page because I'd typed in "how to cope with working at home". I'm not sure if it would be better if you had a position in which all you needed was your laptop and you could go anywhere (actually I'm pretty sure it would be tons better), but as someone who has a call-center job based from home where you're tied to it every day, after 6 months of it I am going STIR CRAZY. I was a completely balanced, happy individual at the start of it and now I am seriously starting to consider counseling and therapy.
I never would have thought working from home would get to me like this. I love home, and being in one places, and I am extremely low-maintenance. But the lack of separation between work (a necessary place) and home (a haven, a happy place) has gotten to me. The lack of socialization has gotten to me even more. Each call that goes less that perfectly is able to stew, and ferment, and drive me insane without someone else to hear, or talk to, or even see.
I'll never do this again. EVER.
Funny you should mention taxs
The closest that I come to having a home office is during income tax filing season when I do half a dozen or so returns for younger family members on our stove with the cat helping me. Hope nobedy gets hungry.
working from home
Hey Liz - thanks for the thoughts. I've worked from home a lot over the years, but never "full-time." How appropriate that I read your post just as I begin (this coming Monday) to work from home.
I do agree with your comments regarding the ability to draw clearer borders. Without question, it's much easier to draw the line when I wave goodbye to my house and drive my car to an office 30 miles down the freeway. However, having spent the majority of my career in an office/cubicle since 1987, the distractions at work are still plentiful and sometimes more frustrating because I "feel" like I should be able to avoid unproductive meetings - projects - chatty co-workers.
Well, at least I'm willing to give it a try. I'll let you know how it goes.
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