6 Tips for Working at Home With Children
Working from home is great, you could have more opportunities to be with your family, you can save time to commute etc. it may become a bit tricky where your work and life are mashed together. Dane Carlson from Business Opportunities Weblog has sent me a post on his tips on create a better environment and situation for your work and your family:
- Create an office separate from the main living areas of the house and declare it off limits during working hours.
- Invest in some quality headphones for quiet, heads down, work.
- Maintain a good work schedule, and stick to it.
- Train the children to go silent when Dad’s cellphone rings, but make sure your cellphone ringer is turned on.
- Take a long lunch and enjoy your opportunity to work from home.
- Ask your spouse to communicate with you via IM or email.
I like the sixth tip on asking your spouse or family to communicate through a more indirect channel. This is a less distraction compared to tapping on the shoulder. You can choose when to answer, so that it won’t interrupt your flow.
6 Tips for Working at Home With Children - [Business Opportunities Weblog]
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Comments
Erica says on August 31st, 2006 at 12:08 pm
I think the final tip is a bit extreme, perhaps a little hand written (friendly) sign on the door would be more appropriate. If my husband worked at home and expected me to email him, he wouldn’t benefit from many refreshments!
john brown says on August 31st, 2006 at 2:01 pm
Suppose you have a small house and there is no place away from the ‘main living area’?
Erica says on August 31st, 2006 at 4:41 pm
John - buy a hut.
Technology Slice says on August 31st, 2006 at 10:49 pm
One of the main advantages of working from home is to be able to see you family more. If your going to totally isolate yourself you might as well go work in an office.
Caro says on September 1st, 2006 at 5:31 am
“Train the children to go silent when Dad’s cellphone rings, but make sure your cellphone ringer is turned on.”
I actually had to read this 3 times, because it didn’t make sense. Then I realised! You think only MEN work at home! :)
Sorry, just have to complain about that assumption, its smarts a bit. This Mom is working at home, while Dad sits in a quiet office (and doesn’t answer his cellphone when we call!)
:)
Caro
Erica says on September 1st, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Here here Caro
On that particluar point…you ‘train’ monkeys and ‘teach’ children.
Barry Campbell says on September 3rd, 2006 at 3:29 am
I’m an IT geek who works out of a home office when he’s not on the road (three weeks out of four) and my wife is a freelance journalist who works from home 100%.
We live in a small, one bedroom New York City apartment. While we take meetings out of the house, run errands, have meals with friends, walk the dogs, etc., there are weekdays when we are together virtually all of the time.
For the most part, it works out beautifully.
A few tips:
– If you’re sharing space with someone and working from home, walk into another room to take extended phone calls.
– Technology is your friend; if you don’t have a wireless router in your home that allows you to work from any room in the house, get one.
– Public Wi-Fi spaces are your friend; if you ever need a change of scenery, hitting the coffeehouse, or the local branch of the public library, or anywhere you can get a good WiFi signal for a few hours can be a good option.
P.S. My dogs bark during conference calls all the time and nobody bats an eye; I hear my colleagues’ kids on conference calls all the time and couldn’t care less.