It is fantastic to realize that home and work are independent entities and to define home for yourself. It is common for entrepreneurs and those who work at home to co-mingle work time and home time. Even the resource for work and home get co-mingled. This can lead to some bad and dangerous results.
Everyone has heard the expression, “All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.” It is true. If you are a person with a family, a spouse, and children, you simply cannot work all day every day and ignore your family and family time. Small business entrepreneurs, people who work from home, even my fellow bloggers often work all day every day. Every blogger has stories about children and spouses who get a nasty attitude because they cannot eat or play with a toy until after the photos are taken.
It is cute to the blogger, but not to our family members. If you work at home and are having trouble separating work time from family time, answer the following questions.
- How much time do you spend on life outside work
- What would you do with your family if you had more free time
- How would you make life better for your children if work obligatios didn’t interfere
- What would you do more for personal enjoyment
- What would you do special for your spouse if there were no time limit
The answers to these questions are just as important as your ROI, accounts receivable, sales figures, unique visitors, and pageviews statistics. When you are sick, hurt, or need a hug, your business will not give you a hug, a band-aid, or chicken noodle soup. Those are the special gifts one gets from family, from people who are in our lives outside of our businesses, work, and blogs.
Sit down and define home for yourself. Once you know what your ideal home situation is, start taking steps, real steps to make it happen. Often we live temporarily. By that I mean we say that we are doing one thing we don’t like so we can do what we want later. The problem arises when we never get to the latter. You cannot wait to live the life you want at home, live it now. Define what home means for you and then live it.
I like that clear cut definition!
Home to me is where my family is…. When the kids are home, it’s home. When the kids are gone, it’s the office.