Mamta Java began working from home after having held a full-time position for three years. She wakes up early in the morning, and tries to log in as much work as possible before her office begins work at 8.30 a.m. This helps her answer the queries and help her team during the day.
Mamta, a Senior Managing Editor at Wolters Kluwer, says, “The biggest advantage of working from home is that you can spread your work throughout the day, and schedule it flexibly. You also save a lot of time on commute.”
According to a report by Global Leadership Summit, more than half the employees will be working from home. It has the advantage of getting the best talent and expertise from across the geographical spread. It also saves times and affords immense flexibility to the employee.
Debapriya Ghosh Biswas, a freelancer in the communications industry, does not maintain strict schedules to ensure work life balance. She says, “It is difficult to fix hours in my kind of work. I have retainer as well as project-based clients. But what I try to ensure is that I schedule meetings in the afternoon and spend quality time with my family. I also avoid working on weekends.”
But if you are working in an office, you can switch off the work mode once you leave the premises. You don’t have to carry your work tensions and concerns home. But that does not happen if you are working from home. It may get difficult to maintain clear boundaries between personal and professional life.
Here’s few ways that you can maintain work-life balance.
Get Some Valuable Facetime With Collagues
If you have the advantage of staying in the same city, then try to drop into office sometimes. Facetime with colleague ensures that the cooperation and collaboration continue smoothly. It also helps you to ensure the boundary between professional and personal mindset. Even Mamta tries to attend office at least thrice a week to get some facetime with her team.
Set Fixed Hours For Work
While you have the advantaging of scheduling work hours throughout the day, sometimes you may end up spending more time on work than your colleagues who go to office. They may get to leave work at their desks, but you live in the same environs where you work. So, it is better to set particular hours of work. This also helps to save you from other distractions and responsibilities when you work at home. And helps to maintain a balance between personal and professional life.
Image Credit: Movie – Julie And Julia
Avoid Overpromising At Work
It is better to avoid overcommitting yourself or making promises that you may not be able to keep. Often, we try to compensate working from home by taking on additional tasks for the team. But quantity of work should not affect the quality. Also, not meeting targets may create irreversible impact on your work reputation. So, it is better to articulate your work schedule, and remain consistent with it.
Debapriya says that you have to realign your work with your priorities to ensure a healthy work-life balance. It is not a fixed goal that you achieve. As situations change in life, you have to readjust and find the balance again.
These work approaches may help you to maintain work-life balance while working from home.
