Juggling your office and life

Not many of my clients are “solopreneurs” meaning they work on their own and have to juggle the tug between their business and personal obligations. Those few who are often find it difficult as they spend too much time in the office. Or they find working on their own creates a different type of pressure.

The question appears to be, how do we divide our time, become more productive and creative, and create healthy work and life patterns? There are ways to achieve this and they apply by and large whether you work on your own or in a corporate office. 

Here’s what I do and recommend:

1. Get things out of your head and in writing. It helps to decrease stress. Do not create “to do” lists on scraps of paper. Enter the things that need be done on your Outlook Calendar, if you are at your desk. When you are out of your office, create tasks as appointments on your cell phone’s calendar. Schedule them in realistic time slots when you will actually be doing them.

2. Turn off your phone and ignore your emails while you are focused on important tasks. Give yourself the time and space and work for some uninterrupted blocks of time. Focus on meaningful tasks concerning an objective that builds your business.

3. Just as you would if you worked in a corporate office, let contacts know that you are not available during certain times of the day e.g. daily from 10h00 to 12h00. It’s up to you to set the boundaries for others to acknowledge and respect.

4. Schedule time for office and personal chores and errands. Get these things out of the way, or regard them as a break at the end of a three-hour stretch of work.

5. Don’t restrict your work space to your home office. Is there work that you could do at the local coffee shop, bookstore, or in your client’s office? Have you heard of the agile office? You are your office. Take your laptop and cellular phone with you. Meet a client or another consultant. A change of scene does wonders.

6. Take breaks! Your brain is capable of focusing intently for up to 2 or 3 hours, and then things begin to become somewhat of a strain. Stretch, walk, have a healthy snack and read an interesting article or a chapter in a book.

7. Get involved in outside activities. Because personal and work life become so closely associated with one another when you work from the home, it’s easy to fall into the trap of living your work. What else do you enjoy? Painting, reading, listening to music, going to the cinema, the theater, a restaurant, etc?

I would not dream of getting caught up in the routine of the corporate world. I prefer an organized routine with a bit of chaos on the side.

I hope you agree that anyone could follow some or all of these tips.

Albert