8 Tips on How to Work From Home: 28 Years of Experience
July 15, 2008 by David Zinger
Filed under management
by David Zinger
Stephen Smith posed a question about tips for working at home. I have worked at home for about 28 years and this includes a period of having 3 children under 2 years of age.
I now have an 18 year old and two 16 year olds at home. Working at home has been instrumental in being able to put family first!
Here are a few of my tips (experiences) - they work for me but each person “must be a lamp unto themselves” to see what works for them:
- Enjoy it. Especially if you are a parent as you will get more time with your children.
- Nuts. At times working at home with children will drive you nuts, but I would rather be nuts and around my children than stuck in a commute being nuts in traffic.
- Interval training at home. I love to work for intervals ranging from 20 minutes to 1 and ½ hours. After each of these times I may put a load of laundry in, do some dishes, make a lunch for the children, go pull some weeds, check 5 minutes of sports highlights on TV, or even have a re-energizing 10 to 15 nap on the living room couch.
- Was that a knock at the cubicle? Relish the amount of uninterrupted time you can often have working at home as opposed to an office with tons of people coming and going and popping into your cubicle.
- If isolated find your drive. If you feel isolated make sure you go out for lunch with others and maybe even participate in a few social networks. If you have flexibility about hours and being available, you can always drive to the local Starbucks for a few hours is you miss the comings and goings of people.
- Create YOUR own routine. Determine your own routines and rituals - you will know if they work if you are working well and you are also experiencing a healthy dynamic life/work balance. If you are not working well or getting out of life/work balance experiment with new routines and rituals – only follow someone else’s advice if it works for you otherwise create your own routines, strategies, methods, and tips. Don’t be surprised if every so often you need to even change these because they have become stale or not contributing to your successful homework!
- Maintain perspective. There is no place like home.
- Free parking. The commute can’t be any shorter, parking can’t be any cheaper, and you can always take a break and play Monopoly with your children!
Photo Credit: Gratis Parking by http://flickr.com/photos/jepoirrier/2163153015/
Great post! After working at home for almost 6 years, I don’t think I could ever go back to work in a conventional office setting. #2 is so true! I when the “natives” get restless at home, I quietly tell myself, “At least I am here with them rather than stuck at the office.”
#6 is what keeps me sane - there is nothing like taking lunch when and for as long as you want, taking the afternoon off to watch the kids in the school play, or taking a power nap when you need a break.
Power to the at home worker!
Best,
Suzanne Wells
Great suggestions and observations, David. I’m going to point our Home Biz Notes readers this way. You can help them get a perspective if they sometimes get frustrated working at home.
Suzanne: I think it is good to be able to pick our spots to go nuts and to even have a small part of us go with the being nuts.
Mary Emma Allen: Thanks for the positive feedback and I plan to keep working at home for many many more years.
David
David, this is a much-welcomed post! I love to see that you worked and home and also WORKED at home with the laundry, the kids, etc. That’s really inspiring to ALL homeworkers since women do it always, but to see a man doing it too? Love it.
Please do keep sending us these great Zinger-moments.
BTW - we (I) would love to know from your kids what their perspective was of having a work-at-home dad and how they think it affected them. I’ve always been a work-at-home mom and have often had moments of angst in wondering if I’m damaging the kids in any way. Do you think your kids were adversely affected at all?
Bridget:
I think my children loved having me there to drive to school, go to the dentist, bring them something to school that they forgot, etc…
It did take away the option of being with their father on take you child to work day
Every so often my children also ask — what is it that you actually do Dad?
Quite to the contrary, I don’t think they were adversely affected…I think they really appreciated it.
Whoops, got to go and clean the kitchen a little, grab a coffee, and make a few more calls.
David
Hi David,
Great points. It is important to enjoy this time, and I love the perspectives you give, esp. about traffic, cubicles, and where I’d rather be. Good things to remember during ‘challenging’ times trying to work with my kiddos under foot.
I posted about your article on my blog this morning because I enjoyed it so much.
Irene:
Thank you for the positive feedback and the link to here. Based on early comments it looks like I should write more about this.
David
Hey David,
Love the truth and simplicity that you bring all back into perspective just when a person would need it. There are so many things that far outweigh the current struggle or hassle someone may face in the journey to find their way through the wah world, but it does all take just a little bit of changing how you look at it. And obviously through your 28 years, you are sharing just a little bit of that with all of us.
Thanks for Sharing!
Crystal:
Indeed it is just a bit of some tips or thoughts. The essence of it is how much I enjoy and have appreciated being able to work at home.
David
Great post. And so true about kids driving you nuts! Mine are 1 and 2 right now and it`s tough . . . but still, I wouldn`t give up being able to examine ants and flowers with them throughout the day for anything.
As for the routine, mine is constantly changing. At the moment I work from 7 pm until 3 am and take a nap with the boys at noon.
Thanks for providing the perspective of someone who has been doing this for so long!
This was a nice list and so true. I have been going at it for over 10 years and tried to go back to the workforce for a bit. It was awful
nothing is better than doing it yourself even better pay does not make the switch back worth it.
I save my own bacon quite often with the ‘Interval training’ concept. That has to be the best tip IMHO. Without that one little thing its to easy to be trapped in your own world so to speak. Nothing is stranger than figuring out a month past in the time you called a couple days
great tips
peace,
mich d
Genesis and Mich,
Thanks for the feedback on the working at home. I will write some future posts on this.
David
Great post, I’ve just started working from home and need to set up a routine. With my wife having to make an hour long commute each way to work each day it helps that I break up my day with a little housework, and I don’t mind a bit. Nice to know I’m not the only one.