North State Parent October 2019

for community By Karen Haywood Queen
Working
From Home:
How to
Manage
Your Time
When you work in an office, your gabby
neighbor, needy family members and
others don’t expect you to be free during
the day. Your inner domestic engineer or social media butterfly
isn’t coming up with tasks or distractions either. But
when you work from home—as a telecommuter, business
owner or player in the gig economy—setting boundaries
with others and for yourself is critical to success.
Manage Expectations of Others
Some people in your life equate working from
home with not really working. As in, you’ll have time
to babysit their child or care give their elderly parent,
listen to problems over the phone or at a coffee shop,
let a repairman in their house or join their committee.
If you want to be productive and successful, you must
manage their expectations.
In May 2019, I marked 23 years of working from
home. In the early years, I didn’t do a good job of putting
the word out that I wasn’t lazing on the couch all
day sipping tea, eating chocolate and waiting to meet
others’ needs.
When my daughter was in kindergarten, another
mom asked me to babysit her two-year-old. This mom
wanted to chaperone a kindergarten trip, a trip I had
opted out of because work deadlines loomed. The other
woman’s husband also worked from home. Couldn’t
the father “babysit” his child? Oh no, he had to work, the
other mother told me. Obviously, this dad was doing a
better job of putting the word out that he had a real job.
Now, I make it clear that even though I toil in the
comfort of my own home and sometimes even in yoga
pants—never pajamas—I’m still at work with projects
due, phone meetings and other commitments.
Don’t Let Others into Your Work World
Even when you make it clear, some people won’t
get the message. Let your phone set boundaries. Nearly
everyone has caller ID and voicemail. Don’t answer the
phone unless the call is related to your children or is
critical to taking the next step in your critical task. If
you slip up and answer the phone, tell the caller you
have three minutes and then get off.
To get off the phone, I have rung my own doorbell—oops
someone’s at the door. And I’ve hung up
while I, not the gabby talker, was mid-sentence—I
mean who hangs up on themselves?
The same goes for email. Productivity gurus swear
by answering email only at certain times of the day or
only once a day and never in the mornings.
19
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18 North State Parent • Serving Upper California Since 1993