Work Life/Home Life Balance
by Michele O’Connor
Our Director, David Mezzapelle, recently posted a response to a forum on Work Life/Home Life Balance. This took place on HR Performance Sites. I thought I would post his advice here especially for those of you that work from home.
“Tips on managing work life/home life balance” forum by Debbie Rhoads, HR Performance Sites June 16, 2009
David Mezzapelle - GoliathJobs, “Some of our staff work from home while others work from our offices. As a result, we have offered guidance in this area because we know that work life/home life balance ultimately leads to maximum efficiency. Here are some great tips we suggest:”
1) If you work from home you need to have a separate office that has no tie in with the family room and is void of distractions as much as possible.
2) Take a break at lunch and do not re-enter that room. Go out somewhere even if it means bringing a homemade lunch to a local park. AND DON’T BRING YOUR CELL/PDA.
3) Take advantage of local groups & facilities (i.e. gym, chamber, kiwanis, rotary, athletic teams, etc). These get you out of the house.
4) Unless you are waiting for an emergency call or email, turn off your PC when you are with your family and/or doing something outside of work. Leave the cell/pda at home. Basically you need to walk away. Remember, carrying your cell/pda is not considered “walking away.” I started doing this more often and it has improved my life substantially.
5) If you have a spouse (and possibly children) you need to explain as soon as possible that you are invisible. They need to pretend that you are not there. Nothing is worse than having some yell up to you that “lunch is ready” or “David, your mother called” while you are talking to a client. It is funny to picture but that gets old quickly.
6) This is probably the most important; Do not get out of bed and immediately start working. You need to get some form of exercise to clear your head and feel good, then have breakfast and shower. Start your day as if you were going to an office. People that jump out of bed and get on the computer will find that they are still doing that at noon and have not properly started their day. A healthy start yields a healthy frame of mind. A healthy frame of mind yields efficiency & productivity.
“The bottom-line: Working from home has it’s advantages but there needs to be a regiment/balance to make it work,” says Mezzapelle.
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