Working from a home office has its ups and downs. It seems appealing to be home and hear the children but sometimes, I want to escape. You know, talk to people. Maybe even be able to leave my office and not have them hear me and ask for me. Ordinarily, I love it. I like eating lunch with my daughter and being able to rock her to sleep and cuddle with her. I am especially enjoying the extra hugs and kisses I get because I’m at home during work hours and then I can moonlight.
Oh, moonlighting-never actually leaving work and stopping the time clock, an enormous pitfall. Where is the line drawn between being home and going to work when work is home and home is work? For a blogger and entrepreneur who thrives on creativity and wanting to write when the mood strikes, it works out well. Like now, for example, I’m researching recycling my ink cartridges (lame I know) and I stumble upon Carrot Ink. Cute company name that is actually on Twitter (maybe they read my social networking post) that recycles your ink cartridges for you and they pay for the postage. How cool is that? So here I am, researching at night when I should be relaxing and now I’m writing a post about this very dilemma and sharing my green office find of recycling ink cartridges and my new friends from Carrot Ink on Twitter. It really ends up working out but there are some rules I’m beginning to stick by to make my butt move more AND spend more family time engaged.
To begin making mommy blogging and working from home work without compromising my family or health:
1. Shutting off the computer during the dinner, bath and bedtime hours. It’s just too hectic trying to manage my Twitter, respond to emails and actually not burn dinner and give my children the time they deserve. Multi-tasking is good but too much is chaos.
2. No computer when the children wake up in the morning. I’m a liar, I tried this and it didn’t work. I get one cup of coffee worth of computer time and then off we go to eat breakfast, get ready and start our day. My son even checks the coffee cup to know when he has to get dressed!
3. During the day after one hour of sitting I get up stretch, walk up stairs from my home office and check on my daughter, go to the restroom, grab water and if possible catch a breath of fresh air. I feel more inspired after I do this.
These rules are helping me to draw some lines personally between work and family as well as get me up out of my chair. It’s easy to sit and use social networking, blogging and research as an excuse to not move but it isn’t healthy. I want to enjoy working from home to the fullest extent and that means creating some boundaries and enjoying the reason I get to work from home.
