For the past month and a half, I've had the privilege of working from home.
The benefits are unquestionable: I don't commute, I simply walk up and down the stairs to go to work; I can pitch in throughout the day if my wife finds herself in a pinch; Should sudden inspiration hit me, I am mere steps away from a comfortable work environment.
But I find that there are some surprising catches that I didn't expect. For instance, now that my work and home are effectively the same place, it's harder for me to "leave work behind". Without a commute, there's no time to wind down. It's much harder to hold "meetings" as I have to work around the sleep schedules of my young children.
Another interesting side-effect is that I am finding myself working more. After the kids go to bed it's way to easy to walk upstairs and continue what I left behind earlier in the afternoon. This is time my wife and I have traditionally spent together. I also tend to "get to work" earlier, walking upstairs with coffee in hand, having spent only a few minutes walking around downstairs like a zombie til I am almost fully awake.
So, while working from home is truly an awesome thing (at least for me), I'm finding that it requires a completely different set of coping mechanisms. I wanted to toss out the question to all of you that do or have had the opportunity to work from home:
What survival skills have you developed to allow you to be more productive while working from home?
Leave your comments below, and after a bit, I'll compile these pro tips into a blog post.
