Kelly’s Rules for Working from Home

It’s been one year since I left a traditional office environment, and it has taken me some time to adapt to working from home.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it takes for me to stay focused and productive.

Without meetings or external deadlines or employee reviews (ugh), it is up to me to create that structure for myself.  Right now, I spend a lot of time creating, submitting, and waiting.  (I spend the waiting part working on the next thing.)  And let’s be honest, it is hard when you do not have anything to show quite yet.  You have to be the one to maintain your vision and momentum.

So, without further ado, here are my rules for working from home.  A couple of caveats:

1)  These are just rules for ME, and I definitely don’t think they would work for everyone else.  I’m only sharing because I like reading this sort of stuff, and sometimes I find a new little gem or way of thinking.

2)  I do not have children (or even pets) so I’m sure that plays a part.

Kelly’s Rules for Working from Home:

1)      Get ready every day. People seem to associate working from home with working in your pajamas.  This does not work for me.  Those days usually end in a melt down around 5 pm when I’m feeling bad about what I’m working on and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror with crazy-lady hair.  No good.  I start every day by getting completely ready (hair, make-up, and all) before I do anything else.  Some days I give all of the employees (um, me), a free casual day.  The only guideline is “would I go outside in this outfit?”

2)      Every night before you go to bed, you should know what tomorrow’s focus is going to be. I’m a creative person.  If you ask me to fill up the day with a list of things to do, I can do it.  However, with morning brain, that list might not be very good.  The days where I wake up and know the top 2-3 things I need to accomplish always go more smoothly.

3)  Designate certain days of the week for marketing and/or accounting tasks. It’s easy to put off some of the ongoing maintenance and business-building things indefinitely – especially when you have other deadlines staring back at you.  However, setting aside some designated time (Friday afternoon, for example)  to catch up on banking, networking, etc. helps me stay on track.

3)      Stretch and drink lots of water. Self-care is really important.  I’ve had days where I looked up and realized I’d been hunched over my desk for 4-5 hours without so much as a water break.  I keep track of how much water I have each day with a set of magnets on the refrigerator (but you could use anything for this).  I slide a magnet up to the top of the fridge each time I fill up my water glass.  This gives me an instant visual reminder and helps me to stand up and stretch regularly.  (I also find that regular exercise and wearing a brace seems to help me with my wrist pain and carpal tunnel.)

4)      The best breaks are away from the computer. A quick break to read a blog or surf the internet can be dangerous, because it’s so easy to zone out.  It happens, Kelly rules and all, but it produces nothing but guilt.  If I need a break, I try to do something away from my desk.

5)      No TV.  Ever. The only exception for me is when I’m sewing.  I put on something I can listen to while I work.  However, other than that, TV is for sick days only.

6)      Get your home in order.  This rule is the first to go when I have an important deadline coming up, and I can see how a lot of people with a very active, growing business might sacrifice this.  However, for me, one of the motivations to try working from home was to restore some order and balance to our home life.  It is important to me to have a clean, organized house and to cook dinner at least 4 times a week.  Before this year, I knew how to clean, but I did not know how to maintain.  Our place was either spotless or hit-by-a-tornado, and our cabinets were hopelessly disorganized.  I wasn’t sure how to care for some of the surfaces in our place, and some of the products I was using were only making my job harder.  I had to dig myself out of a hole, so I spent time in the library researching home maintenance, organization, and re-training myself.  Some people think this is weird or over-kill or something, but for me it has been really important because a nice home was something I wanted but did not know how to have.  The upside is that after a few months of making it a priority, I was able to deep clean and organize everything, and now maintaining it is easy and takes up less energy.  Because I have a good system for daily maintenance (and because we do not have kids and don’t make a huge mess), I clean the entire place every two weeks top to bottom including vacuuming, tubs, sinks, dusting, everything in 2-3 hours.  I work fast, work up a sweat, and I consider it to be my exercise for the day.  I do this on Monday’s aiming to finish up before lunch.  My blood is flowing and I feel that everything hard is already done, so I work efficiently for the rest of the day.  I sprint through the grocery store with a good list once a week and can get everything we need for a week’s worth of meals in 30 minutes.  When possible, I do all of my errands on the same day to be efficient.  On Mondays, I work longer hours because I spent time cleaning/shopping, but I feel really good about what I got accomplished and the rest of the week feels easy in comparison.  I have a list of books and resources that I found helpful (maybe for another post), where I adopted rules like “pick it up, don’t pass it up” and “putting something off takes up more energy than just doing it.”

7)      Keep phone calls short. This one is also hard. Sometimes a phone call from my sister or a friend is the only social interaction I have all day, so a phone call can be life-saving.  However, there’s a big difference between a quick phone call and a long one.  People are only going to be as respectful of your work day as you are.

This list got pretty long, so I’m going to stop for now.  I am always fascinated by time management and cleaning tips, so please feel free to share things that work for you.  Cheers!