When running a business from home, the boundaries between work life and home life can start to blur. This can disrupt the balance between work and home life, preventing you from truly concentrating on your work and preventing you from relaxing when you want to enjoy family time. To help you get the right balance, here are a few tips.
Create a designated home office space
A designated office space can help you to get into the zone when working. You don’t have to convert a whole room into a home office – you could simply set up a desk in the corner of one room. Ideally, it should be somewhere that you’re not going to get distracted by the rest of your family. The corner of a living room for instance is likely not suitable – especially if you’ve got kids or a partner watching TV in the same room.
Allocate hours for work life and hours for home life
You can further separate your work life and home life by trying to stick to a schedule wherever possible. Having a cut-off point in the evening can ensure that you still spend time with your family. If you need to work late to finish a project, consider still sparing a couple hours to have an evening together and then stay up afterwards to knuckle down and complete the work.
Turn off your work phone out of work hours
So that you’re not tempted to answer work calls during relaxation time, it could also be worth getting yourself a separate phone for work that you can then turn off when not working. Being able to disconnect is important – if you’re always on call, you’ll never feel as if you can truly relax.
Take advantage of outsourcing and automation
If you’re not spending enough time with your family, consider where there are ways to outsource and automate tasks in order to reduce time spent carrying out business tasks. Certain processes such as accounting are definitely worth outsourcing or automating – companies like mneaccounting.co.uk can offer more information on outsourcing this role. You may also be able to outsource and automate elements of marketing, on top of other tasks such as replying to emails and answering the phone.
Legally and financially separate your home and business life
It’s worth financially and legally separating your home and business life. Make sure that you have a separate business account and personal account – you should aim to pay yourself a wage out of that business account to your personal account, while keeping some funds set aside for business purposes. On top of keeping funds financially separate, you should consider converting your business into a limited company. This ensures that your personal funds and assets aren’t liable if you owe business debt (and vice versa). You can find out more information on this here at investopedia.com.
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