Ep. 74 Making Working from Home Work for You [Jumpstart Your Year: Day 14]

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the 2024 Jumpstart Your Year series, where we're coming to you every day this January with mini episodes to help you get reflecting on what's working and what's not in your parenting and productivity journey.

Our goal with the series is to create momentum and spark creativity so you can go into the new year with clarity and intention.

On Day 14, Christina reflects on the question:

What are the biggest challenges and benefits of working from home?

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Transcript

Christina: Hey, I'm Christina, life and business coach, work from home entrepreneur, homeschooling mom, and co founder of the Village Cowork and Community Space. And to jumpstart your year, we're coming to you every day this month with mini episodes to get you reflecting on what's working and what's not in your parenting and productivity journey.

Our goal with this series is to create momentum and spark creativity so you can go into the new year with clarity and intention. Today we're talking about what are the biggest challenges from working from home. So before I actually started working from home full time, I thought that it was going to be the best thing ever. And I felt like that was kind of the holy grail as somebody that was able to just work from home. And it has been really great in a lot of aspects. And we'll talk about that too. It hasn't come without its challenges. And one of the biggest challenges that I found from working from home is that you really have to be intentional about that separation of work and your home life.

It can start to take over everything. Because you're in the same space, so it's not like I go to the office and then I can just leave my work at the office and go home. It's it's just constantly there and waiting for me. And I found that especially when I started working from home in the beginning, I would just randomly go and start working later at night or after dinner.

As I thought of things to do, I would just go do it to get it done. But then I was working constantly just without really that break and especially not even the physical break, but that mental break. And so that is one of the biggest things is having that separation and trying to create those with kind of that artificial separation, whether it's having physical space where I do my work versus you know, just my regular home life, whether it's having kind of a Mental break and processing time where I shut down the computer and then move into intentionally move into the rest of my day.

But a lot of times, especially like we homeschool at home, I have I work from home for a while. My husband was working from home, too, and we were just all here and not having that ability to have that kind of separate or alone time and finding that I found that that was the biggest thing that I was craving is that I wanted a separate space where I could.

Really get into more of a flow and creative flow without getting interrupted, whether that was, you know, by the kids, or even just looking around the house, you just constantly notice all the things that have to get done. And it's real quick, you know, easy to just go throw in a load of laundry and then notice that there's things on the counter or just kind of get sucked into that and having that.

That lack of separation, that lack of personal space to be able to really feel like I could get really deeply involved in my projects and find that. That flow state that I would hit sometimes when I was in a physical office, if I was, you know, had the space to myself, I didn't have any meetings where I could just turn on my music and kind of expand into onto my desk or onto a table and just really get into the zone of getting a whole bunch of stuff done over a big chunk of time.

And I think that that's the many distractions and the things that happen. Don't allow as much for those big chunks of time and I've had to adapt and learn how to work in smaller chunks and then also to create systems and to create processes for myself and with setting boundaries with the other people that are in the house to try to create those boundaries.

And sometimes it's just a matter of like taking. My work and moving to a different location, whether that's, you know, having to a coffee shop at the library or something like that just to get that difference of space and being able to really have that, that separation. And I think one of the other things that's kind of discounted, and you don't really consider when you're working from home, but it can be a little isolating as well. You don't have that regular interaction with coworkers. You really do have to be intentional about setting up and creating times where you are interacting with other people, whether that's colleagues, whether that's other people in your field and networking whether that's just other people that are.

You know, in the same kind of balance, I feel like there, especially as a, as a mom working from home. If there are other moms that are available during the day, they often are stay at home moms and don't necessarily understand. The constraints and the, the, the issues that come up when you're working and if they're working outside the home, they don't, you know, they can consider this to be something that is easier and may not understand all of the distractions and everything that you have as as a work from home mom either.

So, I think that there's always the, the ability and the. Thought process of thinking that's whatever else there is out there that that is somehow better. You know, when I was working in an office, I thought that working from home was going to be amazing. But there's pluses and minuses to all the situations and really just kind of knowing and knowing what's going to work best for you, because I don't think that it works best for everyone.

It does. I think it does work. Well, I've been able to figure out ways to be able to manage within this and really being intentional about taking that space away is something that I really need to continue to do in order for this to work. Well, but. I think that this is a really good thing for me creatively in the way that I work but for other people, this may not be, you know, working from home may actually be hindering if you need more of that interaction, if you need more of that separation and the ability to leave your work at the, at the office, which is harder.

Just in general with smartphones and easily accessible and bringing home laptops and emails and all of that. I think that in general, as a culture, we need to get better at that. But I think that looking at what your current situation is, whether you work from home, whether you work in an office, whether you're a stay at home mom, and you don't necessarily have that, but you're looking for wanting to spend time on a passion project, something like that.

What are the things that you need to set up so that you can really optimize the situation that you have and really be able to appreciate all the benefits of it and reduce some of the challenges that come up with it. So, I love the fact that I get to work from home. I think it works out well with our family.

I think that being able to be available and having that flexibility has been really great. And with homeschooling, it's, it's been. Good as well when I was working outside of the house and homeschooling. We just had to construct it differently. So I wasn't available during the day. So we'd have to do it when I got back in the afternoon before we got into all of our evening activities and things like that.

So it's just kind of how we restructure it. But having those big chunks of time are the thing that I really appreciate. continue to need to put effort and emphasis on in order to make this work really well for us. So as you're considering and looking at your own things, what what is your current situation?

What are the benefits that you have that you can really tap into and lean into? And then How can you optimize those to really get your best work and to be able to perform at your best? If you like this episode, you might also like the village, which is our community and co work space where we offer opportunities for connection, accountability, and intention setting.

You can check out the link in the show notes for upcoming meetups or sign up in the email to follow along with our daily prompts. And if you'd like more personal support, feel free to reach out for private coaching and A group coaching that I offer and that information on how to get connected with me is also going to be in the show notes.

So we will look forward to seeing you on another episode of parenting and productivity design, and I will talk with you soon. Bye.