Ground Floor:The second most popular question that people ask me (after "where do you get your ideas from?") is "are you very disciplined?" Sometimes, they phrase it by saying: "You must be very disciplined", which always makes me feel a little uneasy because it implies that I am in total control of my life and my time and, of course I'm not, writes Sheila O'Flanagan
There's no doubt that when you work from home, there are certain disciplines that you have to impose on yourself. Not staying in bed all day when you can hear the rain pelting down outside is one of them. Not succumbing to surfing the net for hours when all you wanted to do was check (in the course of research) Tiffany's web page is another. Not allowing domestic issues to take over is the most difficult of all.
I am not a domestic person, but when you're spending a large proportion of the working day at home and when domestic crises arise - like the dishwasher going on a work to rule when stacked with the crockery from the previous night's garlic and chilli fest - you really don't have any choice. (It took the technician five seconds to tell me that the dishwasher needed to be reset. Waiting time for technician: five hours. Charge: €70. Time spent sending letter to Siemens asking why the reset option isn't listed in the manual as a potential time and money saving procedure: 10 minutes. Rage at entire process: all day. Useful work done as a result: none.) When you're working from home, people assume that you've got the time to hang around waiting because what else would you be doing? They also assume that you can slip out whenever you like or spend hours chatting on the phone because what's the point of working from home if you can't be flexible? Being at home is actually the curse of the home worker. It would appear to skew the work-life balance firmly in favour of life.
But of course, you then spend evenings obsessing about the work that you didn't do because the cat arrived home with a missing ear and had to be taken to the vet immediately and so you end up at your desk at midnight, wondering what on earth happened to the discipline of the working day. The truth is, if you work from home, you're probably likely to do more work rather than less, and when you work for yourself, every moment not working seems like guilty hedonism.
Of course, having a home working environment definitely beats sitting on the M50 for two hours a day. As more and more people work from home, more of us should be managing to get a deft work-life balance going on. But compartmentalising home issues and work issues isn't always easy. Microsoft's Small Business Centre http:// www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/hub.mspx gives the following hints for the home worker: Know your work patterns (so far so good: my ideal work pattern actually avoids work); keep a comprehensive "to do" list (I do, but then usually ignore it); set up a comfortable workspace (yes, but I wish I had someone else to tidy it); look at time in a different manner so that your lack of a regular schedule doesn't lead to downtime and a lack of productivity (something I clearly need to work on); keep the paper moving (I thought computers were meant to herald the paperless office! I wish I had someone else to do my filing); keep in touch with the office, but thoughtfully (every so often I return my editor's frantic e-mails. I do think a lot about them first); know the dangers of procrastination and avoid them (so much good advice, so many good intentions to follow from tomorrow).
The truth is that I have no interest in ever returning to an office-based working environment and finding myself at the beck and call of somebody else. Besides, I truly like what I do! But you never forget the time you spent in an office, wondering how you could persuade the boss that bringing your battle-scarred cat to the vet was more important than bidding for the long bond.
For people who still work at a different location, the whole work-life balance thing is supposed to be about having working arrangements and policies that will help you combine work with family responsibilities. And there is no doubt that increased demands on workers bring increased stresses. The concept of presenteeism (very prevalent in male-dominated industries) makes it hard for employers and employees to have good work-life balance policies in place.
However, the Work Foundation in the UK has demonstrated through a number of case studies that trying to provide good policies will benefit employees and employers. They point to increased productivity, lower rates of absenteeism and a more motivated workforce as positive outcomes for companies that try to recognise the fact that people do have lives outside the office.
As a support for National Work-Life Balance Day in Ireland, Ibec's Nutrition and Health Foundation suggested employees to use their lunch break to go for a 15-20 minute walk. This is part of encouraging workers to take their lunch breaks in the first place - in December last year, I wrote about the Irish lunch hour shrinking to a mere 38 minutes. I'm sure Ibec has more suggestions than just going for a walk to help with your work-life balance. However, if you're lucky enough to live nearby, it would give you the opportunity to get home and let the technician fix your dishwasher with time to spare, thus freeing you up to show how motivated you are in the afternoon.
www.sheilaoflanagan.net
