Blogging About Blogging

Setting Work/Home Boundaries as a Work-At-Home-Mom

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• Author: The Blogsultant
• September 17, 2007
• Category: Do'in It, Hurdles

I took this weekend off. As there was a server/spam issue over the same amount of days, it seems this blog and parts of others took it off as well. And I resisted the urge to allow it (yet another tech problem) to consume what was able to become a most quintessential fall weekend: dry, cool weather, blue skies, a new flea market, lunch out with great Mexican food, laughing with my husband, snuggling in bed reading to my little boys, a big pancake breakfast, an afternoon working all together in the yard, a great morning at church, and great friends….

I needed the time off. I’ve worked nearly every single day for months. Early on I started unplugging on Sundays but I’ve only pulled that off a time or two. Most of the time it’s meant, “I unplug for most everyone…unless if something ‘important’ comes up”…which it nearly always did. But this Friday, tired and frazzled, I wrapped up my “to do” list, shut off the computer, and called the week “done”.

I work at home which is nothing new. I work at home *for money*, which is new to us, and my family is all working on adjusting. My “office”, until we decide if we are either moving or adding on, is half of my closet and has no door. If I had to guess what the most important boundary to set is while working from a home office, I’d guess a DOOR. My task load is getting more intense, which actually seems to be making it easier to fit within a M-F work week, though I appreciate the flex of being able to swap out a late night or Saturday if I have an event during the week that makes work impossible to get to that day. Today I blog with a little boy on my lap and sunshine streaming in from a nearby window, so indeed the environment has it’s touchy-feely moments!

Taking the weekend off was ironically highly productive! I feel refreshed and the jumble of tasks I had now seem easier to organize and tackle in a rational manner, which is ultimately going to help me accomplish a lot more than if I’d worked the weekend through.

As this is still relatively new to me, I often feel like I’m winging it, and I’d welcome suggestions from those who’ve been at it longer. If you have a suggestion, send me an email at Tia AT bloggingwithflair DOT com, along with your blog link, post, or strategy for setting work/home boundaries and I’ll compile a list of them here.

Tia Graham, blogsultant, builds, manages, and empowers business blogs that can help you generate income, improve publicity, and interact with your audience. See bloggingwithflair.com for more information.

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