Tips to Working from Your Apartment

These are strange but exciting economic times.  The traditional idea of going to work in a downtown office is fading fast, as more and more people are working remotely, or forgoing office life altogether to try their hand at running their own business.  This economic shift means that more people than ever before are working from home.  Working from your apartment or condo can be a wonderful way to feel more connected to your work and to better manage that biggest of challenges: the work/life balance.  However, there are a few important things to keep in mind as you embark on a work from home routine to ensure you remain balanced and productive.

Stay Focused
Home, as you know, is full of distractions.  Most of us can hold our own when it comes to resisting leisurely distractions, like movies, TV, books, or naps, but the more challenging distractions are the domestic ones.  Since you are already home, you had might as well get the laundry going, and, while you are at, tidy up the kitchen, pop out for cat food, groceries, get dinner started . . . and on it goes.  These kinds of domestic distractions are really had to resist because they are productive; but this is, of course, a misplaced productivity.  You have to remember that this is your time to work on your work, and not to work domestically.  

Results over Schedules
The traditional way to keep one’s self on track is by setting up and following a structured work schedule.  This works for some people, but schedules can come to seem arbitrary and stifling after a while.  Instead, a good technique is to think about the larger aims of your work and devise goals that can be broken down by session, by day, and by week.  This allows you to focus more on results and less on simply time logged.  A results-driven work process keeps you more directly connected to the larger priorities of your job, and keeps you motivated. 

Carve Out Your Work Space
We’ve come a long way from the “home office” of the 90s that tried to reproduce the “macro” office format in the “micro” home setting—complete with clunky printers, and piles of largely useless stationary.  However, the impulse behind the home office to try to draw a line between home and work is still an important thing to keep in mind.  Depending on the amount of space you have to work with, try to find a workplace in your apartment or condo that is physically or even conceptually different from your relaxation space.  Working from your kitchen table or pull-up counter, or setting yourself up in a chair instead of on the couch can help your click out of home-mode and into work-mode a little more readily.