Working From Home? Ways To Reduce Stress (Part II)

Though working from home has many pluses such as giving you more time because you are no longer wasting precious time on a long commute, it offers flexible work timings so that you can work whenever you want, it can help you save on day care and transport, it can help parents be more hands on as regards raising children etc.

So certainly the benefits are many, however it is also true that working from home can be stressful particularly for those who have to juggle professional work as household work.

In order not to feel overwhelmed and unable to manage, it is important to have certain household rules and regulation and schedules put in place to help ease the process:

Assign chores to everyone in the house: Many work from home mothers in particular feel that the home front is only their responsibility.

However it is important to remember that the home and its requirements are everyone’s responsibility.  Chores should be assigned to everyone and everyone should do their bit and pull their own weight.

If one is burdened with doing everything in the house as well as doing professional work assignments, one is likely to feel stressed by overwork and may ultimately feel resentful of others who are perceived to be making less of a contribution.

Hire a virtual assistant: Sometimes it is easy to get bogged down by the nitty gritty of a small home business of which one is the whole and sole.

Managing accounts, paying bills, keeping track of income and expenses, correspondence, emailing, there are so many things that have to be done; that just doing the clerical stuff can sometimes leave you no time for anything else.

So consider hiring a virtual assistant who can take care of correspondence for you, do your routine email answering.

Don’t take on too much: When you work from home people tend to presume that you have a lot of time on your hands and that you can be called upon to help out with running errands or pick up children or do emergency babysitting. Be polite but firm in declining and don’t volunteer for any more than you can capably and effectively handle.

Take breaks and know when to stop: In a regular office atmosphere you would perhaps take a break to talk to a colleague, stop for a coffee break and have a set time for starting and stopping work. At home, working alone it is easy to lose track of time and you can be working nonstop, which you must guard against.

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