How to be Successful When Working from Home

Many coaches run their businesses out of their homes. Being able to work from home successfully requires creating and sticking to boundaries that help you separate the professional from the personal. Here are a few boundaries that may be helpful to you:

Create an Office

An office allows you to have a special, separate space just for business in your household. Having a regular place to “go to” for work can get your mind adjusted for what should be happening in that environment. It also helps to ensure that everything you need for your business is close by and organized, which means you aren’t wasting time searching for supplies or information that you need throughout your work day.

Find a quiet place and set it up so that it can be productive for you.

Establish Office Hours

If you go to work at random times, your mind will never be fully prepared to work. Fixed office hours allow you to get into a routine. This also makes scheduling coaching sessions and business meetings easier.

Once established, be sure to quit when you’ve reached your end time. It’s easy to work over because you rationalize that you aren’t spending that time commuting. Don’t think that. After putting in a full day, quit when it’s time to.

Also, avoid your office after your work hours. Answering one or two emails after hours can quickly spiral into a full evening of work. Once you leave your office, you are in your home, and you should be focused on your personal life. Those emails can wait until the morning.

Set Expectations for Your Family/Housemates

If you live with others, such as a partner, housemate or child, you will need to set expectations with them. Your office should be off limits to them, and they should not interrupt you during your fixed office hours (except in cases of emergency). You’ll also want to have a plan for who will answer the home phone line or the door if either happen to be called upon during your working hours.

If you coach clients in person out of your home, establish protocol for this. Maybe you answer the door in this situation. You’ll also want to consider the tidiness of your home in this instance and establish a cleaning schedule and assignments.

Get Dressed

Staying in pajamas won’t motivate you and changing into other clothes can help you create a mental boundary between your work and home life. You don’t have to dress too formally, but a simple change of clothes for a slightly more professional look can help put you in the right frame of mind. You’ll especially want to be aware of what you are wearing on days when you are meeting clients, either face to face or via video conferencing.

Dressing more professionally can also keep you from procrastinating. For example, you’ll avoid doing household chores during your working hours because you won’t want to risk getting those clothes dirty.

The act of working from home itself does create one boundary that may not be the most beneficial to you: social isolation. Sure, you interact with clients, but they are your clients; it’s important for you to find a professional community. It helps to have peers who you can talk to, develop with and bounce ideas off. ICF Membership is one avenue that can afford you access to many professional communities including ICF Chapters and Communities of Practice.

What boundaries have been most effective for you? If I missed any, please share them in the comments below.