Publication: SoHo News and Tips
When a Family Pays For the Home Office | |
Subscribe FREE to SoHo News and Tips by clicking here.
SoHo NEWS & TIPS
Helping You Make the Most of Your Small Office/Home Office
SoHoTIPS.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Greetings,
I'm glad that many of you found last week's issue helpful!
This week will touch on how to balance work and family when
you work out of a home office. It can be difficult, but it
is possible with a little thing called compromise.
Best,
Mandi
Be sure to visit the SoHo News and Tips blog!
SoHo News & Tips Blog
~~~~~~~~~~~
Magic Auto Car Mop - It's Not Just For Cars Anymore
This amazing dust mop was originally designed for cars but
it works so well in removing dust you can use it practically
anywhere. This 100% cotton mop won't scratch even the most
delicate of surfaces and it has an easy grip handle giving
you the ultimate comfort. You can use it on:
Dash Boards * Auto Interior * Photo Frames
Auto Exterior * Hub Caps and Rims * Lamp Shades
Blinds * Railings * Electronics
These Silicone coated dusters work so well you will want to
keep one in the trunk of your car and one in your home. And
you can't beat the price, it's just $4.99. BUT WAIT, if you
purchase two or more you can get them for $3.99 Each!
Auto Car Mop
*
NEWS & TIDBITS
- BlackBoard announces plan to lay off all employ-
ees at its Vancouver office...
- Wall Street has negative reaction to Advanced
Micro Devices' plan to pay $5.4 billion for the
graphics chip maker ATI Technologies...
- US consumers have become more optimistic about
the economic outlook despite high petrol prices
and a Middle East crisis...
- The creditors of Yukos rejected a management
rescue plan and voted for the liquidation of the
Russian oil company...
- The Honda Motor Company, said it would offer a
fuel-efficient small jet...
- Internet gaming group BETonSPORTS said that it
had removed David Carruthers from his job as chief
executive and from its board following his detent-
ion in Texas on racketeering charges...
- Italian and Indian car giants Fiat and Tata
Motors announced that they had cemented a deal for
the joint production of small cars and engines in
India...
- The US Energy Department picked two Texas sites
today among four finalists for a one (B) billion-
dollar prototype of a clean-burning coal-fired
power plant...
GopherCentral's Question of the Week
Do you think we are either in or headed toward WW III?
Question of the Week
*
Don't Take Any Chances When It Comes to Your Health
Why Monitoring Blood Pressure at Home Is Important
The North American Healthcare Association has shown that
monitoring blood pressure in the comfort of your own home
provides a more accurate reading by avoiding the stressful
environment of the doctor's office.
Now for under $30 you can get the Wristech Blood Pressure
Monitor which will provide a completely safe and accurate
blood pressure reading without leaving your home. Don't let
the stress and hassle of the Dr's office affect the readings
of your pressure. Use the Wristech Blood Pressure Monitor.
Visit: Wristech Blood Pressure Monitor
*
When a Family Pays For the Home Office
By JEFF D. OPDYKE
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal.
I'm on the verge of losing access to my home
office. So says my wife, Amy.
She walked into my office the other day to find me
sitting at my desk, as usual, and made this promise:
"The next time you're off on a business trip, I'm
putting a lock on this door and I'm keeping the
only key. You'll only be allowed in here when I let
you in."
She was serious.
The problem, as she sees it: This happened at 8
p.m., a time of night when most people are home
with their families -- but a time when I am
routinely at my desk. That frustrates Amy, who has
been dogging me for months to better separate work
and family. I've tried, but not very successfully.
Amy has reached the point where she's ready to
impose her own solution: the door lock.
So, after nearly two years working from home, I'm
finally confronting what might be the biggest
challenge home-office workers face: learning to
separate the office from the home.
* * *
I've never considered myself a workaholic, mainly
because it seems like such a negative term. I enjoy
what I do so much that most days it really doesn't
seem like "work."
Amy laughed at me when I said that.
"That shocks me," she said. "I guess you're in
deep denial. The fact that you're writing this
column in a car -- on the way to a family vacation
-- that isn't a clue?"
Maybe it is. But when you work from home and don't
have a traditional office you drive to each morning,
every place becomes your workspace: car, airplane,
airport, bed, couch, hotel room, backyard patio
and, of course, the home office itself.
As a result, your work knows no traditional time
clock. There's always a little something more you
can do. And with a home office in particular, when
your desk is just steps away, it's hard to close
the door at quitting time and walk away from the
job until tomorrow. Every time there's a lull in
my day, or night, the room draws me in.
Amy empathizes with my plight -- up to a point.
And I've clearly crossed that point.
"I've asked you for a long time to balance work
and family," she said when I interviewed her about
this issue. "But you haven't been able to do that.
When you worked in a normal office environment,
you had to come home at some point, even though
you often would write from home at night. Now,
you're always home and you're always at work. And
that's more upsetting because it's like you never
come home. There's no separation anymore."
That was her calm moment. Often she's angry and
frustrated. She has taken to calling my home
office "The Cave" because, she says, "it's like
you're hibernating in there. You basically only
come out to eat and use the bathroom and then
you're back in there for hours."
Continued below....
*
Flush FAT Right Out of YOUR System & Lose Weight - GUARANTEED
How? With Amazing Apple Cider Vinegar. See what people are
saying about this remarkable weight - melting phenomenon.
"After a whole life of yo-yo dieting, I lost 44 pounds & kept
it off ever since."
"I lost 2 pounds daily, just like clockwork."
Give yourself the gift of SLIM for Just $9.99
Visit: Apple Cider Vinegar
*
I don't disagree with her -- either about the
hours I spend in my office or the effect it has on
our family.
In fact, my home office has become a habit, and my
response to it has become almost Pavlovian: If I'm
at home, then I must be in my home office, working
on something -- whether it's an article for the
newspaper, my weekly column or a chapter for a
book. Sometimes I find myself in there just because
I think I need to be in there, even if I have no
work to do at the moment.
As with any habit, the first step is admitting you
have a problem. Only then can you address it. And
the question I'm now addressing is how to create a
home-office balance that keeps me as involved with
the family as they -- and I -- want, while also
giving me the sense of productivity I seek.
* * *
If Amy had her way, we'd create that balance by
shuttering my home office permanently and renting
a small office space away from the house. I'd have
a physical place to drive to every day. That way,
she says, "you'd create the actual separation of
having to lock the office door and come home at
night to your family."
We did consider that possibility briefly, but that
solution comes at a big cost when you factor in
rent, insurance and utilities. Ultimately, it isn't
practical financially. Of course, Amy's solution --
locking me out of my home office -- isn't practical
either (at least not from my perspective). As a
journalist for a morning newspaper, there are simply
times I must be on the phone with editors and
sources at nontraditional office hours. That's just
the price of admission for a career I enjoy. I
can't start negotiating with Amy every time I want
to get into my office.
Even if those solutions were workable, though,
they overlook a more fundamental calculus: Many of
us bring the job home regardless of whether we work
in a traditional office or a home office. True, a
home office can make the balancing act more
challenging, because its proximity to your non-
office life makes it easy to answer that siren
call.
But I also know plenty of people in traditional
offices who place family so far down the list of
priorities that they spend their weekends at the
kitchen table with a laptop, or hushing their kids
because they are on the phone with colleagues.
Ultimately, then, it's really not an issue of
physical places, but of mental spaces. Success
balancing the family-job divide comes down to
personal priorities. Amy has been saying for a
long time that my priorities, as measured by my
actions, are out of whack. It's hard to deny that.
I have a longtime friend I've admired for years
because of his ability to put family above job. In
fact, I called him recently on a Sunday morning --
when I was in my home office working, no less --
and he was playing a board game with his daughter.
He said we'd have to talk later. The thing is, he
works like a fiend, often from his home office and
frequently at odd hours.
He concedes there are sacrifices (a lower-profile
job than he might have had, and less sleep, to
cite two), but he creates the balance Amy wants me
to find in my home-office life.
So that's my goal now, to be more like my friend
so that Amy doesn't feel a need to lock me out of
my own office just to get me to interact more
frequently with the family outside of dinnertime.
I asked her how we could accomplish that -- without
the door lock. She said she honestly doesn't care
how many hours I work, so long as I do it outside
of family time. Thus, our plan: Once the family is
home each night, I'll leave The Cave until everyone
is in bed. At that point I'm free to go back into
hibernation.
"We've got to retrain you," Amy says, "to have a
life outside your home office."
DID YOU KNOW?
Numerous computer software packages can automatically
generate a wide variety of legal documents for you, from a
bill of sales to articles of incorporation. Most packages
even modify the documents to suit the state in which you do
business. They usually cost under $100 and pay for them-
selves after one use.
So what did you think about this issue? Drop me a line and let
me know at mailto:mandi@gophercentral.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Archive link:
SoHo News & Tips Archives
************************************************************
End of SoHo News & Tips http://www.SoHoTIPS.com
Copyright 2006 NextEra Media. All rights reserved.
 E-Mail this issue
Subscribe FREE to SoHo News and Tips by clicking here.
|