Except, sometimes, I don't.
(This is a great time to remind you that my posts are pre-written and time-delayed, in case you lust to be a stalker. Too bad for you!)
You see, I had to compartmentalize my life in order to find balance.
I got the idea to write this tactic down when I was struggling to work from my kitchen table last week, and my eyes kept seeing the dirty floors. (*Somebody* really ought to mop those). When you work from home, things like that can be distracting. I needed to get out of the house and work somewhere else. This time, that meant a favorite coffee shop, near LSU, where everyone is studying or working around me. It's like my own little cubicle.
I already do a great job of compartmentalizing my planner.
Appointments go in one spot...
...while tasks go in another. You can even see household tasks on the page marker to the right, in a different location than the rest of the task list.
If you don't work from home, you still might want to try this once a week (or once a month). Find a coffee shop, library, or abandoned classroom, and bring a stack of work - bills to be paid, blogs to write, checkbooks to balance, papers to grade, etc. Sit down and get it done. It really does work.
On days when I actually work at home, I average 2 to 4 hours of work. Outside of the home I average around 6 hours of work. And I can stop obsessing over the laundry that is sitting around, unwashed and unfolded. (Seriously, *somebody* ought to do something about that!)
Etcetera.
You mentioned going to a coffee shop to work with our planner before... I thought it was a great idea!, but I didn't do it yet. :-/ I even forgot about it. It is lovely to read it again. And today I will actually write it down and make it happen. Thank you xxx
ReplyDeleteI struggle with the "work from home" while ignoring household tasks and interruptions, too. Officially, I don't work. But we live on a mission hospital compound (in Congo), and unofficially I do a lot of hospital/mission stuff plus homeschool my 3 kids. (And sometimes have a 4th, or 5th & 6th kid added to the day.) I don't have a coffee shop or restaurant I can go to, but I have tried separating out my school planner from my other planner to help me focus on one thing at a time. I also have school hours that I try to protect. My time for computer work is mostly in the morning before people start dropping by the house. The only place I can get internet is in the main area of my house where people can see me and interrupt. I'm still working on separating out the time for each thing. It's a work in process, and there's always going to be some overlap.
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