Home is Where the Work is?

I cannot speak for other entrepreneurs that work from home, but for me, drawing the line between work and home is difficult. It is not an issue that is new to me. In fact, the problem originally began to rear its head a few years ago when I was still Assistant Managing Editor at Reminder Publications.


At first, you are finishing up a story at home. I would knock out the other duties – editing, downloading, etc. during the day – and finish up my piece later at home. Easy enough, right? Yeah, until that turns into writing more than one at home, still double checking resources and research after hours and, before you know it, you’re up at midnight clicking away at your computer. In those days, I fought to squeeze in family time. I hate to admit it, but quality time was a battle I often lost. Even when you manage to pry yourself away from work, your thoughts zip back to work – did I get that in, I forgot to send this email, and my fave, am I supposed to be somewhere right now?

The difference between the issue then and now is there is no work to “take home” in that sense. My office is my home and for me, it opens up a whole new can of worms. I am finding myself having the opposite problem. Home is a refuge of relaxation. I’ll catch myself lounging on the sofa, flipping through the TV channels and suddenly questioning whether I should be doing this. Isn’t there work to be done? Aren’t there phone calls to make? The problem is you never quite “leave the office.” As I sit chuckling at the antics of Will Smith in a ridiculous episode of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” I can feel my laptop and paperwork pile burning hole in the back of my head.

The other interesting thing I am finding is that lately I DON’T want people to know I work from home. I feel like each time I hand over a business card with my home address printed on it, I am losing a piece of my privacy. Over the weekend I was discussing this with my administrator, Laurie, and we decided that on our new marketing materials, we would not use my address. We also discussed the benefits of establishing a P.O. Box.

As a society, work/life balance is sort of non-existent. We have pretty much accepted that it is one and the same and so checking emails while on vacation, listening to your voicemail in bed and running your business from a palm pilot has become the norm. The ironic thing is that for most of my adult life I shied away from having a cell phone in order to avoid this very same thing. However, I LOVE that I am always only a click or call away from running The Lioness Group from anywhere. But I must admit: my curse is also my blessing.

How do you handle working from home? Share. Discuss.