8 Tips for Staying Sane When Working at Home

Working at home tests all of your skills, especially time management and organization (and patience if you still have young children at home). But working at home can also be incredibly rewarding, especially once you’re organized, focused, and working efficiently. Today I’m sharing 8 tips for staying sane when working at home that will help you to get organized, focused, working efficiently, and successfully managing the interruptions that occur all too often when working at home.

8 Tips for Staying Sane When Working at Home

Working at home can be incredibly rewarding AND incredibly frustrating, especially if you have kids at home full-time or for summer or holiday break. But there are a few things you can do to handle the organization struggles that come along with working at home and to successfully manage the “interruption factor.”

The following tips will make sure you’re staying sane when working at home!

#1 Have a Dedicated Space in Your Home for Your Office

The first tip for staying sane when working at home is that you have a dedicated space in your for your office.

Preferably with a door that closes…and locks.

My Office and Door…That Locks 🙂

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Having a dedicated space for work makes working at home SO much easier.

First, there’s the physical piece of having everything in one place and within a few steps of your chair.

Second, there are the mental and emotional components. Having a dedicated place to work helps to signal your brain and your emotions that when you sit down in that one chair at that one desk, it’s time to get busy.

This same psychology can be applied to your kids, too: “When mom is sitting in her work chair at her work desk, she’s working and can’t be disturbed.”

It’s subtle, but when used regularly it can work for you and your kids.

The door is nice when you have to quit work in the middle of a big project and either don’t have time to clear your desk or don’t want to put it all away just to drag it out again 3 hours later when it’s nap time.

It’s also nice when you need a little extra quiet or focus.

It’s helpful, too, if your dedicated space is clean and organized. This makes it much easier to focus and be productive. And I just happen to have a post that can help! Check out: Organize Your Home Office in 8 Steps.

#2 Keep Business and Personal Records Separate

I have a cheap two drawer filing cabinet that sits on one wall of my office. It contains all of our personal files (although, we’re working on going paperless…more on that later).

I also have a file drawer in my desk where I keep all of my business files.

That way, I have the same break between my files as I do between my work space and home space. It helps to create order and separation. Two very important things when you work at home!

Need help with paper clutter before you can actually get to the filing part? Check out the posts in our Organize Your Files Week series (it’s about more than files)! Read the first post here: The First Step to Conquer Paper Clutter.

#3 Create an Efficient Filing System That Works for You

You need a filing system for your home business. That could be as simple as a few hanging folders and a file box. Or, if you need to, you can invest in a nice filing cabinet, lots of hanging folders, and organize all of your business papers. You could even go paperless if that’s more your style.

Going the Physical File Route

The trick to creating a filing system that works for you is to create folder names that are intuitive to you.

When you look at an item that needs to be filed what’s the first file name that comes to mind when you see that item?

Use that file name to create the hanging file for that item and any items that are closely related to it!

Learn more about creating intuitive file names and a system that uses this approach in this post: How to Construct a Filing System That Works for You.

Going Paperless and Storing Files Digitally

For a long time, I’ve used hanging files, a “To File” box, and an hour set aside each week to file. It has worked well for me….

Up until now.

My business is expanding locally, and I’m scheduling more in-person meetings. I’ve also been traveling a little with my job (conferences of clients, educational conferences). It’s difficult to anticipate what I’ll need when I’m working away from my home office, and I’ve found it’s much easier, simpler, and incredibly convenient to have all of my documents scanned and filed in Evernote. I never forget anything, and I always have my entire filing cabinet at hand.

Going paperless isn’t for everyone.

The important piece is to find a system and work that system. Regularly!

However, if you do decide to go paperless, I highly recommend The Paperless Home by Donnie & Abby Lawson.

It walks you through the steps, talks through tech and hardware, and much more. I read it through once and have referred to it often as we’ve begun our paperless journey. Now that I’m ready to move to the next step, I’m reading it again.

#4 Use Your Calendar and Check It Often

This is the one place where I break my “Rule of Separation” (yes, it’s an actual rule…at least in my mind). 🙂

A calendar is the perfect place for storing all kinds of information: activities, meetings, appointments, to-do’s, deadlines, school activities, etc. And by having all of that information in one place, you won’t lose any of it.

I like to color code my calendar, that way I can take in a day, a week, or a month with just a glance. I use a different color for each member of my family, including our family pets. Birthdays and anniversaries have an assigned color. And I use a specific color for my blog and social media management work.

But the most important part of this tip is the last part: Check It Often. All of that recording and color coding won’t do you a bit of good if you don’t look at your calendar and look at it regularly, like multiple times a day.

We’ve done a lot of work on our calendar habit, so much so that we started saving hours a day. Learn more: Add Hours to Your Day with One Simple Tool.

And for those of you pen freaks, like me, these are my favorite calendar color coding pens!

Staedtler Color Pens *affiliate link*

#5 Use a Tickler File for To-Do’s and Long-Term Projects

The Tickler File is a concept that’s been around for a long time. It’s a file box and file folders labeled with the months and numbers 1-31. It’s a way to spread out and assign to-do’s to specific days.

I use mine in that way, but where the Tickler File really shines for me is when I use it as a place to store ongoing projects and all of the associated paperwork that goes along with that project.

For example, when I was preparing for my recent rebrand, I had a “Rebrand” file in the front of my Tickler File. That file held all of my rebrand notes, fonts, colors, logo ideas, category and post brainstorming, etc. So, instead of having a pile of papers on my desk or the shelf behind it, I could stow it in the file box when I wasn’t using it and just pull it out during the times I worked on my rebrand.

Not only does it help to keep me organized, it keeps my desk organized and decluttered, too.

I shared more about how to set up and use a Tickler File in this post: Get Organized with a Tickler File.

#6 Use a Project Planner for Big or Ongoing Projects

This tip relates to the one above. I always keep a project planner in my ongoing project files in my Tickler File. It’s where I keep track of all of the to-do’s, notes, websites, and materials I need for that ongoing project. I never have to search for that sticky note or envelope that I scribbled that hex code on, because it’s all on the Project Planner.

And I’m sharing the project planner that I use with you!

Grab your Project Planner HERE!

#7 Make Use of a Do Not Disturb Sign

Now, we’re getting into the “interruption struggles” that always arise when you’re working at home section. Kids simply don’t understand that although mom or dad is home, she or he actually is working.

But I’ve found something that helps. It seems simplistic, but a visual reminder to not disturb you can be really helpful for your kids. Especially during summer vacation…when the kids are home all. the. time!

Unless your kids are toddlers or younger, you can teach them that at a certain time, mom or dad can’t be disturbed. It is an ongoing process. Even with teenagers, I have to give my kids a visual reminder that they can’t come into my office and talk to me whenever they want to.

BTW, I can sit next to them at the kitchen table or on the couch for hours, and they won’t say a word to me. But the minute I go into the office and shut the door, they have a thousand things that they have to tell me right. now!

I find it helpful to post a couple of signs on my office door: “Do Not Disturb” and a “I’ll be done working at….”

To make it super easy on you, I’ve included a printable “Do Not Disturb” sign for your office.

Get your Do Not Disturb Sign HERE!

Don’t have an actual office at home? Maybe you work at the dining room table? #BeenThere #DoneThat

Try wearing headphones and posting the sign in front of your work space or where it blocks the path to get to you.

And make sure you give your hard-working self a little extra support with essential oils and a diffuser! In this post I have a list of my favorite diffuser recipes and how they support me while I’m working: Best Home Office Diffuser Recipes.

#8 Establish Work Hours

For yourself. You’re more focused and efficient, because you can see that you only have 2 hours to get those two posts written and edited.

Here’s a printable for you to use to record your work hours.

Get your Office Hours Printable HERE!

Since my kids are older, I find it helpful to post my office hours on my door. That way, if they’re dying to ask me if they can go to the movie with their BFF, they know that they’ll have plenty of time to talk to me before it’s too late.

It’s helpful for me, too, because I’m not as tempted to blow off my “quitting time,” keep working, and end up grumps, because I didn’t have time to spend with the kids, clean the house, do the laundry, walk the dogs, do my yoga, etc.

Here’s the printable I use to display my quitting time. I put it in a plastic page protector and use a Vis-a-Vis Marker to record my quitting time.

Get your copy of the Quitting Time Printable HERE!

And those are my 8 Tips for Staying Sane When Working at Home! There are many struggles when working at home, but there are also many, many benefits. Hopefully, these tips will help you balance the two, manage your time, stay organized, and help to keep you and your kids sane.

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Related Posts

If you enjoyed today’s post, you might find these related posts helpful:

• The Ultimate End of the Work Day Routine
• 6 Tips for a More Productive Work Day
• Organize Your Home Business with FREE Printables

Thanks for hanging out with me today here at Calyx and Corolla! What tips do you have for staying sane when working at home?