Monday, September 21, 2009

Working from Home: Working Out The Stress

By James Scottworth

Many businesspeople, regardless of their professions, harbor a secret dream to work from home. Yet when that dream becomes a reality, how do you alleviate the unexpected stresses that the home work experience can bring?

The fact is that Working in any confined space for a long time period can bring about emotions of isolation or boredom. Yet it is possible to keep a successful home office without catching a nasty case of cabin fever in the process.

One thing you can do to combat this problem is to assign one part of your house as your work area and other rooms as your living space. In that way, you are not always 'at work.'

In your working time, plan predetermined times in which you can escape to your living quarters. Some experts have suggested using a timer and working for 50 minutes and then resting for 20 minutes. Create some time to go take a nap, get a snack, take a shower, or watch a quick TV show.

Beyond that, make sure that you leave your working area a couple times a day. You could go for a quick walk or a luncheon at a nearby restaurant. Or do some work away from home, like making copies or sending mail at a neighborhood UPS store, packing up your laptop computer and escaping to an arboretum or beach, or meeting someone you work for, for a business meeting at Starbucks.

During your work from home experience, you can do a number of things that alleviate the boredom of your standard business day. You can listen to a radio station on the Internet or your home stereo, make a short phone call to a friend, or view a film on your computer or your office DVD player. In addition, Internet websites such as You Tube and Movieflix can provide fun distractions in the form of brief, entertaining videos; momentary distractions that won't take away too much time or focus from the job at hand.

Another idea is to keep a favored article or magazine at your office; reading something of interest can be a good escape from the often repetitious work that you may do during the day.

If money and time are no object, then you can really have some fun looking for ways to spice up your work atmosphere. How about working out of a limo that takes you around town on breaks? And remember, work at home businesses have a real advantage in flexible time too. you can work a half day early one, relax in the afternoon and pick back up a few hours in the evening.

Another fun activity to alleviate the stress of a work-at-home schedule involves counting your blessings. If you're working at home, for example, you don't have to punch a time clock. You don't have to deal with annoying co-workers. You can play your Internet radio as loudly as you darned well please. You don't have to deal with rush hour traffic or carpools. And you are your own boss. You're living the dream that many people covet, regardless of their profession.

Working at home is still work, but it can be a wonderful, rewarding, and extremely productive experience. Start making your home work experience rich today by "working" on implementing some of these changes. This small piece of "stress" will result in a lot of "stress relief!

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