5 Techniques for Guarding the Sanctity of the Home Office
Undeniably, one of the most difficult things about working at home is keeping people from perpetually distracting you during the workday, simply because you’re right there and they have nothing better to do. Or want you to take the trash out right then and there (hey, it has happened to me!).
To get anything done, you’ve really got to guard the home office and its status as a distraction-free zone. You’ve got to guard it so fiercely, you might even call it guarding the sanctity of the office. Here are five methods I use for keeping distractions at bay.
1. Door Closed, Door Half-Closed, Door Open
I created some signals regarding the level of concentration I require at any given time by assigning different rules for when the office door is closed, half-open, or fully open.
In my home, if the door is closed, I’m not to be interrupted. I’m focusing, I’m churning through my work and trying to get to the other end of the day. I’m probably putting together an article or working through a marketing plan. Unless my boy has cracked his head open on the wall corner or my wife’s gone into labor, I don’t want to know about it.
If the door is half-closed, I’m more susceptible to an interruption, but it shouldn’t be a frivolous interruption; only come in if you plan on telling me something reasonably important and do it quickly. If my wife wants to tell me she’s ducking out to the shops, that’s fine, but I don’t want to hear what just happened on Neighbours. Obviously for women who work at home, it’s probably the latest episode of Rex’s Fishing you don’t want to hear about from your spouse, but you get the point either way!
I don’t actually assign a meaning to “door open”—I can’t work when it is totally open, so there’s no point being in the office at all if it is. But many people do find this useful and can get things done even with that glaring gap in the wall that I despise so much.
The best part about this method is that it doesn’t seem draconian and all-or-nothing, so those you live with are more likely to accept it. It’s not rude or selfish to impose such rules on your own family; they couldn’t interrupt you if you were at a real office, and there’s no reason they should feel entitled to just because you’re at home.
2. Headphones On, Outside World Off
Headphones are great. I have a nice pair that I bought for mixing and monitoring in the studio, and the benefit of this is that it does a really good job at blocking outside noise from reaching my ears.
Get some decent ‘phones, plug ‘em in, play some music you can work to without getting the urge to dance around the room, and get some serious work done. It’s a deterrent; there have been times when someone opened the office door thinking they had something important enough to say that it warranted interruption, noticed the headphones and reconsidered the importance of said statement. They close the door and go away. I don’t think they know my peripheral vision extends to the door.
3. Get a Webcam
I don’t think I’d ever actually use my webcam for professional communication, or in all honesty for any purpose at all, but shortly after buying an iMac, I made a quip about being able to do work-related videoconferences with it.
That alone seemed to reduce the daily interruptions. This effect could well be all in my head, but if you’re not as uncomfortable with a bit of a white lie as I am, perhaps you could tell your family you’ll be doing video conferences throughout most workdays. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t be interrupting you anymore.
4. Ban Housework During the Day
This harks back to something I mentioned in my first tip. Sometimes, spouses, roommates, or what have you will strangely demand that you take out the trash, do the dishes, clean out the shower or climb up and get leaves out of the gutters at the oddest and most inopportune of times.
Now, I have no problem with doing housework—don’t think that I’m just trying to get out of it here—but domestic life and work life need to be separate, right? That’s the whole point of this article. Make it a rule that you won’t do housework during the day, just as you wouldn’t call your spouse or housemates when they’re at work and ask them to come home for ten minutes to tidy up. Tell them you’ll do housework after real work and they should only ask you at that point.
There are no hard and fast rules unless you make them, though, so if taking the trash out while you’re on a break gives you a chance to wander outside, go for it—but at your own bidding.
5. Get Out!
Adding this to the list could be considered cheating, but there are just some days when you will not and cannot have a distraction-free office. You might have a teething toddler in the house and, even with your door closed and headphones on, you can hear the poor kid screaming in a combination of pain and exhaustion in the other room. The only solution to preserving the sacred distraction-free status of your workplace might be to shift it to somewhere else.
Don’t be afraid to get up and go elsewhere to work when you need to; what’s the point of working from home if you don’t let yourself do that sort of spontaneous thing anyway? When you’re out and about the only thing you have to worry about is the pesky barista who keeps telling you you’ll have to leave if you don’t buy a fifth coffee!
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I like the idea of setting guidelines for your family or housemates. Getting them to obey, however, is a whole different story.
Great points!
Me on the other hand have a hard time working in the office> I like to be in the main living space with the tv etc.. maybe I am just weird like that. Also, when I am working it’s just me and the (2) dogs so not to many distractions.
But sometimes getting away from there and into an office is great, or I will head to Starbucks to get some work done and who knows maybe a little networking!
Thanks again for the read!
- Matthew Duerksen
Thanks for the advice. It’s hard to work from home with a 6 month old daughter. I am working to try to find ways to be more productive, this really helps. Thanks
Sure – it’s important to be able to concentrate and get stuff done. But I think it’s at least as important to take part in what’s going on at home. To be with the people you love. To be there when things happen. It’s almost like you see your family as something to fight off while you’re working. I say: you’re lucky because you get to work at home. You’re lucky that you can take part in the life of your family. Embrace it. Leave that door open as much as you can. And take the trash out in the morning. Or in the evening. Or when you take a break during the day to refresh your mind.
After re-arranging our flat, my boyfriend & I have had our computers in the same room for a couple of weeks. This really hasn’t helped my focus… I find it hard to get into a good state of “flow” with writing articles (I do a lot of freelance blogging) when I could be interrupted at any point, and I’ve been working in my college library a lot.
So I’m re-arranging again in order to cram a desk into my room so I can go in there, shut the door, and concentrate.
As James Kurtz III mentions, you can try the “Honey, I love you, please don’t talk to me about your computer games while I’m working” … but it doesn’t seem to stick!
Great bit of advise.
I currently do something similar where as i give ‘the look’ as a deterrent to being disturbed but i am very open to the door closed, half open, open rule and will try it out!
Thanks
Unfortunately, my home office is my living room so I don’t get the luxury of some of this advice. But I live alone so it works out.
I agree with #5 most of all on that list. I’ve found that it’s vital to leave the house and change your scenery. It’s one of the basic freedoms we get as freelancers.
Tip 4 should keep my mum happy! =P
I’m rather lucky though, in respects to my “office” being my bedroom and no one ever comes in here. =]
Just had to quickly comment on the headphone tip. While I do see your point and agree that temporarily “zoning out” may increase your productivity, be careful to not overdo it. I worked with a woman at CNN who NEVER ONCE took her headphones off the entire time I worked there. She was completely cut off from verbal communication around the office and I can’t help to think that she’s digging herself in a hole career-wise. It’s important to realize that people skills count for just as much, if not more, than technical ones.
For me the best way to get focus is after 8h30pm,
I’m father of 2 young kids and 1 toddlers and when everybody is sleeping… The second part of my day begin. The fisrt one is almost to communicate with clients, prepare soumissions and easy tasks or non-creative tasks.
I need to split the works and for me is the best way. Actually, I prefer working by night but in a couple of years when all my kids will gone to school…I’ll be back on regular schedule.
I need to start getting out to cafes and such more. I find that sometimes its great to work with my gf (another freelancer) but sometimes it really is a distraction, especially when we get bored.
Guarding the sanctity also extends to setting limits with friends and other freelancers who drop by just because you’re there, want to lunch, have coffee, go shopping, etc.
Great advice from someone just starting to work from home. It’s not as easy as I thought…
Actually, I use my web cam for business. Well, I have a very good quality web cam…
Great food for thought. I’ve found that making (and more importantly) keeping strong boundaries around my work is difficult, but crucial. I like your idea of visual clues (like the closed door) to signal those in your house that you are busy and need to get things done. I don’t know how many times my wife pops in my office and starts to chat when I’m under a tight deadline! Setting up the boundary ahead of time would certainly curb those feelings of guilt and added stress when I have to say, “Honey, I’d love to hear about this later, but I’m really busy right now.” That never goes over so well!
number four.
sounds very familiar. i work home wednesdays and ‘quick, little jobs’ were saved up for me to do then, never actually realising that i was actually working when i was home not slobbing around in y pants watching The Wire.
Filter on my email that hid them away until the end of the day for a couple of weeks and they soon stopped.
@Chris: You said, “Sure – it’s important to be able to concentrate and get stuff done. But I think it’s at least as important to take part in what’s going on at home.” I totally agree, and that’s why there’s a way of signalling how susceptible to interruption I am. I could just cut them off between 9 and 5 every day, but I use this method to manage the best of both worlds.
@Jimmy: Generally in a home office environment, the communication with others in the company or colleagues usually comes by phone, instant messenger or email so it’s not an issue… as long as you can see your phone flashing when your headphones are one!
I love how this website is the same garbage reiterated over and over again…
Nice advice, i could use some of them when i have deadlines awaited
This was a great article. Just stumbled upon the site and am getting myself immersed in the ins and outs of freelancing!
I work at home and have found email to be an excellent “window” that I can control. They can send me email from upstairs or the next room.
IM is reserved for emergencies.
I use an “at work” cap to create a bubble around myself so I can go to the bathroom or get a coke from the refrigerator without interruption.