There are lots of benefits to being able to work from home, at least part of the time. It is, however, important to be able to separate “work-time” from “home-time”. The good news is that this can be achieved, even in a small space. It just takes a bit of strategy. With that in mind, here are three tips to help you zone out of work.

Corral your work necessities

It’s great if you can allocate a room to be your dedicated office. For most people, however, that’s unlikely to be practical. At best, you’ll have a dedicated desk in a room that has to multitask. Quite possibly, you’ll need to create a “pop-up office” and dismantle it again at the end of your workday.

Whatever option you use, you need to find a way to corral your work necessities efficiently. This is partly about straightforward functionality. It’s also about giving you the feeling of there being a clear start and end to your workday.  

If you have to work out of a pop-up space, your best option may be a wide-mouthed bag with a long zipper. With the zipper closed, everything is kept safe and can be moved easily. With the zipper open, the wide mouth gives you easy access to the contents.

Manage your Communications

If you’re an employee then, usually, your employer should give you everything you need for your work. This includes a phone. You can and generally should only use these during work hours. If there are exceptions to this, then look at ways of accommodating them using technology rather than your free time.  

For example, see if your phone has the option to create profiles. If it does, you can create a profile for your workday and a profile for out-of-hours. You can still let through key numbers but have others auto-divert to voicemail (or another number).

If you’re self-employed then you set your own rules. You can use automated tools in the same way as employees. You can also use phone answering services. These can be a great way to give your customers a personalized, human experience when you’re “off-duty”.

You can also use answering services to deal with other communications such as email. This can be useful if you need an extended period offline e.g. for a vacation. It can also be helpful if you simply have a lot of messages to deal with.

Have a post-work routine

Commuting gives you a chance to adjust your mindset as you travel. You probably also have your little routines once you reach your destination. For example, when you get home, you might shower, change your clothes, have coffee, and start dinner. When you work from home, you don’t have a commute but you can have a post-work routine.

It doesn’t actually matter what the routine is. What matters is that you train your brain to associate it with the end of work. Once the link is established, going through the routine should prompt that “end-of-day” feeling even if you’re still in the same physical space.