Congrats. You’re free-as-a-bird. You’ve defeated the 40-hour grind and can now work anytime, anywhere, and anyway you want. In a café, on a park bench, or in your bed. In sweatpants, wearing just underwear, or even buck naked. Sensing a catch or two? Yep. Here are two big ones:
1. You procrastinate more
Without a set schedule, putting off work is way too easy. You can always say, “I’ll do it later. I can just sleep in all day and stay up till 3am to finish it up. Take that, you 9 to 5 drones!”
2. You’re on call 24/7
It’s also too convenient for others to contact you. If they already have your email, IM, and mobile number, doesn’t it mean you’re on call all the time? How about a note like this from a client: “Hey Bob, since you’ll already up at 3am, can you finish up those warp drive plans by dawn? Thanks a bunch!”
So what do you do? How do you avoid the trappings of your newfound nomadic “freedom”? There’s a hint in the title of this post:
Set office hours–even if you don’t have to.
Okay, so that was more than a hint. The basic idea is to separate work from the rest of your life. Your office hours don’t have to be 9 to 5. They could be 10 to 6. Or 12-5. Just make it consistent. The goal is to create chunks of time
Next, train your bosses, employees, and clients to contact you only during office hours. The simplest way is to not check emails, send IMs, or answer phone calls when you’re off duty. Over time, they’ll get the hint. Also, make your office hours explicit by stating them in your email signature and voicemail message.
How do you avoid deadly traps of flexible schedules? Please share in the comments.
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Nomad Contributors
by Goobersnotch / September 25, 2008
I avoid the trap by dedicating myself to a list of tasks I want to finish that day. Whether it takes 4 hours, 8 hours, or 12 hours, I will get those tasks done because that is what I would have done if I was in the office, and was scheduled to do so, so why not enjoy the freedom of working when I want as long as I can get the work done?
This won’t work if you have a job that requires constantly doing something (like handling tech support or customer service) but for say, an engineer or software developer, it’s perfect. I don’t work from home/out of the office oftne, but when I do, I just make sure I get done what I was supposed to get done and then I don’t have to worry about whether I’m working too little or procrastinating too much.
by Ricky Cadden / September 25, 2008
This was actually one of the things that I struggled with the most, but in reverse - when I moved from an office job to being a full-time blogger, I found myself - for the first time - putting in well over 8 hours/day. I had to train myself to stop at 530p each day. I still start at 7-730a, but I’m doing better with it.
Working on a few teams, though, I’ve found that when I want to be off, I simply disconnect anything distracting. Sign off IM, rather than leaving it open with an away message (most people don’t pay attention to presence indicators, unfortunately). I also don’t answer the phone, and I’ve started purposefully waiting no less than 3 hours from when I receive an email to respond to it. Those that I work with know that email is reserved for things that are not time-specific.
by Justin Levy / October 1, 2008
This is a very important step to working from home. I work from an office most days but do a lot of work on other projects, companies and blogs at night. However, just like the person that works from home full-time, others have come to get used to me working at night. Therefore they think that means that I’m always available. To avoid this I will routinely sign off of IM and not respond to emails. This gives people the idea that I’m not available and allows me to concentrate on what I’m working on.
by PJ_Normz / October 16, 2008
I find the same problems b/c I have a creative company that runs from home. It is tough to manage your hours ause I always think there is more work to do. Great advice, though. I def have to try it!
http://yinvsyang.com
by Brian Davis / October 22, 2008
“so you can enjoy guilt-free play later”
precisely, that guilt really causes frustration, more procrastinating, and can quickly lead to a burn out. well said!
also I appreciate this article being so short.