Does a home office work for family?

Home Office Lawyer asks whether working from home really benefits your family?  Having run my business from home for the last year or so I can understand the question and the need to ask it.  It is so easy to get caught up in your work and neglect your family.  My office is in a spare room and it is very easy to walk in, sit down and start working on something and not look up for an hour.

One trap that I see that can develop from working in a home office is taking the time to spend time with the family. It is way to easy to get so caught up in working at the home office, that we forget to take the time to be with the family. I don’t have real young children at home. My youngest of four is 13. But, it is still important to spend time with him. Maybe even more so at this age. And of course there is my wife. We need to remember to spend time with our spouses.

So what does the Home Office Lawyer suggest?  He takes a cue from Fundamentals and sets out the following rules and guidelines for a healthy home office/family environment:

1. Make time for play.
2. Be there for your children’s activities.
3. Set rules and enforce them.
4. Pay attention to each child’s individual needs.
5. When your children come home from school, take some time to chat to them about their day.
6. Involve your children in your work at an appropriate level (if they can help, let them, otherwise let them know what you are doing).

You have to be fairly strict about these rules/guidelines and make sure that you comply with them.  If you don’t you could be left wondering where all the years went and why you just can’t seem to talk to your family anymore.  I often think back to the statement that at the end of your life, you won’t find yourself wishing you could have worked more.  The important people in life are family, friends and the people in whose lives we make a real difference.