Workers who trudge into an office every day are jealous of people who work from home. After all, the work-from-home crowd doesn’t have to fight rush-hour traffic, listen to office gossip, or smell the day-old fish their fellow employees are microwaving in the office cafeteria.

But working from home is not all hanging out in your pajamas and sleeping in late. The typical trap that many of these people fall into is the inability to stop working. It’s hard to transition from work when you work from home. Often professionals who work from home will find that they are still working and it’s already midnight. Having a good work/life balance is essential for everyone and when the lines are blurred between them, things can become ‘caddywhompus’.

However, there are things that people who work from home can do to remedy this for their own mental health.

1. Set up a time for your “close of business”: Set normal working hours for yourself and stick to them. Whether you start work at 9 and stop at 5, or work from 11 to 7, ensure the hours you set do not intrude too much on your personal life. Sacrificing that can be very unhealthy. You know, all work and no play etc.
2. Do something for yourself: When your day ends, make sure you do something for yourself. It doesn’t need to be much. Watch a TV show, exercise, or read something non-work related. This habit can help you no matter when you have set your workday to end. This can be something simple: Maybe you want to relax on the couch and stream a few episodes of your favorite sitcom. Or it can be a bigger deal, such as a dinner date with a friend or a trip to the movies. Getting a mental break will help get you psychologically out of your work.
3. Leave the house: When you work from home it is easy to end up spending the majority of your time there. You look up, see it’s the end of the week, and realize that the only time you’ve left your house was to run to the supermarket when you ran out of cereal. Don’t turned into a work-from-home shut-in. It’s simply not healthy.

Working too much can lead to stress, which can cause health problems. This is true whether you work from home, in an office, or in the field. So, the secret is to find a balance between personal life and work. If you can’t work from home and find that balance, it may be time to return to an office environment. At least then, when they turn off the lights in the office, you’ll know you have worked long enough.

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