Many traditional companies and businesses will state that they have an “open door policy”—meaning that the doors stay open—either literally or figuratively and that anyone can talk to anyone else about work-related matters. I thought it might be fun to explore how this works in our home businesses—whether or not we can work with the chaos of having any and every family member come in and out of our work space, or if we need to sequester ourselves in order to get work done.
Since I do not have an office with a door that closes in my home, I have to work in an area that gets some traffic. However, if I need to make important phone calls or work on something that takes focus and a lack of interruption, I can sequester myself in my bedroom. I do occasionally fantasize that I have a “study” like Mr. Brady used to have on the “Brady Bunch” and I can just work away while other people mind the chaotic family scene going on outside a closed door (he sure did an awful lot of work at home, didn’t he? But then if I had a wife AND a housekeeper, I could too).
Some work-from-homers have the space where they can go in and close the door, but if you have little children at home you may not want to or be able too. Others find that working when the rest of the family is asleep or away is the only way to get uninterrupted time. I’m willing to bet that most of us have an “open door” style of working whether that is how we work best or not—BUT, I’d love to hear from you and find out how you handle the traipsing and the interruptions. Can you be interrupted and distracted by your family when you are working from home, or not?
See Also: Too Much Flexibility Could Keep Customers Away