Is there anything harder than finding the time to make money, keep your household running, and your family happy?

Yes, trying to do all of that while working from home.

For the past 10 years, work-life balance has been a hot topic for many professions and companies. For those who don’t know, work-life balance is the relationship between your work and the other important things in your life, like your family, sport and social life, domestic duties, volunteer commitments, etc.

For many of us, our work-life balance got tipped in its head when we began working from home regularly. Work blended with chores, downtime, family time, and sleep time. Plus, for the first time ever for most of us, all members of our households were at home at the same time competing for limited space, attention, and Internet bandwidth.

That’s why our second instalment of Uplift Recruitment’s #WFH Crash Course is all about Work-Life Balance. More specifically, it’s about keeping families happy, healthy, and supportive while one or more family members work from home.

If you can boost the overall positivity and wellbeing in your household, we believe you will boost your productivity and effectiveness in your job. Here are a few tips to help you navigate the family side of working from home:

• Set #WFH Ground-Rules for Adults and Children that what each person can and can’t do during the workday. For example, institute a closed-door policy. Keep your door open throughout the day when you aren’t on the phone or doing something that requires focused attention. Tell your family, that when your door is closed, not to disturb you.

• Talk About Your Work with both your partner and your children. Explain what you do and why you are doing it. If possible, take your kids to your work or show them what you do. Be specific, talk about your current projects and goals. Both your children and your partner will be more invested in respecting your work time and space if they know what you are doing and why it is important to you.

• Create A Family-Wellbeing Plan and do mini-family well-being challenges together. We loved this article by Fast Company that suggested that you could pack a mighty mental health punch by challenging each other to do certain “wellbeing tasks.” For example, get your family members to pay it forward by complimenting someone or buying someone a coffee and then talk about what you did and how you felt at the dinner table that night.

• Carve Out “Me” Time in your schedule. It is so important to maintain a work schedule and routine while working remotely. At the same time, you must remember to exercise and practice self-care. Read our blog post about making sure you get enough time to yourself here.

What matters most is that you recognize the importance of your relationships and how you treat your family. Don’t just expect your family to get out of the way for you to work at home. A multitude of studies showed that real happiness and success in life comes from understanding that, “other people matter.”

What have you done to ease the pressure on your family from one or more members working from home?