I started feeling it other night: a heavy, nauseated pain growing in my stomach. It was time to step away from the laptop and have some downtime. It’s easy to do, and working from home makes it dead simple to overwork and overwhelm yourself. Even when you love what you do. 
There’s a couple things I want to address. The first, is how do you know you are nearing the brink or desperately need to take a break? You may feel:
- Nauseated
- Fatigued
- Irritable
- Sore (back, legs, etc.)
- Headache
- Sleepy
So, how can you avoid getting to this point? Here’s a few tips to help you out home office peeps:
- Work hours: Set them, and stick to it. Yes, it’s quite possible we’re all tired of hearing this. (Hmm, maybe that’s because it works?)
- Take up a hobby. Personal tanget/side story: I was blogging and working WAY too much on my own stuff. I needed something to do that wasn’t related to my business. I love to knit, so a knitting project would call me toward the end of the day or during family/movie time. I also love to cook, bake, eat and generally spend time oogling over stuff in the kitchen. So I also started myself a food blog. These were two ways I used to tear myself away from a business I love. (And it really works!)
- Cut the cord. As Peter Shankman recently stated in my interview with him, offline is your friend. You can get more stuff done without the distractions of Twitter, Crack Facebook and others. Sometimes ya just gotta take it offline.
- Use your distractions as breaks. Got a load of laundry to to? Take a break and do it. Vacuum, clean the bathroom, rake some leaves or whatever gets you away from work for a while.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: even when you LOVE what you do, breaks are essential. Overwhelm and burnout are no fun (she says from personal experience). So, build in some downtime and have coffee with a friend. You’ll be the better person for it… and your work will still be there when you get back.
How do you keep from getting overwhelmed and overworked?
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Wow, I couldn’t have said it any better. That’s exactly how I feel, more often than I should. I do feel better when I take a break, but of course I can’t help but worry needlessly while cleaning the house that I’m creating more work for myself online by taking a break! I need to find a way to stop that…
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This is exactly what I do. I’ll write a post, then go do a load of laundry, then I’ll go through my RSS feeds, then scrub the stinky toilet. It really works. I find that if I work all day without taking any breaks (even if it is to clean some really disgusting messes) I lose my concentration and start outputting some really bad quality stuff.
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