It’s snowing where I am as I write this. Not just snow, but a messy sleety wet slop that is freezing when it hits the road. There is nothing I want to do less than leave my home. Thankfully, I work from home.

While many people have transitioned back to offices, lots of us are still working from home. And it is a blessing.

Before we go forward, please let me be clear that this is a blessing and I am not complaining about it. That being said, working from home isn’t without its challenges. Especially when you, like me, already work a creative job from home.

Working from home when you also have a creative hustle has its own challenges. For one thing, there’s only so much time one should spend staring at the same four walls. For another, it’s just hard to spend more time in our creative space when it’s also now our workspace. Listen, I like my day job and there are still some days where I don’t want to step away from my desk so much as set it on fire and run screaming from it. And then I’m expected to spend more time at that same desk?!

I’m a big fan of basically tricking my brain to get it to do what I need. And I’m also a big fan of, you know, doing the thing I love no matter what. So here’s what I do to juggle both working and writing from home.

Have a specific start and end time

This is a piece of information that’s been around for WFH folks forever. But frankly, it bears repeating because this is harder when you’re creating from home.

Have a specific start and end time for your day job. This is easy when we’re working at the office, because you clock out and head home, not to see your work PC until next you clock in.

If you’re working from home, your PC is there with you. Waiting. Judging.

When I’m doing things around the house, making dinner, or watering plants, I can ignore the PC with ease. But when I sit down back at the desk, back where I was performing a specific action all day, I start to think about things that happened at work.

Did this person respond to my email? Did that guy do the thing I needed him to do? Did I take care of my part of that other thing?

This sucks. But it’s important to stick to your intentions. You were at work already. You have a specific amount of time that you and your boss agreed to. There is no reason to jump on there at any other time.

Physical boundaries

Of course, this is easier said than done. When you’re computer is right there, it’s harder to just say no.

And I get it. I’m lucky to have any devoted space in my home for working, it’s a small place. So my desk is the place where I work from home and do all of my writing. Same little desk, same squeaky chair, same Peanuts calendar. And I’m not going to move my work pc every time I want to write.

So what I do instead is to place a scarf over the whole PC when I’m not at work. I turn it off, and I cover it with a nice maroon scarf. Out of sight, out of mind.

Tricking your senses

Getting my work PC out of sight is just one way I trick my senses into thinking this is a different workspace. I’m careful to keep certain practices separate.

When I’m working the day job, I listen to jazz music. I don’t light candles or incense. I’m generally drinking water or coffee.

When I’m writing, I like to listen to either nature sounds or work with me videos. I almost always have something nice smelling lit. I also tend to prefer tea while I’m writing. It’s all about creating the right kind of vibe. When I’m doing day job work, I want to feel alert and not stressed out. When I’m writing, I want to feel creative and soft.

Get out of the house when you can

Finally, I try to write outside of the house when I can. Not all the time, frankly I write too much to do it all the time. But I like to go to a coffee shop or the library and get some work done. Especially when I’m feeling like I’m in a slump, or the four walls of my office are getting to me.

Writing outside of the house has all kinds of benefits. Especially when you’re spending 40+ hours a week in your usual writing spot.

If you can’t leave the house, which might be the case for me as I’m looking down a snowstorm this weekend, try to switch up where you write. While I don’t suggest writing in bed, maybe there’s somewhere else in your home you can write from. I’ll often write reviews on my couch, for instance, my laptop balanced on a lap desk.

Now, if you feel like a lot of this advice sounds the same, you’re right. These are all examples of what boils down to the same advice.

Make your creating time as separate from your work time as possible. Because the last thing you want when you’re writing is to feel like you’re at work.

Nova will start on February 5th. But if you need to start at the beginning, you can get Seeming for free on Smashwords right now.

Paper Beats World is a labor of love. If you love what we do here, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi.