You might love your spouse, but working at home with them is a whole different story! After being at home with my husband for the past six years, here are 7 real tips on working remotely with your spouse or partner.
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How to Survive Working at Home with Your Spouse
You love your kids. You’ve come to terms that you will be “homeschooling” them for the next few weeks during the corona virus quarantine.
You love your partner, but you have NOT come to terms that you will be with them ALL DAY LONG for the next few weeks!
On a good day, it’s like they are going out of their way to annoy you by…
leaving dirty cups around the house…
pushing the trash down again and again so they don’t have to take it out…
heavy breathing…
Just me? Can you relate!? 😉
Never before have we seen so many people working at home, and I’m not just talking about the corona virus work changes!
More and more people have started to work from home, whether they are entrepreneurs or are taking their professions from the office to their home.
The majority of people now consider it a perk to work from home. We need to keep that in mind as we navigate through this difficult time of social distancing!
According to flexjobs.com, from 2005 to 2017, people working from home increased 159%! It will continue to grow exponentially!
So, now that you know the majority of people are doing it anyway, let’s talk about how to actually survive working from home with your spouse or partner!
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How to Survive Working at Home with Your Spouse or Partner
My husband and I have been doing this for six years, so I feel like I have some expertise in the topic. We have a six year old and a three year old. We are not the couple that gets along every minute. We like our independence. We have survived!
Our situation might be a little different because I am a stay at home parent who then started a DIY and home decor blog. I am a stay at home mom first, and a blogger second. My “work” duties are different than someone working 9-5 as an insurance agent.
Working at home with my spouse has not been the easiest task in my life, but it hasn’t ended our marriage yet! There have been some difficult times, but marriage is not a cake-walk!
Just know that you will get through this and for the majority of you, it will be temporary!
Our house is small you guys. It’s under 1800 square feet. We are both stubborn people. We have managed to survive working at home with each other.
Here are my expert tips on how to survive working at home with your spouse:
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Choose a location to work
- Find a space to work where you are away from distractions. (I realize during the corona virus quarantine this will be difficult, especially if you have kids! You can always try to take turns with your partner if possible.)
- My husband works on the second floor so the kids and I try to hangout on the first floor. If you asked him, I bet he’d say we are always upstairs! 😉 I’ll be making a small office nook in our bedroom soon, so stay tuned.
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Stay organized
- For your sake and everyone else’s at home, keep your work organized!
- I feel like I should say “do as I say, not as I do.” This isn’t always easy for me, but having certain organizational materials in place is a great way to ensure you will keep things organized! Make it easy on yourself!
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Pick a start and finish time for work
- Again, this might not always work if you are trying to care for kids at the same time, but if you can get into a set schedule it’s best for everyone!
- My husband’s schedule is determined by his work. I can’t really set a schedule for my work. I try to blog at rest time and after bedtime.
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Set a time for lunch
- The kids and I usually eat around 11:45/12:00 and my husband eats around 12:30/1. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t want a lunch break by themselves!?
- Some days he joins us and some days we are running late and have to eat at the same time. Sometimes I’ll feed the kids in our family room to give him some alone time. Yes, I’m amazing.
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Give each other free time
- Working from home is a somewhat new phenomenon. You can’t “leave it” at the office when you’ve had a bad day. You might need some downtime before heading into your family duties. Discuss this with your partner, so that everyone is on the same page.
- When both of you are working from home whether you are a stay at home parent or an employed parent, you need time to yourself. Find a way to work that into everyday. Does it always happen at our house? No, but we try.
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Be respectful
- Having kids is stressful. Work can be stressful. Having kids at home and trying to work is even more stressful. When the kids were much smaller, I felt like “this is OUR HOUSE, not your office.” I thought our kids and I should be able to go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. This might be surprising, but that didn’t sit too well with my husband.
- Tensions ran high and we had to make some adjustments. I wasn’t respecting his space or his job. However, it was impossible not to go upstairs at all during the work day! We still travel around the house when we want, but we try to wait until he’s off a work call or I text him if I need help with something.
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Give each other some grace and time to adjust to this new working at home thing
- We have been doing this for six years. It has taken a long time for us to find a rhythm that works for our family. We also made this choice. It wasn’t made for us. Find some solidarity in the fact that you are together in this.
- Give each other some grace as you get used to being around each other every day all day long!
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If you need some home office inspiration, here are some items that help us, or that I’d love to see in my soon to be small office:
If you are reading this during the corona virus quarantine, just know that you will get through this! It might not be easy, but communicating is the most important part. Share with your partner how you envision your day to go. When two people have different expectations that’s when things can get tricky.
Talk it out.
Plan it out.
Make compromises.
I promise you that if my husband and I can be in the same house with our two kids all day long, so can you!
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My wife doesn’t work from home, but she was stranded at home for a week during a recent snow storm and cold blast. This is one of those times I experienced the “marriage is no cake walk” feeling. The first couple days weren’t bad, but by Wednesday, I was wanting the snow to melt and the roads to clear. It just felt weird to have her here, and then by Friday it was not fun, and I commend you for being able to work at home with your husband for as long as you have. Keep up the hard work.
Haha! Believe me, we have those days for sure!