Not long ago, we had an unexpected guest for dinner: my job.  Well, to be honest, it wasn't all that unexpected. My job pops in fairly frequently at the dinner hour. And although it doesn't eat any food, there's no question that it's intrusive, disruptive—and annoys my husband greatly.  "I'm just going to take this one call," I told Clay that night, getting up from the table. Cue the eye roll from Clay, as he continued to quietly chew his chicken.  "It's from the West Coast," I countered, as if that somehow made a difference. As I headed upstairs to the home office, I called back: "I'll make it quick."  In many ways, of course, the luxury of a home office is the working parent's brass ring. I am extraordinarily blessed to have the option of working from home when I am not traveling. It gives me the flexibility to pop down into the basement and toss the wet laundry into the dryer or take a few minutes to welcome my daughter home from school in the afternoon or catch up on her day in between calls. It is a privilege, and one that I am grateful to have.  But that privilege comes with a price.  Clay has long griped about the downside of working from home. Yes, he appreciates the flexibility that a home office affords our family, and loves having me around. But he often feels that I allow the office part to seep too much into our home life—emotionally and physically. He gets annoyed when work keeps me from fully engaging in family activities. And he sometimes is irritated when I bring my laptop downstairs to work from the chaise longue, getting in his way as he goes about doing the daily housework.  To me, the frustration of a home office is that, basically, you're perpetually in the office. You step out of your office door right into the rest of the house, and sometimes the work doesn't get the message that it shouldn't come along. Too often, it follows me around like a clerk hawking perfume at a department-store cosmetics counter. My family ends up losing my attention; I'm there, but I'm not there. And it means I can't fully enjoy the pleasure of family events as well. Work always seems to beckon, just a few feet away.  Part of the problem, of course, is that I have a lot of work to do. But face it: So do most people. The bigger part is that I often feel compelled to make sure that I am consistently available so no one at the mother ship in New York thinks that I'm slacking off (which, if my bosses are reading this, I'm not). I also feel that it isn't fair to ask one of my team members who work in the office to take on a particularly late-breaking story, when most of them have a 30-to-45 minute commute to get home.  But I hit my wall one night not long ago, as I put our seven-year-old to bed.  "When I grow up, I'm going to be rich," she said to me sleepily. "Then you won't have to work so much."  As I thought about it more, I realized that I have been the architect of my own problems. It has been far too easy to justify quickly checking one's email or spending an extra hour or two to work on a project in the office when the office is only a few feet away. I need to try to set better boundaries between my work life and home life.  Much of the challenge lies in learning when to turn things off. After chatting with a few others who work from home, I have decided to make a few simple (I hope) changes.  First, barring an emergency or a particularly important story or deadline, I am setting a strict evening cutoff time for responding to work-related emails or calls. I realize that it's probably something I should have done a long time ago. If it isn't absolutely pressing, my horse and carriage turns back into a pumpkin by 7 p.m., and I'm calling it a night. I realize that I may not be able to hit that goal every day, but at this point, I'm not doing it at all, so I'm going to try my best.  Also, I plan to restrict work papers and other work-related materials to the home office. Too often, research reports or copies of our publications seep into the living room, our bedroom or the kitchen. If it isn't there, I can't read it.  At the end of each workday, I also plan to spend 10 to 15 minutes just organizing my desk and pulling together a to-do list for the following morning. By doing so, I hope that I can bring a sense of closure to my day but also feel more relaxed and organized about my game plan for the next day.  One friend also suggested that I spend a few weeks documenting my hours and what I do each day. If I step away for an extra hour or 30 minutes to tackle a personal task, then I should make sure I add that time back into the end of the day or later in the week.  "You'll get a better sense of how much time you actually spend working," she said.  It may not be easy, but with a few small changes I think I can do a better job of keeping work in the office, where it belongs.
Home offices can provide a lot more work flexibility. But it can be hard to stop working when you never leave the office.