A new study about working from home and stress has been making the rounds of media outlets. I know, I know, say it’s not so. After all, that is one of the reason many of us wanted to leave the rat race. To get away from the workday madness.  But the report from the United Nations International  Labour Organization (ILO) and Eurofound discovered that living the work from home dream just might be more of a nightmare.

“A United Nations study looked at the impacts of working remotely, with technological advances, and found that the pressures of signing-on outside of the traditional 9-5 work day is causing workers across the globe to have high-stress levels and more incidents of insomnia” reported Fox Business.

Yikes! If that isn’t bad enough to hear, the news report went on to say the UN study also found that the work at home crowd tends to feel more isolated and they work more hours.

Okay, double yikes!

Are They Comparing Apples to Oranges or Employees to WAHMs?

Now, first let me say the study looked at telecommuting employees. And as far as I’m concerned an employee is still an employee, with the same demanding bosses and even more demanding deadlines, even if they are working at the kitchen table in their PJs. The report didn’t include the work at home mom or dad building an independent income. However, I can tell you from personal experience as a WAHM, there are days that are stressful. Real stressful!

I also think this where we WAHMs (and Dads) have an advantage. And we can do something about it. After all, we are in charge of our work life are the MommyBosses and DaddyBosses. So, when I feel the stress creeping up on me, I do the following three things.

Review My Goals

One of the problems of working on your own is that it is easy to slip off course. It might be that a bright new shiny object has caught my eye. You know, a new plugin for the website that I just have to install now. A well-known blogging guru offering the most amazing new course. Or I just feel like doing something different today instead of writing a post or creating 10 new listings for my eBay store.

It’s times like that when I pull out my goals. I wrote How Savvy Work at Home Moms Meet Their Goals. What they also do is review their goals to stay focused. If you haven’t done that in away, take them out now. Are you actually working toward your goals in your day-to-day actions? If not, how can you get back on track?

It just might be that your goals need some tweaking. That’s okay. You may find that you are astray because your goals need some adjusting. Or you need to look at your task in a new way to get more done.

Give Myself a Performance Review

This is the time of year for performance reviews in the corporate world. But just because you work for yourself, doesn’t mean those evaluations are off the table. It just might mean you need to do a self-appraisal. You the boss, need to sit down with you the employee.

How would you rate your work habits and focus? Have you stayed on track and met your goals. What needs improvement? And how can you fix them? These questions for an employee self-evaluation from The Balance are a good place to start, even for a work for our self types.

Chill

When the stress really hits the fan, sometimes it’s good just to step away. As the study above stated, one of the problems many work at home employees have is working too much and often blurring the lines between family and job.

One of the reasons many of us have chosen the work from home lifestyle is to enjoy our lives and family more. And that might be one more part of the appraisal process. Maybe you (and me) need more boundaries between work and family time. More and more people are realizing the importance of a work-life balance and looking for way to find it, whether as an 9-to-5 employee or a work at home mom or dad.  Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth to Personal and Professional Satisfaction is a book many are finding helpful to acheive that satisfaction with clear steps to follow.

As for my scenarios above, I’ve decided to block out time to review my website once a week, to use scheduling tools for more tasks, to put off any new classes until I meet certain goals and to yes, chill. As a matter of fact, I’ll be heading to the porch to sit with the hubs and sip a glass of wine as soon as I wrap up this post. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to give the boot to that working from home stress. 😉

Till later, friends,