Both work and home life can both be stressful and difficult to manage at certain times. Often one may start to overtake the importance of the other from time to time. Balancing this work and home life, especially when work is very demanding of you, can be a huge challenge. Keeping focused and maintaining a healthy pattern of lifestyle will be essential to being satisfied at the end of your day with both your work and home life.

For starters, create separate to-do lists for work objectives and home objectives. Prepare these lists in advanced so you can plan your upcoming day or weeks and be properly prepared. These lists should outline what you need to do, a few things you may want to do, and some core objectives you want to achieve for that week or month. In order to keep that balance, make sure you are taking time away to relax, have fun, or remove yourself from stressful conditions.

The next helpful tip is to leave work at work, and leave home at home. A very simple statement, yet not so simple of a task! It’s unfair to your co-workers, and can result in a serious lack of production for the day if throughout work, your home circumstances are effecting your mood or behavior. Likewise, it can jeopardize marriages, families, or friendships if the problems at work are brought to the home. If you are unhappy in your work life, perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate your vocation, but if you can manage the stress of your job to continue your employment, you should also learn to turn the work mode on and off. What happens at work should not affect your home life, and vise versa.

Another great idea is to create opportunities or events to look forward to. This applies to both work and home. Find something that takes your mind off of work that you can enjoy perhaps on your lunch break or right after work once a week. This will give you something to look forward to in the days before, and hopefully will give you a uplift to make it through the next few days. It could be as simple as going to your favorite coffee shop and enjoying your favorite latte, taking a yoga or kickboxing class, or simply finding a nice park to read a book. Whatever you may think of that will help relax, motivate, and inspire you to keep doing what you do.

For those struggling with working from home and being productive, the best advice is to get a virtual office. It’s a little different when you have to get up and go to work. This can help avoid procrastination, lack of productivity or distractions. By having a place to be at certain times of the day you can plan your day more accordingly and stay on schedule. It also gives you an excuse to leave the house.