Holiday Family Time Vs. Working at Home

‘Tis the season… to go a little crazy. With all the family events, how do you balance having fun for the holidays with working at home?

Some things are pretty obvious. I mean, unless you have a work at home job that won’t give you the holiday off for some reason, you can just choose not to work during family celebrations. But if things are picking up, what then?

Prioritizing with a Home Business

If your home business picks up right when you want more family time, you can have some tough decisions to make. If you want to succeed, you do often have to sacrifice some time.

But there are options.

I mentioned virtual assistants the other day. This can be a great time of year to hire one to handle all the basics that really don’t need your personal touch. If you haven’t been sure about hiring a bit of help, this is probably a good time to try it out.

This may also be the time to just plain lose some sleep. If you can work a bit later into the night you can keep business things going while losing less family time.

When a Work at Home Job isn’t Cooperating

Most work at home jobs are pretty flexible. In a lot of cases you say when you are willing to work. But sometimes your employer will have a schedule they need you to keep… even on holidays.

Sure, you could call in sick, but you know how realistic that will sound.

Asking for the time you will need early on is key, but it doesn’t always work. If you get stuck working at a time you’d rather be enjoying your family, try rescheduling events a little. Hard as it may be to alter your usual holiday routine, it’s worse if you lose income your family needs.

I grew up flexible around holidays so that may be easy for me to say. Christmas took several days just because of the time it took to see both of my parents and my grandparents. It wasn’t uncommon to not see some people until New Year’s.

Know what? It didn’t make the celebrations any less special. It was about seeing family, not just the food and/or gifts.

Of course, your religious observances may be another story. But in many cases you have a few options for when to attend services. If not, that’s something you will have to deal with and discuss with your employer.

Remember the Reason for the Season

Much as we celebrate holidays on a particular day, they really aren’t about that day so much as they are about the events they celebrate. Keep that in mind as you decide what is most important to you.