For Professional Writers: How to Get Friends, Neighbors, and Family to Understand that You are Working When You are Home

Writing is the original work-from-home job. Despite its traditional nature, it is sometimes hard to be taken seriously when you work at home as professional writer. Your family, friends and, if you are freelancer, sometimes even clients sometimes don't seem to understand that you are really working when you say you're working. Granted, you may be working from your kitchen table in your favorite fuzzy robe and bunny slippers, but you are working, nonetheless.

Overall, the advantages to working at home far outweigh the disadvantages, but the problem of people not taking you seriously and giving you time to work is a very serious one it is sometimes difficult to overcome.

Scheduling

Establish your schedule around the schedules of other household members who must go to an external work place or to school or other pre-scheduled events.

Eliminate all unnecessary tasks and allocate what you can of what is left to other members of the household.

Let everybody in the house know about your schedule. You may have to reinforce it more than a few times. If you have friends who have the habit of dropping by or calling you at certain times, let them know that you'll be working and unable to accept their calls or visits at that time.

It is advisable to schedule a short break in your writing, as well, not just to take care of other tasks, but for your own relaxation and mental health. During that time go for a nature walk, play a game, or get some exercise, such as bouncing on a rebounder or stair-stepping.

The Problem of Noise and Disruptions in Your House

If the problem is noise in the house, firstly address that with the noisemakers. Try to get them to understand the noise disrupts your ability to work effectively. If that fails, you can try ear plugs. They feel a little strange, at first, but then you start to relax with them and the quiet they create will help you keep your focus.

If you have small children to look after, you can't really lock the door and put your ear plugs in unless there is another responsible adult you can really trust in the house to watch them. This is the time to ask for cooperation from adult members of your household, if they exist.

Let them understand that if it is not an emergency, it must wait. If no one is in pain, bleeding, dying, etc., then they can bother you with at a designated time. Again, this is only going to work if you have other responsible adults in your house or children who are old enough and responsible to monitor themselves in another room of the house for an hour or so, at a time.

If you're still not getting a lot of cooperation, you can try working when they are all asleep, either very early in the morning or very late. It is not uncommon for many writers to work all night long as the rest of the world sleeps.

It is, also, a fact that many writers are loners who do not have husbands, wives, girlfriends, children or many friends, at all. The world of highly prolific writers is often a solitary and nocturnal one.

Training Friends, Neighbors, and Others to Respect Your Time

Once you have dealt with the problem of disruptions inside your house, you must decide how to deal with external interruptions. The two biggest problems you are likely to encounter are the telephone ringing and needy neighbors.

Make it clear to friends and neighbors that they should not simply drop by. For instance, you may have a problem with neighbors who see that you are home all day and think you have time to converse or help them with their problems. If you’re not good at confrontation, print out a sign and tape it to the outside of your door letting people know not to bother you. Get rid of your doorbell. Get rid of the knocker, then place a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. You may have to say it very specifically, “Do not knock.”

You will probably have to train them, though, because they may hear or read your words, but they may not really believe them. Train them by simply not answering the door when someone knocks.

If you have the problem of friends calling you up for purposes of inane chat while you're trying to work, explain to them that you are working and you don't have time to talk now. If you have a writing schedule, let them know what it is, so they know when is a good time to call you. Likely this will not work, so you will soon have to get into the habit of not answering the phone. Better yet, turn the disruptive telephone off, if possible. It’s not possible to work well with a phone ringing in the background. Make a deal with your friends that you will call them, instead.

Give them a few chances not to be a nuisance. If that fails, change your phone number. It is so easy an inexpensive these days with Magic Jack and other VOIP systems. You can still have caller ID, call waiting and voice mail. With Magic Jack, voice mails go right to your email box.

Writing Must Come First

For writers, writing must come first because this is your bread and butter. You have nothing, no food, no internet connection, no roof over your head from which to write, if you do not have the time to do your work without interruption. Therefore, make up your mind to do whatever you must to get the peace and time to write.