There is a simple philosophy that I live by to help maintain peace and harmony in life, and that is what happens at work stays at work and what happens at home stays at home. Letting the two worlds impact one another can have devastating effects on both areas of your world. This can be especially challenging for people that work from home.

Many people work long hours in their jobs or home business and find they don't feel like they have much left over for their families after a long day. Yet, the families are the priority, how to give your best to both can be a struggle.

Strategy One: Use the drive home to focus on coming home.

Granted this tip is more for people who work outside of the house, it's important none the less. However long your drive from work to home is, use that time to work through work issues somewhat and then focus on what you have to look forward to at home. Look forward to spending time with your loved ones.

Tip Two: Make a Schedule

This tip is for people that work from home, where keeping work and family separate is even more of a challenge. You might need to think outside of the box. There's a great tendency to put in alot more work hours when you work from home, simply because you're there. Perhaps you can work after the kids have gone to bed, or down for a nap. But look at the needs of your family and see if you can carve out times when their needs are less to use that for work hours.

Tip Three: Separate Your Phone lines

Fortunately for me, with my business I rarely have to be on the phone, almost all communication with clients is done via email. But if you are finding that you are getting business phone calls at all hours, having a separate number for them to call is great. You also have the option of making your cell phone your business phone and the home phone is personal. This way when your work day is done you can put the phone down and walk away from it. You can also separate the rings for people you know personally and business so you don't accidentally answer a business call after working hours.

Strategy Four: Have an Office that is separate from the rest of the house.

Do you have an extra room that could be used exclusively for this purpose? I know it's not always possible. Perhaps you could get inexpensive room partitions to create a work area. It's important that you try to make a space so that your roles can be separate and you can walk away from it when you need to. It also helps to keep family out of your work area as well.