Let’s be real for a moment. Living in one part of the city and working in a completely different part of the city is not our cup of tea, especially when your job does not require you to rent those high-end offices in downtown.
Live-work lofts are a great way of combining home lofts, and office lofts under one roof, to ensure that you can work and live in the same loft. Downtown lofts are the most popular when it comes to this type of arrangement.
Let us first agree that the largest challenge when you are living and working under the same roof, the most difficult thing is to find a real balance between your life and work.
Working in the same loft might get you compromising either of the two. You can either work so much that you forget about your life, or you can be indulged too much that you forget about your work. Most of us fall under the latter category.
So, How do you create a life-work balance in live-work lofts?
Firstly, separate the workplace from the home place
Many people fail to understand this simple concept. You must have a workplace that stands out from other personal life spaces. Some of the ways that you can separate the workplace from the home place are;
(i).Create a full office on one side of the room and make sure nothing meant for personal life is brought over to the “office.”If possible, partitions would work best. Partition your loft so that there is a feeling of privacy, and also a feeling of being separate from your personal lifeMake sure your workspace faces away from your personal life space.
You should give your back to your personal space when working. I mean literary. Check out some ideas here.
Secondly, be disciplined with time management
Imagine that your office is in the other part of town. At what time would you open your office, at what time would you close your office, when you are at your office, would you constantly be coming back to your house for this or that? No. Right!
Then don’t do it when you are in a live-work loft too.
By the way, this is not supposed to be one way. When it is time for your personal life, stay away from the office. This is the only way you can achieve a life-work balance when you are literary leaving in your office.
Thirdly, you will have to find something to keep your pets and or children busy
Children and pets do not care whether it’s time to work or not. Even though we work so that we can feed, cloth, give them a roof and ensure that they are healthy.
They will come up to you even when you are handling your customer. It is therefore advisable that you find them something to keep them busy during your working hours.
Fourthly invest in comfortable office furniture.
Yeah, if you get yourself an uncomfortable office, you will look for every excuse to work from your personal life space. You will always find a reason to go, sit, and work from that comfortable couch, or to straighten your back a little on your bed.
This will create an imbalance, and reduce your productivity. Invest in your office; it is where you spend a quarter of your day anyway.
Other tips for a balanced workspace when you are living and working in a live-work lofts
If you live in a live-work loft, there are other things that you should about your personal space to ensure that you achieve a balance. The following are some of the things that you should do;
Ensure that when your customer visits your office, they do not get a glimpse of your personal life, which is contrary to the profession.
Yeah, you must brand your live work loft the way that you want to brand yourself to the outside world. This a is a thorn you will have to live with as long as you are in a live-work loft.
It is possible, to be frank about yourself when you are living in your home, which is separate from the office, but this is not possible in a live-work loft.
On the brighter side, though, why don’t you take this as a challenge to brand yourself all round so that when customers come, your life can only intrigue them? This is especially more important if it is an artist loft.
Tidiness, neatness, and cleanliness should be your highest priority.
Everything should be where it is supposed to be, the live-work loft should always be clean, and ensure orderliness of the highest standard. You do not want your clients to give that look. The “why the hell is you so disorganized” look.