I rarely work from home. This is not because I can’t- it’s pretty standard in our office that salaried employees work from home one day a week, but because I choose not to. As the office manager (okay, my title is a bit more complicated than that, but essentially, I’m the office manager) I feel that it’s best if I am in the office. The managers and directors I work with often like to swing by my office with a quick personnel or budget question. Could they email me these questions or call me with them? Probably, but they could have done that anyway. Instead, they are choosing to come see me in person. I like to be here for that.

However, sometimes I do work from home. My reasons vary from I have a delivery or repair man coming by to I’m too contagious to come into the office, but not too sick to work. This week I decided to work from home one day because of Junebug and her cone.

Maybe that’s more of an “excuse” than a reason. It might be. But when I told my boss that I intended to work from home on Wednesday, he said sure, not a problem, without any concern as to whether I had a valid reason or not.

Why? Because I work very hard to make sure that when I work from home, regardless of the reason I’m there, I actually work. I don’t want to mess up this perk for myself or for anyone else.

When I work from home, I make sure to set myself some very specific deliverables. In the first position I had where working from home was even an option, I was an analyst and the direct support person for an executive director. Working from home meant I wasn’t right outside her door to give her assistance when requested. That meant there really needed to be a reason. In those early days, the reason was almost always a major report that needed to be completed and analyzed. The nature of my position, combined with the location of my desk, meant that in the office, I had constant interruptions, and hanging a sign about needing not to be interrupted just created speculation.

So, on days when I really needed to be able to concentrate, I would arrange to work from home, but it was with the understanding that the report I was working on would be completed that day. Having that deliverable kept me honest, in the sense that even though I might still be in my pajamas, I was most definitely working.

While I can now schedule work from home days at my leisure/convenience, it hasn’t erased the lesson I learned then. I need to be accountable, even if it is only to myself.

When I decide to work from home, I look at the work I need to do that week and I pick out a few projects that will benefit from the lack of interruptions, or that don’t require a lot of interaction with other staff. Then, besides dealing with the daily work as it comes in, I have a specific goal in mind to help myself stay focused on work.

Maybe other people don’t need a specific goal for their work from home day to stay on task. I do.

Looking over at the bed, seeing my dogs curled up and sleeping, it was very tempting to just walk over there and curl up with them. After all, who would know? My boss doesn’t even know that I have these deliverables set for myself. My assistant will call my cell phone if she really needs to get a hold of me. I could just curl up with my dogs and only check email every couple hours.

But having set a goal for myself, I want to reach it. I don’t like making excuses, even when they come easy, or when I only have to make them to myself. So in this way, I stay accountable, even if no one other than me knows it.

What do you do to keep yourself on track when you work from home?