Four Steps to Keep You Balanced When You Work from Home

Creating work-life balance can be difficult for anyone these days, but it’s particularly challenging for those who work at home, especially travel agents who deal with clients and time zones around the globe.

And there are many in this situation—about 40,000 home-based agents, including part-timers, in the United States, according to the American Society of Travel Agents.

Travel Market Report decided to check in with some of them to see just how they run their businesses to create balance in their lives. In the end, they came up with four steps to maintaining an even keel.

1. Set firm boundaries
Good fences make good neighbors, Robert Frost said, and agents agree that establishing boundaries is the most important step to maintaining your sanity.

“When I started the business I was of the mistaken impression that I would have to be available 24/7, because I never knew when that booking would come in,” said Raye Hayden, of Triple R Travel, a member of MTravel.com, a division of Ensemble member agency Montrose Travel, in Tampa, FL. “I’d pick up the phone at 8:30 at night.”

But after 18 months she started to set boundaries and let it go—“unless I see a client’s number come across and I know they’re on a trip.”

Linda Lassers of Touch of Travel, an Ensemble member agency in Lakewood, CA, also sets strict hours and tries to stick to them. “I’m very regimented. I have a set time I go into my office. I come in at 7 and try to quit by 2,” she said.

According to Staci Blunt of Vacation Visions in Chandler, AZ, it’s important to “get your clients to respect your listed working hours and not just to call you whenever they want to chat about their vacation plans, unless it’s an emergency.”

With a family that includes four children, Lisa Cohen-Dumani of The Travel Fairy, an MTravel.com agency in Bethesda, MD, finds it particularly important to create boundaries. She works 9 to 3, when her kids are in school, and every Friday schedules her hours for the next week. She tries hard not to schedule anything outside of those hours and to include time for herself, if possible.

2. Clearly define your work space
Having a defined workspace, whether a home office or a corner of the kitchen table, is also crucial. Everyone in the house must recognize your space and realize that when you are there, you’re at work.

Agents who work at home also need to set physical boundaries for clients who want to meet face to face.

While Blount used to go to clients’ homes, she didn’t always feel safe when the client was new. Now she alternates among three neighborhood coffee shops instead.

3. Create your own social scene
Agents who work at home often crave the kind of camaraderie and social support they would have in an office, and there are many ways to achieve this.

For Linda Lassers, whose Touch of Travel includes four home-based agents, it’s getting together on a regular basis.

“At least twice a month I have a sales rep from places like Oceana Cruises or Abercrombie and Kent come by my house and bring lunch, and we all meet here,” she said. “We have lunch with the sales rep and then have a meeting about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it and how we can make things better.”

Raye Hayden uses Meetup.com to create her community. She recently relocated to Tampa and has already joined a couple of groups that are geared toward small businesses.

Cohen-Dumani has a circle of friends in her area who work from home, and she regularly spends time talking to them.

4. Find some time to travel!
It’s always a challenge to separate from your work. To make it possible, build relationships that you can depended upon to cover for you. And then take some time and get away, whether for vacation, fam trips, or just some alone time.

“As I’ve developed my business, I’ve made really good friends who are also with Montrose Travel, so they can back me up,” said Hayden.

Once when she was in Copenhagen, for example, she got an email from a supplier saying that if a client’s airfare wasn’t paid for in full by 5 p.m., it was going up $460. But she was able to get ahold of her backup and get it done.

Even if you can’t get to Amsterdam, give yourself a break.

“Take a walk outside, walk around the block. Turn your mind off work and onto something else. Have a hobby that you like to do,” said Ann van Leeuwen, president of the National Association of Career Travel Agents.

Take time for lunch and coffee breaks and socially get together with people within the industry, she suggested. Meet with a new supplier or another travel consultant one-on- one.

In short, “Get face time outside of the smart phone and computer,” she said, to keep both you and your business in balance.