How to work comfortably when you’re visiting home for the holidays

So you’re taking your work laptop home to see the family? That's certain understandable, as one of the greatest freedoms that comes with remote work is the ability it gives you to do your work pretty much anywhere. As long as you have one of the best laptops and can set up your environment to be conducive to productivity, anywhere can serve as your temporary office.

That blessing can also be a curse, however. When you’re home for the holidays, you’re likely going to be surrounded by other people who are dying to see and spend time with you. You can quickly find yourself scrambling to get work done as your cousin’s toddlers try to climb your back mid-spreadsheet.

If you’re looking for some advice on how to cruise through a workday spent in the company of your loved ones without burning out, follow these three tips and you’ll be smooth-sailing.

1. Communicate with everyone

There’s a good chance your hosts are aware that you’ll be working here and there while you’re visiting, but it’s best to prepare them if you’re going to set up shop in the living room and will need peace and quiet from 9 to 5. This lets them mentally prepare for your semi-absence and plan major events accordingly; it also (hopefully) stops your youngest cousin from barging in on you while you’re on an important call.

The people you’re visiting aren’t the only people who may need a heads-up, especially if you’re traveling to another time zone. If you’re going to be working during a different part of the day than your colleagues, it’s best to let them know before they schedule your assignments for times that won't work for your temporary location.

2. Find balance

Are you really visiting your family if you’re just holed up in another room clacking away on your laptop the whole time? Of course not, so it’s important to set boundaries regarding when you’ll be working and when you’ll be with your family. When you can always reach work, work can always reach you, so it’s not a bad idea to schedule times for your laptop and phone to stop sending you notifications during downtime. Do Not Disturb is a powerful tool here, and you should use it to the fullest extent you can without neglecting your established duties at work.

On the flipside, if you need to concentrate during your work hours, you’re not making anything better by letting others interrupt you. If you get pulled away from tasks easily, it may be a good idea to separate yourself from others as much as you can. Find another room, ask others to leave you to your work, throw on a pair of the best noise-cancelling headphones, and knock everything out as quickly as you can so you can spend that surplus time with the people you traveled to see.

3. Set up a comfortable work area

Avoiding the distractions of a full house becomes a much more manageable challenge when you give yourself a quiet, private space to power through your to-do list.

If you can’t find a room that nobody else is using, do what you can to find a corner that you can dedicate to your work. Turn a seat at the dining room table into your makeshift desk, prop up pillows on your lap on the couch, or use pillows to give yourself extra lumbar support as you cozy up on the other side of your bed.

Another tactic I’ll be employing for the few days I’ll be working from my family’s houses will involve taking advantage of nearby cafes — of which there are many in the college town where I was raised. This allows me to keep work out of my family’s house altogether, and it gives me a natural transition between work and festivities that provides a clean break between the two.

It won’t be perfect, but it can work

It’s ultimately futile to try to design the ultimate home office for a week-long visit with the ‘rents, but you can get pretty dang close. All that matters is that you set as many boundaries as you can regarding where and when you’ll work, and do what you can to make those spaces and times work for you instead of against you. The last thing your family needs is for you to be burning yourself out as you inadvertently yo-yo between work and family time.

Above all, remember that holidays are a time for relaxing. Don’t put pressure on yourself to take on a wall of work while you’re curled up with your childhood teddy bear while you’re miles away from your best standing desk. The holidays are a time of healing and relaxing — let them be.

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