No matter how sane and sound advice you receive on working from home the roadblocks are ever present and often times tough to navigate. An effective work-from-home routine depends on how well you manage to navigate past these obstacles and eventually work toward eliminating some of them.

Child care Dilemma

If you have young kids at home it is best to have them at school or under child care when working from home, it is extremely tough to concentrate on work and work for few continuous hours if you have the child being taken care of at home. At most circumstances it must be avoided but what if you cannot afford it. There are some state based subsidized child care programs that you could go for but in the  recent times (and also very relevant article from NYtimes on how Cuts to Child Care Subsidy Thwart More Job Seekers says) the government has slashed off these programs – well what do you do?
Millions of people at home are trying to supplement their income or even launch a home based business, you do not have the funds for expensive childcare, it’s kind of this vicious circle where you need time to make money and you need money to get some time to do so. Tough tough indeed!

Defining Time Frames for Work and Family

Most people working from home say that it is tough to know when to end work and give complete attention to family and household chores. Work transcends the boundaries mostly when you have the computer on all the time or feel the constant urge to check emails or to know what is happening on the blogosphere to twittersphere.

Spouse Family Support

If your spouse expects you to run the household errands while working from home and also get all the chores done because you “were at home” then it sure is a stressor roadblock. When you are on the ramp or even accelerating toward your goals to bring in a stable income the time on the ramp may offer little or no income flow and that can be frustrating, if your spouse expects you to bring in a certain amount of income as a requirement or an expectation, it adds on to the pressure. And of course, if you are home and “not making money” then you could be well expected to get the house work done and not leave it to the one who is the sole earner for the family. It’s always an uphill battle on the ramp!

Family / Friends Visiting

If you have close family staying with you for a short or extended period of time and you are in a project time crunch, it kind of becomes necessary to be at work and even cut down on the lunch time – and at times it becomes difficult for others to understand that working from home actually means “working” it is similar to an office space completely devoted to work but since you are “at home” the expectations are not the same anymore.

What are your thoughts on this issue and what solutions would you suggest? Please comment.