6 Tips for Co-working with your Partner
/Life is kinda crazy right now, huh? Perhaps you are one of the many people who have been forced to work from home. And maybe your partner is working from home as well. If so, things might be even crazier for you. But they don’t have to be.
Working in the same space as your partner may be totally foreign for you. For us though, it isn’t. At least it isn’t now. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we found ourselves working from the same office years ago, even though we were running different businesses.
One Sunday afternoon our nap was interrupted by a phone call. I (Ashley) noticed quite a few unknown-number missed calls. Was this a really aggressive telemarketer? When I finally answered, it was the fire department. “Maam, you may want to come down to see the damage.”
We were home, so the call wasn’t for our place. It was for my office building.
Fire Trucks were everywhere as we entered the parking lot. Luckily, Billy tagged along with me to check out what had happened. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw next.
Our small non-profit office was a total loss.
Turns out an electrical fire started in the wall, followed some cords into our office, and built its momentum on our IKEA furniture. That stuff burns quickly, ya’ll. But at least it’s cheap! The fire was so intense the sprinklers went off leaving about 6 inches of water in our office suite.
I was pretty panicked at this point. Our main program is scholarships and we were due to cut scholarship checks for students. What costs were we going to incur because of this? How would we manage those costs AND sending scholarship checks? Did our checks even survive the fire?
Luckily the question of where would we office from was answered before I even thought about it. Billy was moving into a new office that week. The plan was for him and his business to grow into it. “You all can office out of our space rent-free until you figure out what’s next.”
Our trial run worked out so well that I didn’t figure out “what’s next” for another 2.5 years.
Many couples around the nation (even the world) are suddenly finding themselves officemates against some unforeseen circumstances as well. We are all suddenly making adjustments and accommodations for our “new normal” for the foreseeable future.
And if you are a panicker like me, don’t let sharing an office be a point of stress. We had a lot of laughs (and headaches that we can now laugh at) during that time. We learned a lot about each other and how to share an office. And we will need to remind ourselves of these things as we find ourselves sharing a workspace again.
Here are our 6 tips for coworking with your partner…
Create separate workspaces. We are lucky to already have a home office with desks for each of us in place. But we once lived in a ~500 sq. ft. studio and still managed to have separate workspaces. One of us would work from the couch, another from our table. In your house, try to change up the workspaces-- it’ll be helpful when one person has a conference call and it helps fight that cabin fever. Word of caution: If you have rotating workspaces, you may find yourselves arguing over a spot. Lately, we have been fighting for one particular seat on our couch!
Hold each other accountable. Being in an office, you are used to working in a productive environment. There’s people all around you working, holding you accountable, and needing your portion of a project. Some of that camaraderie and teamwork is lost when working from home. Your partner is now part of your work team! If you find yourself slipping in productivity, ask them for support by sharing your to-do lists with each other. And with permission, ask where they are on their list throughout the day. We consider ourselves lifetime accountability partners and will be relying on each other now more than ever!
Don’t let your distractions become contagious. Social distancing can apply inside the house too. Billy is an active reader during the workday soaking up articles from USA Today, ESPN, and our local news. Ashley is notorious for checking social media often. We constantly use Google Chat to send links over to one other. By using a chat function, we were able to choose when to read the article or that oh-so-important post. If you have more self-control than us, you can even save the discussion for after-work hours! You should set working hours by the way if you can. And during those working hours, keep the watercooler talk to a minimum.
Be intentional with your time together. You are likely sitting on top of each other in your once-guestroom-now-makeshift-office but that doesn’t mean you are truly with each other. We enjoy eating lunch together when it makes sense. Quality Time is one of our shared love languages. If you share this in common with us, make sure you are dedicating time together to do something special. We’ve seen so many great lists circulating on Pinterest for in-home date night ideas.
If you have kids in the house, stagger your start times. By staggering your start time, one person can get the morning routine going with the kids, while the other gets their workday started. In the newborn days of our son, we often decided who was getting up with him in the middle of the night based on our schedules. If Billy had a tight morning schedule, Ashley would take care of our son (and vice versa). Word of caution: be sure to not keep score! My workflow is more flexible than Billy’s. If I were to keep score on all the times I opted to do something for our son, Billy would have a very long list of things to make up for me!
Have fun! It may seem scary to, all of a sudden, spend so much time with your partner, but it is a gift. You now get to work with the person you love most. How cool is that? Take advantage of this time together. Enjoy each other. Support each other. Love each other. Have fun together and everything will be okay.
