This is a guest post by Beth Pratt of It’s a WAHM Thing. Enjoy, and be sure to check out her site for more great information for work at home moms!

You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who would say that working from home is emotionally harder than working in an office, separated from home and family. But there are pitfalls to working at home, and trying to separate work life from home life is one of them. Working in an office, you don’t have to worry about your kids or spouse interrupting you in the middle of a phone call.

How do you create a barrier between work and home when you are always at home? Just creating a separate work space is not enough when it comes to determining where work ends and home begins. Sometimes, no matter your persistence, family and friends will continue to demand your time and attention. It’s not enough to tell them that you’re busy and cannot be bothered. As long as you’re visible, you’re accessible in the eyes of loved ones and kids. But there are ways to differentiate work time from home time. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Set up a real work space. It’s really hard to convince your family that you’re inaccessible when you’re sitting in the living room surrounded by your kids playing and the stereo or television blaring. It is best to have your own office set up where you can close the door and lock it when you’re working, but sometimes space restraints make that impossible. If you live in tight quarters, cordon off an area of a room where you can sit and work undisturbed. Explain to the kids that it is kind of like a “time-out” area, and that nobody can bother you while you’re in it.

2. Make a work schedule. Designate a particular block of time for work, whether you keep the same hours all week or change your schedule on a daily basis. Put it in table form and post it on the refrigerator. Assign tasks for the kids or spouse to do while you’re working, such as cleaning or fixing dinner.

3. Be serious about your schedule. It’s easy to break down and go out to play with the kids when they linger around you with those puppy-dog eyes (another reason to have a different room to work in) but you may have to be straightforward with them. Let them know that you’ll play after your shift is done. For many parents that can be the hardest part of working at home. You’re working at home so that you can play with your kids more and spend time with your spouse, yet you always seem to be telling them to wait. Don’t let it bother you too much. Once your family begins to understand just where you stand, that work is important and is given its own time and space for their benefit, they will help you keep the two separated.

4. When you’re done with work for the day, stop working. Just as it’s tempting to stop for the day to spend time with the kids, it can be tempting to keep working to finish a project or get ahead of the marketing game. But doing this is just as bad taking off early. If you’re going to put your schedule first, stick to it 100%, no more, no less. Working over your scheduled hours can often be worse than taking off early, because it’s like telling your family that they’re not important enough to you to distinguish between them and work. Of course, there will be days when you have to work more on your projects than you want to, especially on days when you have a deadline or have agreed to finish a milestone. This is the time, however, when working at home can be modified to fit your needs.

Once you have managed to separate work from home, you can maintain that separation by remembering why you chose to work at home. You’re there because you don’t want to spend your life working for someone else, grasping at snippets of time to spend with your family. Just remember, no matter how difficult it is to maintain a work schedule, your family will appreciate the effort you put into keeping the two aspects of your life separate.

Beth Pratt is a work at home mom and editor for Its a WAHM Thing, a blog covering all aspects of balancing your home-based career and raising a family. Beth is the proud mother of two boisterous boys: Theakston aged 5 and Alwyn aged 2.