If you work at home it’s vitally important to create some sort of separation between your working life and your private life.

For the home based business operator it can be difficult to maintain the privacy of home and be accessible to clients at the same time. Maintaining privacy is important to most people – you really don’t want clients dropping by unannounced, or calling you by telephone at all hours of the day and night, seven days a week. Yet, you have to be available to your clients. So how do you find a balance between privacy and accessibility?

Exactly how much of your privacy can be retained will depend in part upon what type of business operation you are running. If you are selling goods that customers must collect, or you hold consultations in your home, you can’t avoid customers attending your residence – but you can certainly limit it.

Setting a time during which items must be collected or appointments scheduled allows you to determine hour many hours of the day you’ll keep private. If customers are used to dropping by unannounced, you might find that one or two persist in doing it after you’ve advised them of the change. If that’s the case, there are two ways to tackle the problem.

The first is to put a small sign on your door advising that items may only be collected during certain hours. For the customer who doesn’t seem to care and continues to turn up whenever it suits them, there’s a very simple but effective solution - not answering the door. Nobody likes a wasted trip and the chances are you’ll only have to do it once before they get the message.

Another way in which you can protect your privacy is by not allowing your clients into the main living area of your home unless you have no option. Unless they’re personal friends, don’t invite them to sit in the living area for coffee. Once they arrive, take them straight to the consultancy room.

The telephone can be just as intrusive – and clients do ring at all hours if they know it’s a home number. As a lot of people have “private” numbers, it’s difficult not to answer the phone in case it’s someone you want to talk to! The solution is to invest in a second number, just for your business – and don’t answer it before or after work hours. Use message bank when you’re busy with a client or have a job to rush through and don’t want the interruptions.

Working at home has so many benefits attached to it that it’s easy to overlook problem areas. Your home is your private sanctuary and you’ll really start to miss that if you allow customers to invade your privacy at any hour. It can make you feel as if there is just nowhere to retreat to – and that won’t do much for your morale and your enthusiasm for work.

No matter what type of business you run from home, setting privacy and work time boundaries is one of the best things you can do for yourself and subsequently, your business.