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Manhattanite Emilie Goldman likes to get in the zone for meetings. So taking a work video-conference call in her childhood bedroom in Rochester — where she’s hunkering down for the coronavirus pandemic, amid high-school knickknacks and lacrosse trophies — did not thrill her.

It’s hard to focus when, “at any time, my mom can walk into the room to ask if I want an omelet or tell me to take out the garbage,” the 24-year-old Manhattanite, who works for SquareFoot, tells The Post.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced everyone except “essential workers” to operate remotely. Along the way, it’s created a host of challenging issues as people sacrifice their privacy and struggle to balance their personal and professional lives.

Take Pamela Ciprian, 30, of Mount Vernon, NY. The human-resources executive no longer has child care for her 14-month-old son, so she’s working into the night to stay on top of office emails.

“It’s really hard for me to follow a full-blown schedule and keep my usual office working hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” says Ciprian, whose husband, a first responder, reports for duty at night. “Between work calls, tending to the baby and cooking, a lot of stuff gets pushed off until 8:30 p.m. after my son has gone to bed. Yesterday I didn’t finish until 10:30 p.m.”

Setting boundaries can be tough when your living room suddenly becomes your office.

“The downside of working from home is that [employers believe] they can interrupt you at any moment,” says Terry Moore, a Manhattan-based businessman with a Ph.D. in organizational psychology. “If you don’t instantly reply to a text or WhatsApp, they feel like you are not paying attention.”

The trick, he says, is “to assert as much autonomy over one’s home work as one might in the office.”

He says you need to let your superiors know that there will be times when you must tend to matters other than work — and that you can’t be tied to your desk 24/7.

“It’s important to tell them that you need at least an hour’s break to do something that you love, whether it’s walking the dog, gardening, cooking, building something, writing poetry or listening to music,” he says. “Those breaks will make everyone a better worker, colleague or boss.”

Moore recommends sending a “clocking off” email at the end of your shift, to (politely) point out that you have completed the required hours for the day.

Idalia Dillard, vice president of human resources and operations for the Chicago and Orlando-based public relations agency Uproar PR, has been coaching managers on respecting their underlings’ downtime.

As a boss, she says, if you simply must send an email at 8 at night, you should let your employee know that you don’t expect a response until the following morning.

“Managers need to communicate differently with their employees than with other managers,” says Dillard.

In turn, she believes employees need to behave responsibly and professionally, as tempting as it might be to put in a load of laundry or change a few lightbulbs between video conferences.

“Some people work very well from their couch watching TV at the same time, but that’s something you would do when you’re at home relaxing,” adds Dillard. “Separate the two. When you’re done at 5 p.m. or whenever, you’ll feel like you’ve had a productive day and then you can switch gears and go into relaxation mode.”

That said, Dillard’s also a fan of so-called virtual happy hours, which have become increasingly popular on Zoom. During the sessions, colleagues video-chat in their home offices, drinking a glass of their own wine or beer. Dillard maintains they should take place on company time and can be bonding.

“The thing to always remember is that it is entirely optional,” she says. “Nobody should feel obliged to take part.”

That notion appeals to Ciprian, who’s so far excused herself from the weekly virtual happy hours at her firm.

“I don’t have time for them,” she says, half-joking.