Clock Face
It takes a special kind of discipline—one I don’t possess—to be able to sit back from the daily duties and imagined priorities and the pressure to Get Things Done and sometimes just relax and enjoy what you have.
I’ve spent dozens of years working from home. I was a freelance writer for a good long while. I ran online forums for GE and Microsoft for many years. When I was a Realtor® I worked from the back bedroom instead of renting office space at the local office.
If you can do it, I really recommend it. It can be, uh, freeing to work in your undies (or less!). If you feel thirsty, go and fix yourself a cold drink of water or a cold soda. If you’re hungry, make yourself a sandwich or heat up a frozen pizza. You can play your music as loud as you like and if you want to watch a streaming episode or two you can do that, too.
The problem I ran into early-on was that I have that affliction the TV commercial calls “Non-24”. In the TV ad, the hero is blind, but I’m certain I worked this way, too. Left to myself, I tended to float through about a 25hr or 27hr day. Kathie would tend to go to bed at around 10pm or so. I would stay up and noodle around on my Macintosh until about midnight or 1am. The next day she’d be headed to bed around 10pm or 10:30pm. I’d get up as she was leaving for work and stay up until around 3am. The next day I’d be asleep when she went to work and stay up until dawn, and so on.
For a long time it wouldn’t be a problem. I’d be going to bed after she had left for work and I’d wake up before she came home. I would get all kinds of things done, overnight. But every several weeks, I’d be fast asleep when she got home and remain that way until the pre-dawn hours—that was difficult for her and I’m sure I missed out on a lot, too.
I never had the kind of job where people had to come and visit me at my work, and I count that a blessing. It was great a good deal of the time, and I’m glad I had the ability to do it. But it’s not for everyone.
