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Moonsail Limited
Making Words Work For You |
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Living out of a briefcase
My office in Old Windsor is currently undergoing refurbishment – including rewiring. With the dust and chaos this entails, I decided it made sense to temporarily relocate to home until the work is complete. So one Friday evening I packed up all the ‘essentials’ (including computer and printer of course) and brought them home…
I decided to swap my home laptop set for the much faster desktop set. That was my first mistake – I simply could not persuade it to connect to the internet successfully. It would time out, crash, lose all my work, freeze, refuse to attach files to email, and just generally waste loads of time. So in the end I just reconnected the laptop for internet use and moved the desktop set into the dining room where I could work on my writing projects undisturbed.
This process of connecting, disconnecting, reconnecting, cursing and swearing cost me about a day and a half. Not a good start. In fact the first week at home was fraught with minor disasters, with frequent trips to and from the office to retrieve books, files, CDs, software, cables, printing paper etc – all forgotten in my haste to relocate.
By the second week though, things were improving. I was adapting to a new way of working and a change to my normal work routine. And despite the odd interruption and distraction (3 kids under 5 remember), I was somehow managing to get more working hours out of each day – the opposite of what I’d expected. How was this possible?
I realise because I'm so locked into the ‘9 to 5’ mindset, I’d been putting myself under unnecessary pressure AND robbing myself of useful working time each and every day. For a start, I’d always be anxious to get out of the house early to beat the traffic. We’d be frantically running around, trying to get the children dressed and ready for school or playgroup, before I rush off to the office for the day. By 6 o clock (at the latest) I’d need to be heading home to help with the bathtime / bedtime routine. So by 5pm I’d be constantly checking my watch, gradually getting more and more stressed as I realised whatever I was working on wasn’t going to get finished that day.
But working at home, I avoid subjecting myself to this uncomfortable daily process. I check my email first thing in the morning, leaving the computer switched on until after the school run. I can work fairly uninterrupted until late afternoon, at which time I’ll take a break and spend some time with the family. Then once the children are tucked up in bed, I can continue working for as long as I like. Knowing I’ve got this total flexibility over my ‘work time’ relieves the stress completely. If something ends up taking me longer than expected, it doesn’t matter – I know I can just work a bit later to make up for the lost time.
It’s now week three and I’m really starting to appreciate and enjoy the advantages of working at home. No more stressful morning routine, no time wasted on commuting, no (self-imposed) pressure to finish my work by 6 o clock to rush home, no concerns about leaving work ‘unfinished’ for the next day. The office refurb is nearly finished and the plan is to move back this weekend - but I’m already dreaming up ways of utilising some space for a permanent home office...
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