Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Balancing Act: Working From Home

Working from home always sounds exciting when you tell people that is what you do. It's not so exciting when you get distracted by laundry, dishes, pets, playing video games, gardening, blog "research", looking up new jogging routes, cooking,....I could go on and on.

I usually need to make myself a to-do list every single day with the ABSOLUTELY MUST GET DONE at the top of the list and the less important things towards the bottom. It is too easy, however, to make a really simple list and then mark it all off and then feel good for the day's work. You have to make it realistic, but challenging. Nobody is going to make, photograph, organize, or market my art but me, myself, and I.

I am about to face new workplace challenges in the coming months as my husband just gave notice at his work today because he is going to be starting a new job, working from home. Which is wonderful in many, many ways, of course--I would much rather have him work from home than commute to Seattle! (It was looking like he was going to have to start doing that at the end of the year.)

What I didn't realize until I started to really think about it is that I like my alone time. Will he expect me to make lunch for him every day? Worse, will I automatically rearrange my day to make him lunch? Will we distract one another? When I first started working from home, I would go a little stir crazy with no one to talk to. Luckily, our offices are on different floors and my art studio is behind the house. I asked a friend of mine that is in the same situation (she a ceramic artist, he a web designer) what advice she had and she said, "Don't talk to each other."

I am looking forward to us both being at home, but I know it might get tricky. Any suggestions or advice?

2 comments:

  1. It's pretty hard for me to ignore Paul if he's home when I'm trying to work on a project. Of course if he was home ALL the time I'm sure the novelty would wear off, and it would be easier to ignore him. Perhaps that will be the case for you -- maybe both of you working from home will be distracting for a bit, and once you're used to being around each other all the time it'll be easier to ignore each other! Regardless, congrats Trevor, and good luck Jennevieve!

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  2. Ooh, yes, tricky one. I love my hubby to bits and it's great to have him around, but I've noticed I do get more done on days when I'm off work and he isn't. Keep us posted!

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