Homeworkers Anonymous
I survived my first week of homeworking without doing any of the following:
- Going mad
- Playing games all day
- Eating enough to go up a jeans size
- Procrastinating for eight hours a day
- Buying an iMac
So all things considered, pretty good.
Homeworking is a slightly odd experience, and I’m sure anyone who does it or has done so in the past may be able to relate to my first few days.
Initially things seem absolutely brilliant, you wake up without an alarm for the first time in months. A leisurely routine of getting up and ready for the day rather than the normal mad dash to get showered and out the door (in the dark and cold). I opted to take Sally into work for her two days, it helped her and meant I was up at a reasonable time and ready to go.
The first problem I had was a motivational one, and as I’m homeworking for myself and not for a company there isn’t any pressure to really get things done. So my first couple of days were less than productive but then all of a sudden things really clicked into place.
It doesn’t take long for the novelty of “I can watch 24 at 8:30 while having breakfast” to wear off and I started to impose a few office style restrictions on myself.
As I am primarily working on getting everything relating to my Mum’s book finished, I set myself a deadline whereby everything to do with it must be finished by the end of next week. It was always my intention when I finished my primary contract at the end of February to take a month to enjoy some time off and get the book finished. So when that schedule was enforced then things started to slot into place.
It’s been very interesting for me to be working on something that involves actually using (several) computers as opposed to fixing, configuring, installing or maintaining them. There has been some severe frustration with WordPress at times, but that is more down to my own knowledge of the system rather than the system itself being at fault. This partially sighted craftsman isn’t going to blame his tools this time.
But I’m very fortunate that everything I have been working on has a great community behind it, whether it be the support folks at Solostream who make them themes my sites run or the superb Kevin Partner who wrote the book “How to Set Up An Online Business” that has been my bible for this project.
The one key aspect though that everyone talks about when you switch from an office to a home environment (aside from regular income each month) is the human aspect. Working alone can be simply that…lonely. And while people are always either at the end of a phone, or on Twitter, Facebook, Messenger, etc it’s not the same as being able to walk a few steps and have a face to face conversation.
Although this aspect is quite frankly easily outweighed by the fact that I can work without shaving, not requiring smart clothing and I have a ready supply of espresso twelve steps away (yes I counted).
Of course everything in the universe has to balance out so while the bullet point list at the top of this post was celebrating the things I have managed to avoid doing, I have started to talk to myself and Will but fortunately neither of us answers. Oh and I have developed a penchant for microwave pizza and espresso. For breakfast. Don’t believe me?
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About the Author (Author Profile)
By day I work in IT as an infrastructure manager, specialising in Microsoft technologies, primarily Windows and Exchange Server.
On here I write about my passions, movies, videogames, technology and particularly the world of high definition.
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I don’t work alone, but I work in a building with one other person in it . . . and he spends all day cleaning so we hardly every talk. My other coworkers are in the main office building, only a short walk away which I make many times a day to go fix something, but still . . . in another building. So when I’m working, I usually only have my music for noise and twitter for conversation.
There are times when I love it. There are times when not having people around provides a (relatively) distraction free environment that makes for a much more productive day. And being the head of the department (and the only employee of the department lol) I make my own schedule and goals. Usually I have clear deadlines (things need to be done by Wednesday or by Sunday most of the time) which helps. But I’m constantly having to keep myself in check to get stuff done during the day. With no one around . . . I could easily spend the day doing nothing productive at all.
Actually coming into work, to another building another place helps me have the ‘I’m at work now and need to do work things’ mentality. I’m not sure I could survive working at home. Maybe soon I’ll be in a more ‘normal’ office environment. 8- )
So this guy who spends all day cleaning (that’s weird)…he’s in your mind right?
One of the other difficulties of being at home and working is the whole aspect of not going somewhere else and being in work mode. The flipside is also you spend a lot more hours working on stuff as well, such as me editing WordPress code on a Sunday evening.
But its only temporary. Just like you being where you are for now.
Yes, Brandon (or so I call him) is just a construct of my imagination. And now that you have forced me to reaslise that . . . you have effectively killed him.
Murderer !
Also, I have e-mailed the G-Man to ask for an interview appointment.