Rules For Working From Home.
Without Prejudice
It's hard at first to maintain a discipline working from home, but a routine is a must. I write every day and have to imagine that I am at the Office, to maintain a Discipline. I turn the mobile on silent, the IPad on silent and the Tv on. I like a bit of background noise, the radio is good too. Steven King plays loud rock music to help him enter the zone.
He has a wife however and I am a single woman so I do get housework thoughts entering my mind which have to be paid attention to. Given the vagaries of Melbourne weather on a fine day or windy day, washing has to be hung out to gain fresh smelling laundry. Before enlightenment, the washing, after enlightenment, the washing.
Sometimes at 8am or so I might get a skinny tall school boy at my door requesting I drive him to School, but it's a rare event, these days. I live behind my daughters brick house in a perfect one bedroom unit and like to share family duties. I write resumes, help with homework, fetch groceries, pick up the dog poo, ( ghastly ) do the garden,
The unit is about Twenty feet from the house and the little ones can find it in pitch black darkness, dodging toys, dogs, locked gates, and if they do I always let them in as a reward for their cleverness. I live in the now and stop whatever I am doing to play with them. If I am writing in the mornings, when my energy is at it's highest, I ignore their calls of Nanny.
I write from 8.30 to 2pm with regular breaks in between. Coffee break, lunch I tend to put off until I am finished. The afternoons are for running errands, relaxing, doing Ebay, editing, resourcing another story and housework. Sometimes I may turn the routine on its head and get out and about early for a purpose, but it's better to maintain a strict routine. It stops me from feeling unproductive or guilty, both things wasting time, but I am a woman and guilt is part of our natures.
I loathe editing so try to edit as I go. The IPad I find is not very edit friendly, so I have to just write in one long stream. Going back in to a story to edit makes the template go awry for some reason and I find the story jumps all over the place.
I get up very early, it's annoying, but it's the way my body works. I shower, dress, and eat fruit and have at least two coffees, the second one better than the first. I catch up in the news on line and watch Sunrise until Cash Cow and when no phone call comes to say I have won $10,000, start work and change channels. I then have American entertainment as a background house and The Bold And The Beautiful, which I have usually watched the night before.
I have also read How To by Wiki and decide on new things I want to do. De clutter the house at the front, make something, cook something, mend something, fix something, create something. I used to hate being stuck at an Office Desk all day and feel my big arse spreading even further so working at home gives me the best of all possible worlds.
I can move, dance, exercise, in between bouts of writing, have a break when I want.
At first I had no idea how I was going to do this thing called Work At Home. I had no discipline, always felt guilty, and went to the fridge a hundred times a day. I found after a while to keep it empty, as if I found something yum I would eat it. So now it's tuna, chicken, apples, low fat milk, and not a lot else.
Every half hour I move. You have to. But then come back to the work. Dress like you are at the office, I read years ago of the people that did work at home were scruffy and without underwear.
Yuk, so that idea was out the window before it even began. As was allowing interruptions once I start. People assume that if you are running a business from home, you are always available, no you are not.
You are running a business and those same people would not dream of ringing you at work. So don't allow the same, just because you are at home. Set yourself goals every day. So many words, so many items for Ebay, and pat yourself on the back when you have achieved them. I sit at a desk, clean and attractive. A great picture above the desk, inspirational sayings, scattered around. The premises spotless.
It makes me feel great and inspires me every day.
I make lists all the time, keep paper and pen handy as Im a perfectionist in training. I know I can't have perfection, Im a human being after all and I found it a pain to be a perfectionist. I would try and bend the world to my perfect will, just caused a lot of stress, especially to myself and shouting at others was disheartening. Now Im a lot more Zen like as I have time to meditate to calm my over anxious mind.
If you have the chance to work from home, do it. Don't listen to the nay Sayers, if I had listen to nay Sayers I would have never written a word, never sold an item or improved my life. My Brother is now doing the same and finds no need to go in to his office any more and he is in charge of a big franchise. He's had enough and wants more living in the now. Love it.
Be happy with whatever you do, we only pass by this way once, make it the best life possible. Laugh. Live, love. Xoxo. Janette
It's hard at first to maintain a discipline working from home, but a routine is a must. I write every day and have to imagine that I am at the Office, to maintain a Discipline. I turn the mobile on silent, the IPad on silent and the Tv on. I like a bit of background noise, the radio is good too. Steven King plays loud rock music to help him enter the zone.
He has a wife however and I am a single woman so I do get housework thoughts entering my mind which have to be paid attention to. Given the vagaries of Melbourne weather on a fine day or windy day, washing has to be hung out to gain fresh smelling laundry. Before enlightenment, the washing, after enlightenment, the washing.
Sometimes at 8am or so I might get a skinny tall school boy at my door requesting I drive him to School, but it's a rare event, these days. I live behind my daughters brick house in a perfect one bedroom unit and like to share family duties. I write resumes, help with homework, fetch groceries, pick up the dog poo, ( ghastly ) do the garden,
The unit is about Twenty feet from the house and the little ones can find it in pitch black darkness, dodging toys, dogs, locked gates, and if they do I always let them in as a reward for their cleverness. I live in the now and stop whatever I am doing to play with them. If I am writing in the mornings, when my energy is at it's highest, I ignore their calls of Nanny.
I write from 8.30 to 2pm with regular breaks in between. Coffee break, lunch I tend to put off until I am finished. The afternoons are for running errands, relaxing, doing Ebay, editing, resourcing another story and housework. Sometimes I may turn the routine on its head and get out and about early for a purpose, but it's better to maintain a strict routine. It stops me from feeling unproductive or guilty, both things wasting time, but I am a woman and guilt is part of our natures.
I loathe editing so try to edit as I go. The IPad I find is not very edit friendly, so I have to just write in one long stream. Going back in to a story to edit makes the template go awry for some reason and I find the story jumps all over the place.
I get up very early, it's annoying, but it's the way my body works. I shower, dress, and eat fruit and have at least two coffees, the second one better than the first. I catch up in the news on line and watch Sunrise until Cash Cow and when no phone call comes to say I have won $10,000, start work and change channels. I then have American entertainment as a background house and The Bold And The Beautiful, which I have usually watched the night before.
I have also read How To by Wiki and decide on new things I want to do. De clutter the house at the front, make something, cook something, mend something, fix something, create something. I used to hate being stuck at an Office Desk all day and feel my big arse spreading even further so working at home gives me the best of all possible worlds.
I can move, dance, exercise, in between bouts of writing, have a break when I want.
At first I had no idea how I was going to do this thing called Work At Home. I had no discipline, always felt guilty, and went to the fridge a hundred times a day. I found after a while to keep it empty, as if I found something yum I would eat it. So now it's tuna, chicken, apples, low fat milk, and not a lot else.
Every half hour I move. You have to. But then come back to the work. Dress like you are at the office, I read years ago of the people that did work at home were scruffy and without underwear.
Yuk, so that idea was out the window before it even began. As was allowing interruptions once I start. People assume that if you are running a business from home, you are always available, no you are not.
You are running a business and those same people would not dream of ringing you at work. So don't allow the same, just because you are at home. Set yourself goals every day. So many words, so many items for Ebay, and pat yourself on the back when you have achieved them. I sit at a desk, clean and attractive. A great picture above the desk, inspirational sayings, scattered around. The premises spotless.
It makes me feel great and inspires me every day.
I make lists all the time, keep paper and pen handy as Im a perfectionist in training. I know I can't have perfection, Im a human being after all and I found it a pain to be a perfectionist. I would try and bend the world to my perfect will, just caused a lot of stress, especially to myself and shouting at others was disheartening. Now Im a lot more Zen like as I have time to meditate to calm my over anxious mind.
If you have the chance to work from home, do it. Don't listen to the nay Sayers, if I had listen to nay Sayers I would have never written a word, never sold an item or improved my life. My Brother is now doing the same and finds no need to go in to his office any more and he is in charge of a big franchise. He's had enough and wants more living in the now. Love it.
Be happy with whatever you do, we only pass by this way once, make it the best life possible. Laugh. Live, love. Xoxo. Janette
