Wednesday, July 18, 2007

I've got the whole "River in Egypt" thing goin' on 'round here...

De-Nile people....denial...I've gained 5 pounds since my Honey went back to the UK and I'm choosing to ignore it for now...

Ooh....LOOK>>>>>> Work From Home Wednesday....

A few posts back, I asked for work-at-home advice. Well, I've been collecting quite a bit of info, so thought I'd share. So in the spirit of sharing and hoping this might trigger some other advice or ideas, here goes...

  1. Schedule out your work day...just as you would in the office. 'Cause you're still working, just not in the office.
  2. Get out of your house every day. Eat lunch somewhere else. Have a picnic in your yard, meet a friend for lunch, go eat lunch at the pool....etc. If you don't, you'll go nuts - cabin fever anyone?
  3. When you aren't working, walk away from your setup. Close it off if you can. If you don't walk away, you'll never stop working. When you were in the office, you left to go home, and left work at the office until the next morning. Same concept, only you don't have to go that far to go home now.
  4. Limit your distractions. Concentrate on the ones you have control over, the others? You'll just have to learn how to deal with them. There WILL be distractions.
  5. Get 'ready' for work every day. Eat your regular breakfast before you start work. And for goodness sake get dressed. (hahaha...you just KNOW that with my recent obsession with nekkid days that I'm going to have to at least try the whole working nekkid thing)
  6. Designate a dedicated home office area.
  7. Check out tax laws - there are things you can write off on your taxes when you work from home.
  8. Learn how to use the company expense reporting system.
  9. Keep all your work contacts handy and up-to-date.
  10. Set ground rules and STICK TO THEM! - especially if you have family home with you.
  11. If you want to spend time with your family during the day, make sure you either start early or work later.

This sounds like a lot, and I'm sure there's even more, but I'm confident it'll get easier the more I settle into my work-from-home routine.

I've decided to do several things to help myself 'get away' from my office every day. First of all, I'm going to buy a bicycle. I won't need public transit that much anymore, and I'm going to not use my car as much as possible. Within short biking distance from my apartment are the 'several things' that will keep me sane. There are several parks, a public library, a beautiful garden, several coffee shops (not Starbucks), grocery stores, smoothie joints, three small city downtown areas, one which has a summer concert series in the town square at lunch once a week, and quite the extensive bike/hike trails that go throughout the area. I can get on it a few blocks from my house and go anywhere I've just mentioned and more.

I'm going to see if I can talk Spencer into riding to the train station in the morning. I'll ride with him and then meet him there after school for the ride back. He'll most likely need the help carrying all his school crap. And I sure as hell could use the time away from the house and most importantly, the exercise. And ... I can get there and back before I have to start working, and won't need to leave until after I stop. Perfect.

I'm actually looking forward to all this.

2 comments:

  1. Those are definitely some good tips. I totally struggle with the distractions and the trying to work while family is home. Eric knows he is to schedule his work day OUT of the house on my WFH days. We can't both be in that home office and be productive.

    My biggest tip: Don't turn on the TV during your break if you have a hard time turning it off. My little lunch breaks turn into 1-2 hour breaks without me even noticing.

    And full on, shower and eat breakfast like you do now. There have been many a WFH day where I find myself still in my PJ's when I get ready for bed. I also tend to keep working much later then I would normally.

    Hey.... we should do lunch sometime. I WFH on T & Th! And when after my surgery, I'll be WFH EVERYDAY for a month!

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  2. Well I hope all this works out for you :) I think you have a lot of good tips here.

    On the weight, I lost 5 lbs with the flu I had..but I don't recommend that. haha

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