I’ve set the timer for 15 minutes. This post will be whatever comes out during that time (although I reserve the right to add an extra 5 minutes of editing).
Tuesday evening, 6:30 PM
I worked at home today–and I worked at home. I consider it a privilege to telecommute (and a nice perk these days, when gas prices is Southern California are edging up to $4.50 a gallon), so I try to be conscientious about getting work done on the days when I’m authorized to do it remotely. It may be one reason why work-from-home days tend to be so productive; I’m a bit less vigilant about how I spend my work hours when I’m in the office. (Don’t tell my boss I said that. But he could probably guess anyway.)
The distractions at home are different. I use my husband’s computer for my office work (I get to use his lovely Aeron desk chair too) and I don’t go online with it, so I don’t take the blog-reading breaks that I do at the office unless I get up from his desk and go to my laptop. But when I do get up for a break, I feel I should do something around the house–toss in a load of laundry, get something started for dinner, clean something. But I didn’t give in to that today. I barely took breaks for anything today, actually. I got a lot of work done at home, but it was work work–what I stayed home to do–and not home work. And I didn’t feel good about that.
It’s not just the “home work” that I think I should be doing on work-at-home days, though. I tend to overplan them generally–just because I get more done, I fool myself into thinking I’ll have more time to get things done. That’s only true if I start work before I’d normally get to the office–and I don’t. I get up at my normal time, but I go for an early-morning walk instead of an early-morning commute. It’s a worthwhile trade, though.
Work gets done, whether it’s the work I plan or the work that just comes up. Through the next couple of months, there’s a lot of work to be done–new deadlines and big projects. And I’ve just passed my deadline for writing this post, so I’ll stop working on it now.
