Home Work

Here is one of my unfinished posts as mentioned here.

Via Glenn Reynolds comes a timely article by Michael S. Malone: Working at Home Isn’t as Glamorous as You Think.

Indeed, it’s not, and I admire his powers of concentration.

It depends in part what I am doing, but usually I need to be left completely undistracted, have music to work by, or both.  Programming work especially requires I get in “the zone” and cannot be done effectively in tiny snippets.  I find bookkeeping and tax preparation to be similar.  Beyond that, it depends on how eager I am to do the task in question.  Sometimes I can be distracted without trying because I’ll do anything to put off something distasteful.  And then work more effectively on the thing I delayed because the pressure focuses me.

One thing I am not good at, or good about, as the case may be, is “getting out there” while working from home.  For the new business, I will have to get used to handing out cards and doing a quick pitch of sorts constantly, and getting myself into more positions to do so.  Sell, sell, sell.

I can vouch for the 24 hour nature of the beast.  Even though I had, technically still have, an office outside the house, I was technically on call 7x24 for several years, and had a lot of work that needed to be done, or lent itself to doing, in off hours, even if it could be done at home.  The same lifestyle that means I can readily go to appointments with Deb or the kids, or can stay with the kids during appointments, or can take a walk with them during the day, or whatever, also means that in a pinch I might indeed be at the desk working at midnight when everyone else is in bed.  I wouldn’t want to give it up, if that can be avoided.

The work from home aspect of life is about to become more pronounced.  Should be interesting.

Posted by on 06/13 at 03:29 PM

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