walking from Gabe’s preschool to a coffee shop to get work done
Although I’ve been working for myself for a few years, I’ve been doing it without a day job for just over a month.
Before I quit, I wrote out all of my fears in quitting – so many what ifs and uncertainties swirling around in my head. Regretting my decision was a BIG fear, but I’m happy to say I regret my decision exactly 0% so far.
Here are a few other thoughts for my first month:
– I am worse at time management than I thought. I think it was masked before because I could do all my time wasting when at my day job. (Sorry, day job.) Not to worry – I have some new reward systems in place to combat this problem.
– It’s harder to hide my Starbucks purchases from Mike when I don’t leave the house to go to work. Less secret fun coffees.
– I don’t want to work full-time and that’s okay. An ideal week for me would be 20-30 really focused, productive hours. I want to get as much done in those hours as a full-time job, but with time left over to care for myself and have time with Gabe. Part of why I’ve been pursuing this dream for so long is because of the flexibility. I don’t want to feel guilty taking advantage of it!
– Getting out of the house to work is necessary. Certainly not every day, but once every week or two, getting out of the house and heading to a coffee shop or the library does wonders for my ability to focus and get stuff done.
– Ignore the mess and use breaks to clean. I could look around our apartment and see how messy it is – how the laundry needs to be put away and the floor needs to be vacuumed and there are lunch dishes left on the table. But I have to put on blinders while I work and ignore the mess. I often use the pomodoro technique and use the breaks to get up and clean. This is helpful because I’m being active (since my work is rather sedentary) and because I’m getting more done with my breaks than just scrolling through Twitter.
– Blog reading has suffered. Apparently I used to do all my blog reading at work (again, sorry, day job). Now, I guess I don’t make the time to sit down and go through my reader. I do click on links from Twitter sometimes, but I have just had such a hard time keeping up for some reason.
– I have to guard work time fiercely, but be flexible. Mike and I have carefully worked out a schedule that allows for me to have 15 hours of childcare a week, providing much of the time I need to get work done. However, there are many days when that time gets cut short – by a special preschool field trip, by my sister stopping by and wanting to take a walk, or by a change in Mike’s schedule. I’m learning to be firm about my need for that work time, but also flexible. Like I said, part of why this work-at-home-for-yourself lifestyle is so attractive to me is for that very flexibility. I just have to decide if an afternoon chat and walk with my sister is worth giving up my evening to catch up on work.
And I’m still figuring out what to wear to feel un-slob-like, but still comfortable. I’ll keep you posted.
I can definitely understand why you need to get out of the house some days to get things done. I would love the flexibility of working for myself/working from home but I just do NOT feel productive unless I am not at home- it’s completely irrational but obviously something I would have to get over if I was going to work at home ever!
I bet you anything that the majority of people who “work” 40+ hours a week really only get 20-30 hours of actual work done, so I think it’s great that you’re focusing your time on those really productive hours and having the awareness that there are other things more important to you outside of those working hours.
The Monday through Friday 9 to 5 job kills me. I like structure, but I desperately want more flexibility. And I’m in school on top of that, which takes even more time away! I would love to someday create a business/schedule like yours, and will work toward that once I’m finished with school.
I’m so impressed with you! It’s been really fun to see your progress through this whole journey. Thanks for sharing and being so open about it :-)
Hooray for a month already! I think you really covered some hindrances here but you’ve got great solutions to work through them! Woo hoo!
Good for you! And yes to all of that. I miss blog reading. Ah well.
Have you considered paying to use a coworking space? It could be a tremendously valuable investment in your work. Sure, there is the obvious cost, but there are also huge rewards in terms of getting away from the mess and having a place to focus.
OR! Instead of paying for a coworking space you could pay for a coffee each day and use the coffee shop to organize your day and all that.
See? That’s what you need to tell Mike. The coffee shop is a substitute for a coworking space. Totally legit business expense!
I can’t remember where I first read this idea, but I know some people can actually work at Starbucks (no need for multiple monitors and such) and budget the cost of daily coffee as if it were a coworking space.
In all seriousness, I’m glad that this is going so well for you!