I’ve had a rough couple of days this week. It started Sunday night. Between now and then I’ve had restless nights, fluttering feelings, a bit of lightheadedness, and a variety of other symptoms. By Monday morning I was imagining the worst. My husband worked from home that day just in case I decided to go into the hospital to get checked out. Thankfully it didn’t
Yahoo recently announced that all of its remote workers must either find their way back into an office or they should quit. Legalities and unemployment eligibility aside, this may very well mark a turning point for those of us who choose to work at home – that is, those of us who are at the whim of an employer. Stable work-from-home jobs aren’t always as
There is not much easy about our job unless you compare it to something like digging ditches or building a skyscraper. But that at least wears out your body rather than your mind. At the end of a day wrestling obligations to kids and careers, my brain is tired. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels mentally split almost constantly throughout the day.
There is a lot of resistance to the idea that working at home makes you lazy. I’d heartily agree that stereotypes are generally unfounded among successful business people who choose to work from home, but I’d also offer up the argument that having worked in a few places in corporate America, people are lazy workers at times no matter where they are stationed for the
When we work from home as freelancers, sometimes we don’t have much control over our work environment. For example, some writers work from their kitchen tables. A benefit of working in a pre-established area of the home is that you don’t have to worry about furnishing a separate office space. But what if you do have a freelance office, but not a huge budget to furnish it?
It’s not an unusual question. We all wonder from time to time if this world of freelancing from home is worth the extra time and effort it takes to be successful. Naturally we usually find plenty of reasons that it is, in fact, worth the hassles and stress. To name a few: freelance writers who work at home enjoy schedule flexibility, more time with family,
There are those among us who can only work when the conditions are just right. They must have the right music or show on in the background. They must have their ergonomic chair positioned just so and their office door opened exactly three inches to allow for cross ventilation while blocking 93 percent of all regular household noises. I’m not that person. Nor is any
I ran out of patience the other day and I should have run across to the neighbor to borrow some more. After all, this working mom doesn’t rise to perfection without a liberal dash of patience. I must treat my children with patience. I must wait days or weeks patiently for a free hour to watch my favorite show. I must patiently wait on clients
I’m split at times about how kids affect my working life. In many – okay most – cases I feel very limited by having kids underfoot or in the house when I’m working. But other times I wonder if I’d be as effective as I am if my children didn’t already have me so well trained. It takes a lot of dedication and discipline to
As regulars might know, I’m a work-at-home mom and a work-away-from-home mom, too. I normally teach during the day and then get two boys to bed before settling down for three or four hours of writing most nights at the computer. It makes for a full day, but it’s so nicely organized and routine now it works for me. Today though, in honor of my
Being a freelance writer and working from home are great. There are some obvious cost savings. For example, you won’t have to pay the cost of commuting to and from work, so you’ll save money on gas. Your clothing expenses might also go down since you don’t have to buy the more expensive business casual or professional clothes for to wear to work. As you
Every office needs a coffee table. Whether it’s to hold meetings with clients around, spread out potential magazines for querying on or to simply have somewhere to rest your feet during your mid-morning break, a coffee table has a variety of uses. Unlike my previous two posts (how to build a desk and a bookcase), I haven’t actually made this coffee table myself. I drew
In last month’s post, I explained how to build an L-shaped desk based on a project I carried out several years ago. The reason I built my own desk, apart from the fact that I needed a separate writing space was that I was in the same boat as a lot of new freelancers and money wasn’t as flush as it could have been. Not
When I first started freelancing, I realised that my productivity decreased if I were working from my laptop in a room where there were distractions of some sort. Whether it was the TV, radio, girlfriend or cats, I found that I was producing more work on a quicker basis when I was alone. So, mixing my passion for DIY with my need for a separate
I know now what I didn’t know then. I spent quite a bit of time working up to a full-time income freelancing while keeping the day job during pregnancy so that after my baby arrived, I could stay home and spend more time with him and do the mommy thing the way I wanted to. I was thrilled that it seemed to be working out
Anyone with a home office needs an arsenal of tools and tricks of the trade. Parents, however, need not only the basic office supplies, but other essentials as well to balance their obligations to family and professional lives. The needs of each individual and family can vary, but here are a few of my essentials as a work-at-home parent. Your Own Computer If you’re sharing