Why I stopped Posting: Reason #1-Working from Home
September 29th, 2009 | by Frank |In case you hadn’t noticed (and in case you are still reading this) I clearly took the summer off. Hey-it happens. A lot of folks were quick to comment “hey what happened to your blog” or “why haven’t you written in a while?” and the truth is…I just haven’t. There were other things to do. I kept posting over at DC Metblogs and started tweeting, so it wasn’t as if I was completely devoid of an online presence-just a overly thoughtful blog presence. And that’s okay. Last year I made a point of doing one post for every day of the year-which lead to my writing about a number of things that really didn’t matter or make sense. Mostly the energy was focused on writing something, anything, just to keep it going.
This summer and year I started focusing just on writing when I felt I had something to say-which lead to my realizing that I didn’t need have anything all that pressing to share. Sure I had my thoughts on lots and lots of things, but those thoughts were generally echoed by others-I didn’t feel I had much to offer the discussion. A unique voice aside, my opinions are just that-opinions, so there is a limited value to what I write.
So I took a break and focused on other things.
One of those things is my new Work from Home status. Here is a picture of my desk:
Notice the Bobbleheads to the right, and the SuperNatural Law Poster above it.
Now, some of you might be thinking “oh well if you work from home, then what the heck? Shouldn’t you have more time to write? And the answer is “hey I am actually working from home…but yes, I do have more time to write. Too much time, in fact. “ One of the problems of a lot of undisciplined time is that you can in fact do whatever you want-and one of the things I wanted to do was something other than writing. Going to the girlfriend’s house, moving the girlfriend in, cleaning, buying furniture with the girlfriend (okay-she’s taken up a lot of time-and a whole post on wtf is up with furniture forthcoming), video games, the gym, sleep, lay out at the pool, baseball games, weddings-The increase of free time lead to my exponential use of that free time. Where as idle time at my office used to be a good time to open a word doc to sketch out a blog post for later, idle time at home gives you the opportunity to actually do something else.
This is far from a complaint, just a note that I think a lot of my writing has stemmed from boredom-a need to communicate?-that has stemmed a bit since working from home.
That said, the tide has swung a bit too far the other way. The downside of working from home really has been the idea that it is way too easy to be lazy. Get up later, or at least sit around in sweats. Anyone who has been unemployed for any length of time knows what this roller coaster is like. The first few weeks are great, a nice deserved break (and working from home has that same benefit) but by week four you are far to used to the idea that you can just “get it done later” because you have the time to do so. Make some coffee, do some work, stretch a bit-next thing you know it’s 4pm and you haven’t gone to the gym or anything-let alone muster the energy it takes to find something worth writing about and then write about it. I think, like most Washingtonians, I thrive on being busy-on having something to do-to keep me focused on getting things done.
I work better busy, what can I say?
With the start of the new fiscal year, I imagine I’ll be splitting my time at the actual office and home a bit more-just going in enough to keep me focused on moving around. Hopefully this will lead to a slightly more “up” schedule which will have some positive repercussions throughout the life o’ Frank-including the ressurection of some of these creative little ditties here. Plans abound, and have abounded for a while-but I’m a lot more optomistic in my abiliity to execute some of them now.
Fingers crossed.
(PS-I haven’t written this much about “me” in a blog since I had a live journal…wow.)
