I’ve been very fortunate that my job has transitioned to where I can pretty much work from anywhere. It’s a mindset that I’m still getting used to. I’m so geared to drive into an office and work the traditional daily work hours. Actually, it seems as though I’d end up putting in 50-60 hour work weeks.
Gradually over the past year or so, our company has downsized, and even though my responsibilities have increased, I’ve found that I’m able to spend more time with my family. I’ve been called a workaholic, so I guess it’s not a surprise that I would feel guilty or feel I was slacking off when I would put in less hours. In my mind, I knew that I was getting the job done, but for some reason, I simply put unnecessary expectations on myself. We tend to be harder on ourselves than we are on others.
I soon began to realize, however, that I should not have any guilt to have a balanced personal and professional life. As my schedule became more flexible and the job more portable, I felt it was a good time to go ahead and take the plunge in living full time in our RV. It also gives me a great sense of peace to know if this job goes away, it will be easier to pick up and move anywhere in the country to find a new job, after all everything is already packed in the RV.
Not everyone is cut out to work from home, it takes a lot of discipline. For a long time, I wasn’t sure I was cut out for it. They say, if you want to work from home, the best thing to do is have an office where you can shut the door. This way you can set your “office” hours and your family knows that you are at work and cannot be disturbed. It also gives some separation to your personal life because at the end of the day, you should shut the door and forget about work until the next day.
It’s not so easy to have a separate room in an RV for a home office. I set up a workspace in the RV and have confined myself to a two drawer file cabinet for current work files. There are many things that I have to keep, but I simply scan them. Once my tasks and projects are complete, anything would normally be saved in a filing cabinet is scanned into an external drive. Actually, years ago, I started having my staff scan our documents for our company. I hated to buy file cabinets and store so much paper. All that scanning has paid off. Now that it’s just me in the corporate office, everything from the past eight years is in a little external drive. Isn’t technology amazing?
The first week I started working from home, Robert would sit on the couch waiting for me to get done with my tasks so we could do something together. Now we are getting our routines down where we both can get things accomplished and still spend time together.
Robert is a musician and works nights. He typically sleeps in when he works the night before. I still get up early to work and by the time he gets up, I’ve put in several hours. Sometimes I’ll spend time with Robert in the afternoon and do around the house chores while he’s home and pick up my work day when he leaves for work.
There are so many people that think that because you are working from home, you get to slack off. It’s not the case at all. To do it right, you do have to be disciplined. I may not be sitting at my desk for a straight eight hours, like I was in the office, but even though I may take the dogs for a walk or run an errand in the middle of the day, I may be working 3-4 hours in the middle of the night. It’s a mindset to get used to and finding balance is key. You’ve got to devote a good amount of time to the job to earn the paycheck (and not loose the job), but you’ve also got to balance out time for yourself and devote time with family, friends, and hobbies.