Working From Home: Me, Myself & I

Entrepreneur, JS

I work from home full-time, which is a pretty recent thing (3 weeks!). I am LOVING life and my job, and this is the first time in my adult life that I am excited to go to work every day and that I make my own schedule.

The positives far outweigh the negatives in my new lifestyle. I can travel more (and have!), as I can work from anywhere with wifi (like a New Orleans cafe, or my sister’s house). I can make my own hours (all of them), I can stay in my PJs and not shower that day (it happens). I can take on new clients, or not. I can choose the type of work that I’m doing. I am my own boss.

But there are certainly a few small drawbacks. It’s easy to oversleep. It’s easier to slack off when no one is watching. It’s easy to keep working well past business hours. It’s easy to get distracted. It’s easy to eat poorly.

I thought I was going to finally have time to go to the gym again. When I was working full time and also building this business, I was working every evening until bedtime and all weekend long. It was a constant grind, and I loved it, but I was busy every waking moment. Previously, I’d gone to the gym 3-4 days per week!

Now, I am finding it all too easy to snack all day, much more than ever before, and then get caught up and busy and suddenly, Husband is home from work, I wrap up my day, and then I want to hang out with him, not leave and go to the gym. When I have time between calls during the day, I’m not going to the gym, I’m writing, organizing, working, marketing, etc.

So, I’ve gained about 10 pounds, which I’m feeling bad and insecure about. But again, I love what I’m doing and that is my own fault.

I do spend more time with my cat, less time with people, and have found it all too easy to stay home for several days at a time. It’s actually an issue, because I don’t have a ton of friends in NY, and I am getting isolated.

To address this, my plan is to try to get out of the house and:

  • Take walks
  • Go with my neighbor and her kids to the park once a week
  • Find somewhere to volunteer
  • Try to get back to the gym
  • Pop into the city now and then

Last Friday, I took the afternoon off and went into the city to meet up with my old boss and some friends for lunch and then drinks, and it was great! I felt like my old self, but better.

Being an entrepreneur is great. I am truly happier than ever, but it can be stressful, isolating, and a bit lonely, and I need to make sure my physical and mental health are properly addressed, not just my business. I used to love going to the gym because it was my “me time,” and now I am having “me time” all the time! Maybe that has been a stumbling block as well.

My biggest challenges in working from home and for myself have been time management and prioritizing tasks and projects. I will be looking more deeply into both of these sibjects soon. I did recently write about time management for Thrive Global, which can be found here.

I am constantly trying to improve. I want to learn, grow, build, make money, write more, and do better every day. So when I am able to identify what I’m doing wrong, I can work on myself and do better!

I guess the advice I am trying to give myself is this: it’s a lot of change, you’re still figuring it out, 10 pounds isn’t that big of a deal, you’re working on it. Relax! You’re doing great!

 

Bonus! Here is the picture of my March employee of the month winner!

End of an Era & New Chapters

Entrepreneur

I have been working 2 jobs for months. I’ve been working in my corporate sales job in the staffing industry during the day and then building and running a writing business in the evenings and weekends.

My husband has been having an unlimited amount of nag-free video game time, and I have been so busy I could barely catch my breath. We were both loving every minute.

When I decided to really try to be a writer, I told Husband that I was going to be cautiously optimistic and say that I could quit my job in 12 months.

I got my first big paying client on 11/1/2016, and met my arbitrary number that we agreed to in January 2017, where I could have quit altogether. Instead, I went down to part-time, figuring that would help me with the transition to working from home. I was wrong, it actually was very difficult and a strange dynamic to be working part-time in an office and part-time at home, and still having to work nights and weekends to get everything done.

So 3/8 was my last corporate work day. My team and I had lunch and it was bittersweet for me. In the end, the team moves forward and will of course, succeed wildly without my help, and I will fade from their minds, to be thought of when one of my clients pop up or my name shows up in the database. I’ll become “oh, she used to work here.” 10 years of corporate sales and business development fading fast in my rearview.

Instead, I’m living my dream.

It’s still bittersweet to leave. Corporate sales has been my home for about 10 years, and I have had the most amazing boss for the last few years, a guy who has become a close and trusted friend, who has been very supportive of my new venture, and without whom I would have gone crazier, sooner.

I’ve also recently discovered that I go stir-crazy when at home alone for too long. Time to start making work-from-home and neighborhood friends! I can go to the gym to get out for a bit, and I also plan to find somewhere to volunteer for a couple hours per week, to get out of the house and give back to my community.

I am extremely lucky to have a supportive husband and family and friends, and people who are happy seeing me happy and successful. I am so full of love and words right now. I have a TON going on with my writing, including 4 new clients this month and a ton of work. I am loving it, and I am so excited about going off on my own. Sink or swim, it’s all on me.

I am proud, I am scared, and I am excited.
I’m exciterrified.