Tag Archives: freelancing

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

For me, working from my home office increases productivity. I don’t have to spend hours commuting. I don’t have the temptation of office socializing to distract me. I can take a break and go for a walk and recharge myself when I hit a wall. But the one thing that really hinders my ability to work from home is school vacation.

Griffin is home for the summer. He has applied for some summer jobs, but in this economy few people are hiring 15 year olds. He has spent the past three days in my living room, ten feet from my desk, playing video games, watching cartoons, and playing ukulele. He’s also very chatty. If he slept in like a normal teenager, I could wake up early and get the bulk of my work done before he pulled himself out of bed, but he’s been getting up at 7 a.m. to go jogging, so that’s not an option. If I were younger, I could spend the day doing administrative, low-attention span work and then get the bulk of the design done after Griff went to bed. But I’ve discovered that I’m not as productive at 1 a.m. as I used to be.

So, what to do? There’s always the laptop and the coffee shop. I can get writing, billing, and production work done that way, but not much design or illustration. I could look at renting a desk at a freelancer co-op space but that cuts into profits. I could kick the kid to the curb, like my mom did when I was a kid in the summertime, but I believe my son should feel welcome in his own home, so I’m not loving that idea. I could take an on-site gig for the summer, but working in an office during the best weather of the year is the antithesis of why I work from home. Honestly, if anyone has a suggestion, I’m all ears!