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Take some time out for yourself. You deserve it.
New Zealand or England. Where will you go first?
Take some time out for yourself. You deserve it.
New Zealand or England. Where will you go first?
Oh, the joys of working from home and not being tied to a timetable. Huzzah!
For the first time, I made it to a live webinar on marketing. I hardly heard a word of it and will need to watch the replay. Spent far too much time fist pumping the air instead of making notes. How the small things in life delight the simple. I gleefully typed Ngaruawahia into the list of attendees’ locations and the host couldn’t pronounce it. Who cares? I was there. Sitting on the sofa in the lounge, laptop on my knee, phone in my hand and notepad by my side. In…my…nightdress.
Ah, the luxury. Indescribable elation.
I set off some Amazon ads – which is my homework for Meeks’ Masterclass, the online course I started this week. Then I edited. The funeral is tomorrow and I found it hard to concentrate on writing. I tend to avoid funerals. It’s cowardly I know, but now you know where Hana gets it from… I am a very ugly crier. Nobody apart from long-suffering Husband should be subjected to such horrors.
Being able to climb onto my treadmill at 3pm if I feel like it. Although the proper job wasn’t full time, I’d get home in the afternoons having already given my best. I operated a standing desk there too, so I literally spent five hours walking. Add that to the fact that I rose from the pit at 4.40am to walk for an hour on my treadmill. If I didn’t walk then, it didn’t happen. The luxury of a 6am alarm is still sinking in, added to the choice of exercising then, or having the chance to do it later.
I must be honest. I didn’t see them coming. Identifying my blockers as early as Day-3 will prove key in making this writing thing work. So, what are they?
Yep, food is massive. Bet you didn’t see that coming.
I went to work each morning with a basket. It contained a fruit smoothie which Husband lovingly blended while I got dressed and spread makeup over the bathroom. I also took in a pre-made herbal tea – usually some form of ginger to help with my tummy. If the pantry housed bananas, my basket would contain a banana. Lunch would not happen until I got home and because I have so many allergies, eating out wasn’t viable. Besides, I needed to come straight home and write. No time for luxuries like eating out.
The problem with home is that the fridge is also here. I count steps, which means I walk to the kitchen for cold water rather than take the bottle into the office with me. This activity involves the fridge. As I also count calories, opening the fridge to access the cold water proved to be a game of willpower. There’s some nice food in there. I’ve had a battle with weight throughout most of my life (real and imagined – the battle, not the life) and I’m at my goal weight again. I intend to stay there.
It’s a logistics issue. Who knew this would even be an issue?
It is though. I blew out my calories and had to get back on the treadmill to even things out. I don’t have the energy for this fight. The fridge has to go.
At my workplace, I avoided my Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn and Vero accounts. Constantly checking them gives room for distraction and constitutes stealing time from your employer. Over the last six years, I didn’t take a break because my remoteness on the site meant I used my ten minutes walking to the main building and back. I’d just about reach the top of the stairs when it became time to walk back again. Pointless. I didn’t check social media at work and it was a no brainer.
Social media is in my home office. The stuff gets everywhere. It’s dinging an alert on my wrist and pinging on my phone and flashing up messages on my screen. It’s like a constant bombardment of distraction. And even if it’s not prodding me to look, I find I’m going there anyway. Because I’m at home and that’s what I did at home.
I need to look at the alerts and turn most of them off. I can see now why it’s such a darn time suck. Those funny kittens are a rabbit hole of endless proportions. Using the Scrivener full screen to write will help, because it blocks everything else. I clearly need to have rules around social media or I’ll get nothing done.
Day-3 feels daunting. I have discovered that the fridge is conspiring with social media to make me unproductive.
K T Bowes is the author of The Calculated Risk series.
The first book is free because she believes in ‘try before you buy’ and she secretly wants you to like her.
Check out her work HERE or on the BOOKS page.
