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Himself and I both work from home.  Well, Himself works from home and I work for myself but when I’m not at the clinic there’s an extraordinary amount of admin that needs to be done and this is primarily done from home.

A lot of people think that this is living the dream, and indeed in many ways it is.  But working from home is hard to do because there is nobody there keeping an eye on you, clearing their throats when your productivity is low, gently (or not so gently) nudging you to tell you that maybe you’ve spent a bit too much time surfing the internet.  It takes a while to find a routine, to find discipline in the sudden freedom that you have – and believe me when you’ve worked in law for years, when you’ve had to log every minute of your day, that freedom is almost too much.

As our situation is in flux right now, I thought I would share a few tips that have helped us over the last few years, before everything is different and I forget them. So just in case you’re about to find yourself self-employed or working from home, read on!

1.  Find yourself a space to work. This is the number one priority for working from home.  Try to find yourself a dedicated space to work, even if it’s just a small desk in the corner of your living room, and make that work space as beautiful and as inspirational (and as tidy) as you can.  Doubling the dining table up as an office just doesn’t work.  It means that your job is right there in your face all the time.  We ended up turning the spare bedroom into an office for Himself (he has several computers etc and needs the space) and I’ve taken a small cupboard bedroom for my desk and yoga mat.  It means when we have guests we have to book them into a nearby hotel but it’s all about priorities!

2. Set yourself working hours. There is a tendency when working for yourself or from home to start checking emails immediately upon getting up and carrying on from there.  Set yourself reasonable working hours and stick to them, otherwise your job will take over your whole life.  What these hours will be are dependent on a) what you do and b) what hours you are at your brightest (I’m an afternoon person, Himself is a morning person).  It will be hit and miss to start with while your work them out but once you’ve got them, stick to them!

3. Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast. Don’t be tempted to work in your pyjamas.  It’ll be lunchtime before you get showered and you’ll feel horrible for it.  Act exactly as you would if you had to go in to an office.

4. Turn off wi-fi. Have certain set hours during your working day when you turn off your wi-fi.  This way you can’t be distracted by social media and incoming emails.  How many hours you have offline will again depend upon what you do, Himself needs to check his emails far more often than I do, but do try to take that time offline, especially when you need to get your head down on a big project.

5. Twitter is your office mates. Conversely you will never need social media so much as when you work at home alone!  You’ll be surprised how much you miss the office banter (even though when you were in the office you hated it so) and it’s easy to become isolated.  Pick your Twitter and Facebook friends carefully and check in with them a few times a day.  It sounds crazy but it can keep you sane!

A final point for any couple who, like us, both work from home.  Learn to leave each other alone! Don’t be tempted to bother each other with household minutae during those hours reserved for work.  Remember, you’re meant to be behaving as though you’d gone into the office.  Ask yourself, would you phone them at work for this question or leave it until they got home?

Any other tips from my fellow home-workers?

People who know me well are always surprised to hear that as a teenager I hated Dickens.  Hated.  I thought his books were overly long, ridiculously rambly and life was, quite frankly, too short.

When I was 17 (the year in which, basically, I became the person I am today – I’ve been lucky like that, got it all over in one fell swoop), I read The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

And it changed my opinion of Dickens forever.

However, the thing about Drood is, as I’m sure you know, that Dickens died while writing it.  Most people think, like Mozart’s Requiem, that it is unfinished.

That’s as maybe, but unfinished does not necessarily mean incomplete.

There have been many attempts at the ‘constructed ending’ (usually by inferior writers) when it comes to Drood - most recently in the BBC’s rather odd adaptation – and, like really bad sewing, you can always see the join.

To me Drood isn’t incomplete.  I never walk away from reading it with a feeling of dissatisfaction.  I’d go so far as to say that it is perfect just the way it is.  So far as to say, in fact, that it is finished.**

We humans have an almost innate need for things to be done, for loose ends to be tied off, for everything to be tidied away.  Maybe it’s because deep down we know life’s not really like that.  There are nothing but loose ends in life, question marks hanging over paths we didn’t follow, people we lost touch with.  We will most likely die unfinished, a work in progress.  And, if you believe in reincarnation, have to come back and do it all over again, still unfinished.

But we are always trying to beat this. Rather than allow ourselves to be unvarnished we continue to search for new shades of polish. Especially at this time of year, when every newspaper or magazine we open, every other blog post we read is telling us we’re too fat, or too thin, or should eat more raw vegetables, or have less clutter.  Whatever it is, We’re Doing It Wrong and Need To Do It Better.

We really don’t.  Change happens over time.  Most of us change for the better without even realising it’s happened.  And sometimes it’s OK to remain unpolished.  No good has ever come from trying to finish Drood, no good came of adding that awful ending to Requiem. Lots of things aren’t broken, they’re just unfinished, so they don’t need fixing.

This year why not let your loose ends hang free?!

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** Much as I love Dickens now, I still maintiain he’s not very good at endings and often resorts to pantomime and farce to wrap up his loose ends.  Perhaps that in itself is what makes Drood so very very good.

A few years ago I wrote this post about the futility of “what if” moments.

But every now and then I wonder “what if things could be different?”  What if we could change not just our stories but the stories of the world around us, those in built societal beliefs? What would that look like? What would they be?

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Well here are a few of mine.

What if:-

* we all just quit it with the endless overachieving and allowed ourselves to just be?

* yoga wasn’t always about standing on your head/hands in fancy pants?

* we worried less about what we ate or when we ate it?

* we accepted that it’s OK to be unhappy sometimes?

* we were kinder, to ourselves, to others, to all living beings?

* guilt didn’t exist?

* men and women really were equal?

* we paid more attention to our physical body?

* we paid less attention to our physical body?

* our only inspiration was simply our wonderful self?

* we stopped trying to be someone we’re not?

* we embraced our inner lazy?

* we worked a 4-day week (and discovered nothing changed)?

* we all bought local and seasonal and the big supermarkets didn’t exist?

* we genuinely believed there was enough?

* it’s all just Maya?