homeplaceofthefuture daily log 4829

I've always hated when blogs start with "it's been awhile", it's so cliche....so easy. There's no need to justify, but in the spirit of being open & honest I'm a perfectionist. If something is going to be tough or require commitment I have a tendency to drop off the face of the earth after I miss a day or miss the mark. The homeplaceofthefuture blog and movement (yes I said movement) suffered because I missed a few days and then I started to rationalize why I was missing a few days and just kept going into a 2 week spiral of self doubt and frustration and that wasn't even related to the my normal self doubt and frustration with my day job, aka the land of urgent.

Over the past years I have started to learn, not fully learn yet mind you how to combat perfectionism in a lot of areas with my life. My best advice is when you miss the mark is to question the mark in the first place. Home repairs fit into this category nicely -- Mrs homeplaceofthefuture would like wooden floors throughout the house along with some fancy floor moldings. It seems easy enough, cutting wood and some knee pads or I could pay some shady contractor to be in my home and charge me the price of an Audi for 2 days work. So Mr. homeplaceofthefuture would like to try this himself because it's just cutting wood and some knee pads right?

Fast forward a few years and we still have carpeted areas in the house because I'm afraid to try because if I make a mistake we have to look at my uneven floors for the rest of our lives or until I swallow my pride and call Mr. 2 days for an Audi contractor.

Point of the story -- bite it off in small bites. I'm not going to re-do the entire floor in one sitting/one afternoon, but maybe I'll try a closet first, or practice cutting in the garage and getting the tools ready. As it points back to this site, the plan is provide regular "work from home content" that's odd, creative, thought provoking, funny and maybe even useful. If we miss a day or 2, we'll be back because we're building something here and most likely I'm in the garage practicing.

homeplaceofthefuture daily log 4812

Something they don't tell you when you get a virtual job is that you'll be sitting a lot. Oh sure there's flexibility, productivity and some freedoms, but all of that is tied to a computer and/or headset. Occasionally I look down at myself wearing the same clothes, sitting in the same chair, deleting the same emails and talking to the same clients and wonder what am I doing here and why am I still sitting!

After 4812 days of working from home (give or take a few years).....I proactively went to my doctor today with the results of some bloodwork and years of sitting. I was given no drugs, which was fine with me, but I walked away with a brochure called "Improving Your Cholesterol with Diet & Exercise"

So there is it kids.....you work from home, you continually battle the inbox and fight those urgent emails and you get high cholesterol. My doctor said all my numbers in my bloodwork can be attributed to sitting down all day, but there has been some progress with my purposeful calendar invite to go outside and move (see previous posts).

homeplaceofthefuture daily log 4809

We'll talk about email a lot as we go, but for now I just want everyone to know that either marking your email as urgent or placing ***URGENT in the subject line doesn't magically move you up in the queue. Shocking I know and here's the kicker if you continue to mark routine emails as urgent I just assume you don't have your act together and I ignore your emails over everyone else's. 

The nice thing about working alone and virtually is I can laugh as I ignore your email and maybe even talk to the screen a little bit to help me deal with your constant "perceived" urgency.

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homeplaceofthefuture daily log 4807

There are definite ups and downs in the virtual working world. Somedays you've worked out, showered and made coffee all before 7 AM and then there are other days where you've been wearing the same clothes for 3 days, forgot to brush your teeth and barely have gotten out of your office except for using the bathroom and grabbing everyone's favorite vegetable: chips & salsa!

As much as I'm conscious of which version of myself we're working with, the past week has been a cluster. Like most once I get going it's hard to come back down and realize there's a life outside of the home office. Tonight I made a conscious effort to shut the office door, take a shower, grab some ice cream and then walk around the neighborhood with a cup full of beer - the neighbors will never know!  Life is good and I've had to remind myself we're not saving lives here.