A work-life imbalance

Working from home is synonymous with sleeping in.

Also, wearing pyjamas all day, watching Oprah, not showering until 4pm and in my case, playing with kittens all day.

The reality though is quite different to what most people believe. I do have the flexibility to sleep in and a few times when I have had a large evening, I have taken a couple of extra hours to get up. But more often, I am sitting at my kitchen table, coffee in hand and straight into my work by 7.30. No going to the coffee shop, chatting with colleagues, attending management meetings, supplier catch ups or industry events.

So, non-stop from 7.30 to whenever my rumbling stomach makes me look at the clock. Yeah, sometimes I will make a meal and move to the living room to take a break and watch a bit of TV. But with Ellen, The Circle, Oprah, Dr Phil or The Doctors occupying this timeslot, I would rather make a protein smoothie and carry on working.

So what’s the problem?

Well, working from home is a bit like living in a Twilight Zone. Think images of those IT dudes, sitting in a darkened room only communicating with their laptops, surrounded by servers and machinery that hums…and festering coffee cups. Sometimes if I have had no meetings or telephone calls and have been planning or writing all day, I will speak to somebody at 3pm and they will freak out that I sound so sick and they are sorry to disturb me. I am not sick, I have just not spoken all day and I sound like I do when I first get up; Croaky and like I have just chain-smoked 5 Gitanes.

My point is that working from home is sometimes lonely. And hard work.

The tricky bit is knowing when to quit for the day. Actually I love what I do and having time to do a good job is a luxury I don’t take for granted. My varied clients ensure that I spend most days doing many different things; researching a new industry, putting together a business plan, writing copy for a new product launch, compiling a government tender, creating an interactive PowerPoint template or even talking somebody through the process of unblocking a sink. (I am a builder’s daughter so I have some interesting practical skills too). But when it comes time to stop, I sometimes don’t know how. My next investment clearly needs to be a time-management course.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this life. But it is no picnic.

The blurred boundary to the day and really missing working with and leading people is what often drives me back to a full time role. Well that and the need to put social standards and structure in my life.

It is sometimes too easy to put on track-pants and be that geek in a dark room, un-showered, uncommunicative, unfed, but very productive.