Monday, March 29, 2010

Sanity, Sick Days, and Working from Home

Those of you who work from home know that while there are great benefits to the freedom of being your own boss and working from home, it also takes a lot of discipline and motivation. There have been numerous articles written on the art of being productive and maintaining sanity while working from home. I would say that I adhere to most of it: I attempt to rise at the same time each day, actually get dressed instead of working in sweatpants, create a schedule of tasks, allow for an adjustment period in the morning in lieu of a commute by having coffee and catching up on news and weather before starting work, and I do my best to avoid being distracted by household tasks. It is also imperative to take breaks and occasionally get out of the house, or apartment, as in my case. Overall I've gotten used to the career style of working as a freelance artist, but days like today bring a new conundrum: How do sick days work in this situation? I was beginning to feel under the weather over the weekend and by the time I went to bed last night my head felt like a ball full of carbonated water. This morning it was only worse, my voice almost totally gone. On one hand, I sounded worse than I actually felt, but on the other I did not feel well at all. I probably would have benefitted most from rest, but that's the other tricky thing about working from home, sometimes it's difficult not to work! I've been known to get pulled into an editing or retouching vortex and not realize that it is 2 a.m. despite my efforts to maintain realistic, regular business hours. Since I did not have a shoot scheduled my tactic was to ease into the day with a cup of Throat Coat, which is the photo today, and watch the rain from my window seat. I can't say that today was terribly productive, but I didn't have to miss out completely on productivity. I got more accomplished than I had anticipated and I really think it helped knowing that if I felt I needed to stop and nap, I could have. Now I'm looking forward to feeling better, I have a very busy April shaping up!

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