It is the most common complaint of the freelancer: being cooped up in the house, lots to do, nowhere to go, no human contact in the near future and the seven steps between the desk and the kitchen are the only bits of exercise expected for the day.
Sigh. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder sometimes if I’ve picked the wrong career. No matter how much I love the outcome, is it worth it if this my everyday? When all of my friends started getting Fitbits a few months ago, I couldn’t even entertain the thought, because who needs to confirm that the number of steps I take each day doesn’t always make it into the double digits? Does Fitbit automatically call an ambulance if your vital signs are too much like those of a comatose person? On the other hand, can it detect pending bedsores or deep vein thrombosis? Am I seriously a person who worries about these things?
Freelancers worry about these things. You get stuck in ruts (and in couch cushions). I was recently in one (for some pretty legitimate reasons, but still), and it lasted a long time. It can be tough to wrestle with that cooped up feeling for even a week or a few days, but I was stuck there for months. But I pulled out of it, and for the past few weeks, life has been the opposite of cooped up. We moved, so in between every regular task of my workday, there’s been unpacking, decorating, yard work, incoming delivery people, assembling furniture, running to Lowe’s four times a day — you know, pretty standard moving stuff. Oh, and I decided to be a responsible pregnant lady and enroll myself in prenatal yoga and water aerobics.
So yesterday came. And I realized when looking at my calendar the night before, that I had nothing on my schedule. No interviews, no house appointments, no places to be, and no outstanding decorating projects. Just work. The same type and amount of work I’d had throughout my rut; the same stuff I’d been doing for the past several weeks. I stayed home and I worked all day. And it was glorious. I worked from the couch. I had no human contact. I had lots to do and nowhere to go, and I loved every minute of it.
Freelancing from home is completely amazing. You’d have to be crazy to not think this was the best way to work. But there are ruts in every line of work, and they’re often tied to ruts in our personal lives. That’s nothing having a full and bustling life outside of the job won’t fix. Taking the time to have a life: it solves everything.
Natalie Burg 