working from home

I’m writing this at 1am. I’ve still got a couple of emails I have to send before the day is over, but aside from that, I’ve finished everything that’s been needed today. And I’m put in mind of an excerpt from a Seth Godin book (I think it’s from Tribes, but my copy is with someone else at the moment).

He writes about being unable to sleep whilst on holiday, and going into the hotel lobby to check his email at some odd hour of the night/early morning. As he’s online he overhears someone commenting how sad it is that someone on holiday feels the need to be doing work on a computer, and his response in the book is to say how sad it is that someone does a job they need to escape from with holidays.

And that’s how I feel at the moment. I’m naturally predisposed to a more nocturnal existence anyway, but I’m also appreciating the fact that I’m able to structure my day differently to a lot of people.

For instance, today has included:

• Looking after my son for a few hours this morning as my partner had to go into work for a meeting.
• Wrote and published two articles for clients
• Set-up the official Jodanma hosting and reseller account for all clients going forwards. Incidentally, if you’d like reasonably priced WordPress installation, and hosting, let me know!
• Purchases two domain names for my personal sites (More on that later).
• Finished two proposals for clients which I’m really hoping I can get – more because both projects are incredibly cool and interesting more than any prospect of financial security.
• Finalised and got sign-off for one of Jodanma’s first official clients.
• Managed to grab some shopping and cook lunch and tea for the family.

Plus I also had a quick chat with my father, and did other little bits like a load of washing, some extra keyword research for an existing client, and sending and answering a myriad of emails for various topics and projects, plus scheduling some meetings, and checking various invoices.

Not a bad haul for a day which was more disrupted than normal – but that’s why I’m writing this – to remind myself that I’m lucky to be able to spend 9am on a Monday morning setting up farm animals on the living room floor with my son, and to be able to spend 9pm in a call with an American client, or 1am writing a blog post.

I actually revisited by longterm aims and ambitions recently, and I realised something rather cool. I’m obviously hoping that my businesses continue to grow – I’ve already spoken to some very qualified and trusted associates who will be able to augment what I do here, and what we’re doing at Jodanma.com, plus I’m really keen to be able to invest more resource in my digital media publishing experiments.

But if everything stayed the same for the next 30 years, I wouldn’t be particularly upset. If I’m lucky enough to be able to pay the bills and support my family on an ongoing basis, and keep the flexibility and opportunity to hang out with them in the mornings, at lunch, and in the early evenings, then that’s a success in itself.

Now can someone just remind me of that when I get woken up by a small person shouting ‘wake up daddy’ at me in about 5 hours?