Productivity

During my job search, I had about 15 different interviews for about 10 different companies. A question I was asked almost every time was, “why do you want to work from home?” That’s a question unique to this type of search, and at first I was not prepared to answer.

Really, the answer is easy. But what interviewer wants to hear “I have four kids and want to be home when they are. I want to keep my house cleaner and make better meals. I want to walk my dogs and exercise and not have crazy rushed mornings where everyone has to be out of the house at 7:40. I want to make my family’s life better.” It’s all true, and those were the reasons behind my search, but it’s the type of answer that makes managers wonder whether you are going to spend your days working or homemaking.

A few interviews in, I narrowed down my answer to what it really was. Every day that I worked in the office, I lost at least three hours of my day. That amounted to somewhere between six and ten hours most weeks. I was spending up to forty hours a week on my 30 home ur a week job. And what it boiled down to was, I wanted that time back. It was my time, and it was disappearing every day, replaced by a long commute to a job I wasn’t enjoying anymore, sandwiched between a crazy morning and a stressful evening where I never could catch up.

So that’s what my answer became. I want that time back, to use in my way. I could be working, and getting paid for that time. Or I could use it for personal reasons. But the bottom line was, I wanted my three hours back.

After getting my job and getting my time back, my productivity skyrocketed. I found myself getting to things that I never had time for, keeping things cleaner than I’d been able to since long ago when I was a stay home parent who worked a couple hours a week. Within my newfound time I got my office moved out of the laundry room, and now have a much better setup in my bedroom.

I was able to bake cookies to bring to Thanksgiving, and made the decision not to rush our Thanksgiving travel on Wednesday, but instead to travel on Thursday, and spend Wednesday cleaning and doing laundry, a decision that allowed us to stay an extra day at the end of the weekend, since we knew our home was in order. I was congratulating myself on this good use of my time, but after Thanksgiving, I had a wrench thrown in to my time.
 
Two kids home sick, one for two days and another for three. No matter, they weren’t that sick and I was able to work and stay productive without much interruption. But then I caught it, and all my extra time was spent trying to recover. Easier than trying to work downtown while sick, but still no fun. Once I did recover, I tried to throw myself back into productive mode. I made a variation of Grandma cookies for a certain boy who forgot until the day of his scout party that he was supposed to bring Oreos. They didn’t end up getting eaten, but that is another story which I’ll call “the one where the kid forgets and his mom goes out of her way but then no one eats the cookies anyway”. But I still had the satisfaction of making them, and now we have fancy Oreos in our fridge.

It’s December, and as such, way too busy. Trying to catch up from being sick, and also get a little ahead, I took too much on in my day yesterday. My biggest error was taking my youngest two to the grocery store with me after school. Somehow I thought it might be fun, like the days long ago where I’d take them after preschool, or after pikcing them up from their grandparents’ house. I forgot one crucial element, though, and that is that in those days, I didn’t see them as much. I was downtown when  they got out of school, I had night classes, I had homework. I didn’t see them every day from 2:30 straight until bedtime. Shopping with them was a change of pace, and also necessary due to my schedule.

They were fine, really. They did ask me the same questions over and over and make a million suggestions on what to buy, but it was normal kid stuff. But my patience wore thin, especially as I realized that my dinner plan would not work out, because we were on a time constraint because of a holiday concert and I still had $200 worth of groceries to put away when I got home.

The rest of the evening spiraled out of control. The kids ate leftovers while I put groceries away. I drove one kid to school for her concert and came back and tried to get the rest to get stuff done. They wouldn’t get ready, wouldn’t pick up their dirty clothes or put on their shoes, wouldn’t put away their homework.  The room was trashed and I couldn’t deal any longer, and lost my patience and yelled at them. After we finally got to the concert and home again, I found out that neither had eaten a proper dinner. A hardboiled egg and cranberry sauce is not dinner. So I had to make plates of leftovers for them at 9:00pm. And boil new eggs, and put sheets on my bed, and unload the dishwasher, and make lunches, and still eat dinner. And that’s how I found myself up until midnight, grumping at myself and pre-peeling hardboiled eggs.

This is definitely not the productivity I’d been chasing. I took on too much in a day, which is a bad habit of mine, just ask my husband or my mom. I thought I’d learned something about using my time wisely at Thanksgiving, but I seem to have forgotten, less than two weeks later.  The lesson I thought I had learned was that it’s still okay to say no, and to not push this new productivity to it’s max or I would end up repeating exactly the kinds of things I came home to avoid, like skipping dinner to put away groceries while the kids eat not enough leftovers for dinner, and yelling at two tired kids to keep their rooms clean when they had just spent two hours grocery shopping against their will. Instead I pushed through, trying to do the laundry and shopping and cooking and cleaning and parenting all in one day when I was only at about 75% and also work a full day. Not happening.

So today I was a little easier on myself. I worked in sweatpants which is something I try to avoid so I don’t fall into the habit of doing it every day. I picked some work tasks I could do on the couch and took it a little easy. I spent some time writing in the morning in an attempt to make sense of my difficult day. I made sure to clean up the kitchen and make my bed before I got started on my work day, to set my home day up to be more successful. I stopped work about 20 minutes before the girls got home, straightened up, made them a snack and sat and connected with them after school.

I can see that developing good habits and a standard routine is going to be crucial to my success at home. That and knowing when to say when, and when to say no. And lastly, knowing that just because I can take the kids with me grocery shopping, doesn’t mean I should.

Week 1

On the first day after I left office life behind, this happened.

The first snow of the season. It didn't stick, and melted before the day was over, but it was a nice reminder that this year, I won't have to dress in layers and snow boots and walk two miles in unpredictable Chicago winter weather, or spend 90 minutes bundled up on the train  I've had days over the last few years where snow got in my boots, where buses splashed my clothes in slush, where I forgot my hat and my ears froze, where the train ran half speed due to ice on the tracks, where I tried to take the L instead of walking to stay warm, only to have it take twice as long. A Chicago winter commute is no fun, and I'm glad to have traded it in.

And here's what I traded it in for.

This is my current setup. Yes, that's my water heater over to the right, and yes, those are tools hanging over my laptop. This is Mike's workbench, which he has been gracious enough to let me borrow until I can get my office space in the bedroom set up. It's not perfect and won't work long term, but look! It's in my house. 

When I first started commuting again in early 2014, it didn't seem like that big of a deal. I was in school two days a week and commuted for two more.  Somehow the commute at that time felt like a little break in my week. I mostly read during it and listened to music. I guess it was a break between being a student, being an employee, and being a parent. But kids get older and have different needs. Work grows more stressful. And school ends, usually. And at the point where I changed from part time student/part time employee to full time employee is where my work life balance imploded. I pushed through for a while hoping it would get better. Then pushed trough more for the sake of benefits and additional salary. But when Mike took a job that put him back to commuting far from home, that was the end for my commuting life. 

I felt suddenly like I was failing at everything. Work, home, family. Everything felt like it was falling through the cracks, always. Something had to give. And that's when I made the decision to come home. It was an easy decision to make.

It was one week ago today that I walked out of my office for the last time. I instantly felt stress melting away. As the week has gone on, I know without a doubt that this was he right move to make, and the right time. I know that as my new job progresses, the stress level will rise. And I know that this kids' needs will continue to evolve. But I also know that here, I feel better equipped to handle it. Here, I can carve out the balance I need. Here, at home. 

Goodbye, office life!

After almost four years, Thursday was my last day at my job. I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had, the things I've learned, and the people I've met. But at the same time, for several reasons, it's time to move on, and I'm very ready for the next chapter.

 The truth is, I was never meant for the office life. I'm too quiet, too bad at small talk, too locked in my own head while I work. It takes me years to warm up to people, and in a high turnover environment, that leaves someone like me with very few people to talk to, when I do feel like talking. And, office life where I live means a commute, if you want to make a good salary. Mike and I have proven that our family can tolerate one parent with a long commute, but when both of us do it, the effects are evident almost immediately. It just doesn't work.

 When I decidedly to open up my job search this year, I wasn't really sure what I wanted. There were a few options, but most of them involved a negative, like loss of flexibility, pay cuts, losing benefits, or keeping my beast of a commute. There was only one option that didn't have those negatives: pursue the long tome goal, and get that work from home job I'd been dreaming about for 17 years, and working towards for 7. A few months into a casual job search, I narrowed my focus and hit it hard. There was not a rush to leave my current job, I just wanted to get out. So I would pursue it with all I had until I found what I really wanted.

 And I did find it. Thursday was my last day in the office overlooking the Chicago River. It was my last mile long walk down Lasalle Street in the morning, and back again in the evening. It was my last 50 minute train ride, each way. I might sometimes miss that view, but I won't miss that commute, probably ever. This weekend I worked at setting myself up for success in my new position, and tomorrow morning I start the job that I went back to school to eventually get. I couldn't be more excited. I thought I'd be nervous, but I'm really not. It feels, quite literally, like coming home, which is exactly what I'm doing.

 Interestingly enough, this drawing appeared on the chalk wall at the office around the same time I hit the job search hard. It has been inspirational to me these last couple of months so I finally took a picture. I've focused on creating the future I want and I'm excited to move forward.