Time to Transition into a Full Online Economy

So everyone is at home. So people cant go  to the office. Should they really be going to the office anyway? My wife is in meetings all day long with multiple people. The meetings are long and productive. She never leaves the home. I obviously have always worked at home. That's what writers do. But this paradyme of people driving into big cities to go to their offices is so twentieth century. We have been toying with a virtual business world for a long time. Now with the coronovirus it is time to go into a full online economy that is impervious to work stoppage.

Publishers have shut down. My publisher has shut down. Why? Everyone in publishing works on computers creating books. This can be done anywhere. In fact my last editor did all his work from home. So why did publishing shut down? The people who write the checks and run the company couldn't come into the office so it was all just shut down. Ridiculous. Everyone should be working from home. The office concept is slowly dying anyway and cornovirus might be the final death knell of driving to a central location to do what you can do at home.

But more than all that we now buy things online We get our groceries delivered. We work remotely all the time. We can have meetings remotely. Write checks remotely. Get hired and fired remotely. There is no reason to be in any central location where we are in danger of becoming infected. The cornovirus is an organism that cannot infect wires and silicon chips. We are twenty first century people so lets act that way and leave this virus behind with an economy that never stops. 

Tips for Working at Home from a Writer Who Has Always Worked at Home

Make your bed. First thing. You need order. Then get dressed. Sweats or whatever is fine but the pajama thing makes you feel like you are at home. Have breakfast. At least coffee. I prefer a big breakfast. Then have a work space. If it is your kitchen table so be it but it has to be your space. Routine Routine Routine. It has allowed me to write seventeen books. This is not a vacation. If you turn it into that then nothing will get done.

Work nine to five. Or longer but don't stretch it into the night or you will quickly burn out. Take  a lunch. This gives you a break and you get hungry. Thirty minutes is about right. Go any longer and you lose all your momentum. The thing is to treat working at home like working at work. If you treat it like being at home you will lose your productivity. Dont go off into the side-tasks. Put in some laundry fine but keep away from all those things nagging at you like cleaning the kitchen or fixing that faucet. That is for the weekend.

Work five days a week and take the weekends off like everyone else. You will need it to recharge. Fit a workout into your routine. One of the perks of working at home. In the morning or at lunch or in the evening. An office in your home is optimal. One that no one will bother you and by the way let everyone know you are working like when you are in the office and not to be disturbed. If you start to burn out then move your office around. Work outside if it is nice. Very good for energy. Play the radio if silence bothers you. Classical or jazz no words to listen too.

But when the day is over turn off the light and leave the work at your desk, it will be there tomorrow. Just like when you worked in an office.

William Hazelgrove

The Heaven and Hell of Working at Home

You only have to go to Starbucks to understand the duality of working at home. It is packed during the day with people who work at home. They are there for hours staring at their computers and they certainly were once in cubes or offices or sitting at conference tables. Globalization and a 1099 workforce has put a lot of people back into their kitchens. We were a nation of people who charged out of the home and hit the office. Now with computers we are becoming a nation of people who roll out of bed make our coffee and hit the kitchen table or the home office or some chair, couch, that works as a place to handle emails, write reports, compose novels.

The heaven of working at home is no commute, no interference, you just get down to work. The hell is there is no commute, no interference you just get down to work. Where is that coffee clutch moment where you gab with Bob Jim Nancy Ann about your weekend about how hard it is to get going on Monday morning. Where is that meeting where you are putting your head together with other people. Where is that lunch that coffee break, that feeling of camaraderie and finally that moment of leaving and driving back home in compartmentalized bliss. It is not there for many people anymore. There is Starbucks.

You have traded all that for your cat your dog those calls that never seem to come. There is no ringing phone, no buzz of people, not even the soft whisper of the keyboard. No. You are a company of one. No wonder people run screaming out their door for a coffeehouse, the grocery store, anything to get a little interaction. Add winter to the mix and you have people who will do anything to return to the workforce. It is not for the fainthearted.

Just ask anyone who has retired.

williamhazelgrove