work from home: blessing or curse?

Early this year I spent several months working from home, doing odd translation and writing jobs. Let me tell you one thing: I suck at working from home. There's just too many distractions, too many things I'd rather be doing rather than working. So i decided to go out to the library or any given cafes or anywhere I can use the internet connection from. But I ended up paying more for food and drink than I should.

I know a lot of freelancers out there share my dilemma. Working from home is not as fun as it sounds. I need a separation between my work life and my home life, and there was no such thing when I worked from home.

I was sipping my daily dose of A Cup of Jo when I stumbled upon her post in which she was looking for a shared work space. In New York, like-minded people created independent workspaces which gives you the workspace and the freedom you need to work.

One of them is Paragraph, a workplace for writers. It looks quite peaceful and comfortable, exactly the kind of place writers need. No distractions..... hmm.... really? Well that entirely depends on whether you're the kind of person who likes to chat up the person next to you on the bus or as antisocial as Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.

Another group (I don't know what these are, are they a company? A sort of cooperative? So I just decided to call them group, for want of a better word) offering a similar service is In Good Company. It's not aimed solely for writers, but it is dedicated for women entrepreneurs.

Bottomline, human interaction is essential to any work life. It is much better to have co-workers rather than having nobody to gossip with!

making the rounds

What's your hobby?

My obsession is blogwalking. I can spend hours poring over blog after blog after blog, being truly unproductive and wasting the company's resources. What have I been obsessing about? A great range of things, from retracing the pregnancy story of the lovely Joanna Goddard with her adorable husband and her uber-cute baby boy to the wackier-by-the-minute so-called-fashion-blogger Diana Rikasari (I'm sorry if you're a fan, but I just don't get her. Plus I don't think she wears those things outside of her room).

And I can spend hours reading posts, finding connections, connecting the dots, which results in an unhealthy obsession on Bobby Hicks and Keiko Lynn (although of course I'm more attracted to the hip-cool-sweet-trendy-cute-smart Bobby *snickers*).

It's usually temporary though, my obsession changes daily.

Today I'm obsessing on Apartment Therapy and how put together people's homes are. I instantly became super aware of my own house and how messy it is in comparison. I'm the type of person with a mixed obsessive-compulsive traits. I can't sleep if I haven't brush my teeth, but I'll sleep like a baby on top of dirty clothes. Sick, I know. Haha..

Anyways, I stumbled upon a great post on Apartment Therapy that might work for me to help me clean the house. I tend to postpone cleaning until... well.. forever. But I keep my sink clean almost all the time! See how mixed I am? To keep the long story short, I will do as suggested by the great people on Apartment Therapy: clean for 20 minutes each day for the next 30 days until it became a habit. See here for the post and wish me luck!!

so

First off, happy new year!!

Now to business.

I have been and will always be terrible at keeping diaries, journals, blogs, what-have-you.

I love fancy diaries, I adore moleskine, but it's best if I don't buy them at all because I will only be donating my money to the bookstores and fancy journal makers but I will not put my journals to its best use.

This blog is the perfect example. See the timestamp of the last post and you will know what I mean.

I completely forgot that this blog even existed and would probably never open it again if my dear friend Bulan didn't tell me that she read my blog.

I was like, "Huh? What blog? Do I even have one?"

And I really didn't remember anything about it. I didn't even remember the address of the blog in question. *Forgive me, blogspot, for I have sinned*

Anyhoo..

It's a new year, a fresh start is in order.

Let's make this a challenge, shall we, to make things interesting?

I'll challenge myself to write three posts per week, minimum, and we'll see if the habit grew on me.

xoxo,

S