How You Do It

How You Do It

“I don’t know how you do it,” people are always saying to me when they contemplate working at home. Frequently this is said by people who can’t conceptualize working at home, and probably would have a hard time outside of the office or the institution. For me, that was never a concern, I knew it would be easier to be my own boss, and most of the time, I was right.

What people are asking when they ask how you do it, is how you manage to not spend the day on the couch. Here’s why you don’t, you need the money, and more often than not, this will be your guiding principle while you are self-employed. You need the money. There’s no unemployment coming and safety nets have a way of wearing out. So, you get off the couch. There are only so many episodes of Boston Legal you can watch anyway.

And you will watch Boston Legal; there will be more than enough time for that. You will find that work is unpredictable. 8 years in, and it is still feast or famine for me. It’s more feast now than famine, which is great, but when I talk about how I do it, that’s the part that I’ve had the most trouble with. It’s real easy to watch those Boston Legals when its famine and you’re still feasting. It’s real easy to fool yourself that you’re being productive on the days when you don’t see clients, when you don’t make money. This is why the money isn’t enough. You don’t do it for the money alone. You have your reasons, I have mine.

And me personally, I have a lot of other things going on, and the best thing about the freelancer’s life is you will have a chance to pursue those things if you want. I work out every day for an hour at least, lately some combination of lifting weights, yoga, and hashing, but come spring I’ll be running 30 miles a week (hopefully) and biking around instead of slogging it out on the subway. All of that eats a lot of time, and it turns out the dog needs to get out too, and she doesn’t do yoga, though she’s probably more flexible than me. Point is, that’s a chunk of time there.

Reading and writing, I want to do that too, more than I do now. I’d like to see some things published, and soon. It’s been too long and I’m getting old round here. I really want to read more.

And God help me, I want to work more. I want to make more money and I don’t feel the least bit bad that I’m trying to keep up with the Joneses. I want my overpriced Park Slope apartment, and I want it sooner rather than later. I’m sick of paying rent.

So, I want all of that and I want my social life, the drinking, the carousing, even the dating, though that couldn’t be over soon enough. I want to see the show. I live in New York Fucking City and I’m not that old and I want it all and I want it on my terms. I want to make it look easy, and yes, I want to watch an episode of Boston Legal here and there, though honestly, I have no idea why. That’s my motivation right now.

So, I’m making a change because while I’m more or less doing all of that now, when its feast, I get overwhelmed and can’t keep things straight and when it’s famine, at best I don’t push myself that hard. If you please, I’m making a minor change to the business model. I’m hiring someone, and for lack of a better term, I’m hiring a Gal Friday.

The way I see it is that if once a week, someone can do all my cleaning, including my laundry, run a few errands, and maybe take the dog for a good walk, I can forget about all of that in between. Well, the dog still needs to go out, but otherwise I should be good. If this allows me to do 2 more billable hours of work a week, or publish an article, or accomplish some sort of meaningful project that moves my business or my life forward, it will be worth it. How do you do it? You design around yourself.

And I’ll tell you the truth; I’m not so crazy about this course of action, but it makes more sense than anything else I can think of. That’s my middle class guilt coming on, but the fact of the matter is that were I a little more motivated and a lot more focused, it may not be necessary to find someone to do this.

The facts are that I’m not going to become more focused tomorrow or the next day. I can focus on a few things at a time, but I’m too easily distracted by the minutia. I don’t even like the minutia, it just pisses me off. So, I’m outsourcing it, and by doing so, I’ll accomplish more. That’s the theory anyhow.

Designing around yourself, sounds simple, even self evident, and it is, but it’s real easy not to, and if you don’t, you will fail. If you don’t believe me, ask about the store someday.

And that is how you do it.