Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Where's Your Desk?

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Last summer, when I moved from my full-time position with Free People to working for Etsy, I also made the transition from commuting to an office five days a week to working from home 75% of the time. When you're schlepping your stuff to and from your workplace every day, it's easy to romanticize that work from home life. Reading emails in your PJs and taking meetings from your couch -- it sounds dreamy. In reality though, the transition can be far more challenging. Turns out, working in your jammies isn't all it's cracked up to be -- even a nice pair of yoga pants will leave you feeling inhuman if you're not careful.

It's taken me awhile to get in the swing of things and form a routine. And even now, months later, I find I still need to make tweaks here and there to keep myself accountable and on-task. One aspect that's been the most difficult to deal with is not having a dedicated workspace. I typically post up at our kitchen island and occasionally sit on the couch if I'm working on a specific type of task, and if I need an escape, or you know, to be around other living, breathing humans, I'll go to the cafe down the block. Otherwise I don't have my own desk, no home office to speak of. This is something I've been thinking of recently - if I did have a dedicated home office space, would I use it? Would it make any difference in the way I work? When we lived in Pittsburgh we had an extra bedroom in both apartments we lived in that pretty much became storage rooms -- but at the same time, I'm now working from home most of the time. Our current apartment doesn't lend the space for a dedicated workspace, and I'd prefer not to move... but I can't help but feel as though I'd benefit from a home office (especially when Zephyr does his 3pm rounds for food).

This line of self-questioning has lead me to wonder where other remote workers call "home". Do you have a desk? A separate office space? Do you work from your couch in your PJs and love it? I'd love to know -- what works for you?