Do you change how your household works during the change of the season? We do, summers are just a different flavor in the Berry family. We do more in the evenings and put off being out until the heat of the day is over. In the Autumn, the mornings are brisk, the time to do physical labor on the property and before the hours other businesses are working, is available. We enjoy waking up and sharing time together in the first days of fall. This is almost a magical time as the land transitions form the harvest celebrations to the releasing of summer’s glory of leaves and blooms.
Working from home is a learned skill. If you’ve been in a corporate, education, or work environment, there are boundaries of moving into that space each day to facilitate your role or job. When you choose the entrepreneurial route, your hours, your work environment, your schedule become your own, and for many folks that begins a slippery slope of forgetting you are in business.
As we moved this summer, we are setting new routines and boundaries in place for ourselves, our lives, and our business. Part of our focus on moving to the land was to keep family first, and not spend so much time in environments we do not enjoy. That, however, doesn’t cancel the need to have income, to do meaningful work, and to keep up and meet the needs of each other, the cottage and our lives. There is a emptiness that creeps in when you’re simply making a living and not a life.
My body sighs relieve when I pull into our drive now. The tall oaks and the open field simply call to me to relax, come be a part of life. In town I rarely desired to go walk the property, even though it was the same amount of property…but here I am drawn outside to discover, to notice, to drink in the majesty of its wildness and growing.
Boundaries of working at home for me means that I plan carefully how the days are to go the days I work at home. The realities of working with others means that time must be minded, but here I am free to choose where to write, where to work on art for marketing, where to establish a welcoming environment to teach or mentor. In corporate structures, even the air in large buildings felt stale. Here, as the day progresses I can walk outside and drink in the sunshine. It.is.good.
The days I do return to more traditional settings to work, I enjoy the ability to see other cohorts, to work within the structures that are such a part of the community, like the new Fayetteville Public Library state of the art addition. It is encouraging to see a library that has focused on supporting the community in all the facets of intelligence: reading, literacy, engaging community interests and needs such as the culinary center and the creator’s tools and center. How important shared resources are.
I love the drive down to the University of Arkansas town, the Ozarks are inviting visually. It’s been a part of my life for over thirty five years, so each trip down reminds me of just how life keeps expanding and that nothing is impossible as we see buildings and programming we only dreamed of in my early times here. It reminds me of the timelessness of Vermont and yet the way Vermont always is progressing.
It’s scarf weather now, and I’m delighted. It’s a joy to wear clothes that sing of color and share in the glad tidings of the season. For me cooler weather is always a welcome transition. A friend was sharing that she is struggling with working from home, it reminded me that in the decades I’ve worked from home and in corporate type spaces, I have a “uniform” mentality.
I get up, get polished and get ready for the time I focus on work whether it be farm work or external business work. The changing of the clothes from casual to more polished signals to me that I’m on “work time” and likewise when the work is done, the changing of clothes for me signals that I am “no longer working on client work” and I relax into the routines of the cottage and farm. It may seem simple to others, but for me it is a true transition and it helps me keep the boundaries of not working 24/7 in a world that wants to access me that way. After all there are lovely things to discover and tend, such as our neighbor’s cow. A little camera shy, but always a welcome visitor in my evening rounds of chores.
When do you stop doing? How do you engage the delights of the day. I am determined to find and keep joy in this season, despite its sometimes oppressive changes.
Do you define how you work at home? Whether you’re a worker of the home or have a service or product for clients outside of the home, what makes your life work? Do you set days or blocks of time that you do focused time? I’m all about how to use your time to build the life you cherish. I’d love to hear how you manage your time and roles!
I'd love to hear your sharings...