💾 Archived View for jsreed5.org › log › 2023 › 202310 › 20231006-working-away-from-home.gmi captured on 2024-05-26 at 15:01:28. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-11-04)
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I work from home full-time, and now that we live relatively far out in the country, I rarely have occasion to leave the neighborhood anymore. As a person who loves to travel and spend time outdoors, this really weighs down on me.
Yesterday I decided to change that. I woke up early, showered and got dressed, packed my work laptop, and set out for a coffee shop that was recommended to me. When I arrived, I had about twenty minutes before my first meeting of the day. However, I discovered to my dismay that the café didn't open for another hour. I ended up needing to work in my car using my smartphone's hotspot to connect. Of course, meetings turned into follow-ups and follow-ups turned into working calls, and I didn't make it into the café for another hour after it opened.
Finally I sat down and found myself a table. The shop was rather crowded by then, and I soon realized that the only open tables had no wall outlets nearby. By then my laptop, which is fairly old, had chewed through almost half of its battery. About two hours later, close to my lunch hour, it was clear my computer wouldn't last the whole day.
A fast food restaurant down the street provided the outlet I needed. I only stayed long enough to order some lunch and top off the battery. I then decided to find another place to work, and being the plane nut I am, the airport was an obvious choice. The rest of the day I worked while watching aircraft arriving and departing overhead.
Despite the distractions--and the driving--I had one of the most productive workdays I've had in a long time. I could focus, I got tasks done quickly, I helped arrange meetings, and in general I made a lot of progress in many projects. I came back home, dehydrated and slightly sunburned, feeling quite good about myself.
Generally I'm pretty lazy about my morning routines. I often don't wake up until about fifteen minutes before I need to log in, and that naturally leaves me with no time to go somewhere else to work. For my own mental health, I should change that going forward.
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[Last updated: 2023-10-06]