Finding Your Focus: How to Actually Work When Working At Home

 

 Maybe I should have apprenticed at the Consulate...

Okay, Caine up there is about to burn the shit out of himself in some masochistic, quasi-Kung Fu ritual that looks awesome in a 30 second television intro but might be of dubious historical accuracy. Accurate or not, Caine's suffering is a pretty decent analogy for attempting to be a professional writer working from home. While you're probably not carrying a flesh searing fifty-pound iron tub of red-hot coals around all day with your forearms, or maybe you are, I don't know how you do things in your house, what you are doing is attempting to make a go of concentrating on making art in an environment specifically engineered to keep you distracted, your home. So today I'm going to talk a little about finding your focus and working from home.

In the admittedly short amount of time I've been making a go of it as a professional journeyman writer, I've come to understand some basic truths about it as a career. At first I was all, "Hell, yes! I can write about these spaceships and giant robots all day!" and I could. The shine hadn't worn off and I could still pound out a bunch of words and not think about anything else. Then, just like all hobbies that you take up as a career, it became a job. It's easy to fall into the trap of procrastination and laziness when you're at home in your jammies making up stories all day. "Oh, man." you say to yourself. "I've written five-hundred words today, time for a nap!" That kind of attitude isn't going to get you anywhere except unemployed. So if I may, let me share some advice with you gentle readers. Things that I've found that help me actually get work done at home.

Find your Happy Place

The first step is finding an appropriate work area. Just like a machinist or an architect or a painter, you're creating something whole (stories, games, novels) from specialized materials (words and grammar) using specialized tools (computers, dictionaries, research material). Also, just like these other professions, you need a dedicated workplace with enough space for you, your tools and materials and your finished product. This could be a spare bedroom in your house or apartment, behind a screen in a corner of your loft or in the unused corner of your parents' basement by the furnace where all the boxes are stacked. Hell, Stepen King's first work area while he was working on The Dead Zone was a rickety little desk in the laundry room of the mobile home he shared with his wife when they were young and starving. It doesn't matter what and where it is, as long as it can offer you a bit of peace and privacy, a flat space for your laptop or monitor and keyboard, and when you're in there it's clear to people that, yes you are, in fact, working and should be left alone. Which leads us to...

Let's Go To Work!

So, you've gone so far as to make writing your job. Now act like it. While your commute may be from your bedroom to your kitchen to your office, you're still going to work and you need to get in that frame of mind. Set your alarm at a decent hour. Get up, get showered, have a shave, get dressed, have breakfast. Do all of this as if you were then going to get in the car and leave the house. It sharpens the mind wonderfully, and puts you in a work frame of mind. This, of course, makes the following much easier... 

Discipline, Grasshopper...

The most important things you need when working from home are structure and discipline. Make a plan, execute the plan, stick to the plan. Make yourself a schedule that works for you and breaks your day into blocks, but is flexible enough that you can adjust as necessary. Michael Chabon states in "Manhood for Amateurs" that he writes from 10:00am to 6:00pm Sunday through Thursday, which is great for him but not, say, for me. Plan out when you write, when you lunch, when you do other business like chasing down leads and signing contracts. Also, make sure that you schedule in some free time in each day. Time enough to leave the house for a cup of coffee or play some games or something. Anything to keep your brains limber. Remember, all work and no play makes Homer something something...

Hey, I'm workin' in here...

Remember, what you're doing is work and is no less relevant because you're at home and not in some climate controlled cube farm. Make sure that your spouse/partner/kids/landlord/neighbors/friends/in-laws/pets/etc. understand that even though you're home, you're working and you can't come and help move furniture or catch an early matinee. Hopefully, they'll eventually come to understand. If not, that's why your phone has a power button. Which leads to...

Oooooo...Shiny!

You have got to reduce distractions if you're ever going to get anything done. Seriously. Turn off your IMs, check your email once in the morning, once at lunch and once after work, not every five minutes. Turn off your ringer and let your calls go to voicemail (or the equivalent for you luddites out there), that's what voicemail is for. Of course this can be altered if you're expecting an important communique. Turn off the radio or alter what you listen to. I've found that anymore, songs with words distract the hell out of me. The only thing I can listen to while I work is either jazz or orchestral music, which lend themselves well to the creative process. 

Honestly, these are all guidelines, and your situation could change from day to day. Some days I can work all day at the Eurotrash Polish coffeehouse I love in Hamtramck and bang out the words no problem. Other days I need to draw the blinds in my office to keep the birds from distracting me. I guess what I'm trying to say is, find what works for you and stick to it. Remember, this is work. While it can and should be fun, it's also hard. Hell, if it was easy everyone would do it!