Freelancers don't get sick days.

It's maybe the worst part about the whole concept of freelancing. It's not doing taxes (I say confidently without having done taxes), or juggling all the jobs or waking up early. It's that there are no sick days.

On the one hand, I'm at home, right? So I can just stay in bed and work. True. But on the other hand, ohgodawfulsickness - all I really want to do is sleep. That must wait until work is done, however.

I guess I could take a sick day, but I might be out of a job or two. So instead it's sitting around typing about being sick on the internet and being glad that my Male Compatriot is almost better from his bout with the disease.

To add injury to injury, I have one very weak ankle and an athletic personality, so I sprained the ankle pretty badly.. again... yesterday, while I was desperately pretending I wasn't sick. Now I have to do a bunch of work at home AND go in to the last few days of my remaining part-time office job to see if they send me home. Must sort out my bike, I'm really not sure how that will go.

Good night. I'm going to collapse back into a puddle of self-pity. On the plus side, I am already in bed.

How do you handle being sick? Do you insist upon a day? Do you work through it? I'm fresh out of the music industry, where nothing short of hospitalization is an acceptable excuse for missing work, and then only if you can't sneak past the doctor. So I am in the habit of working through illness, but that may not be a good solution.

Alarm Clocks and Coffee Addictions

Freelancing and coffee addictions go together like teens and sleeping in; a well known, well worn stereotype that is both humorous and sad.

My personal coffee addiction came about because of my hatred for alarm clocks. And my inability to purchase alarms that simulate the sun, or gently buzz me awake or softly caress my cheek with a gentle sonic massage involving gongs from Shangri-La. Oh, and my hourly job that requires me to work on east coast time (8 am in NYC = 5 am in Flag AZ).

Next best thing? Coffee maker on a timer that sits at the foot of the bed. It's not quite as gentle as fictional monk gongs, but there's a nice soft gurgle and the smell of warm, dark roasted addiction. And in case that doesn't wake you up, it beeps when it's done.

Of course, I might spend as much money, over time, on the coffee, because I've been bitten by the sustainability-ethical-buzzword bug, and get suckered into buying "organic shade grown locally-roasted ethically sourced coffee from wise gurus on mountaintops (probably in Shangri-La with the gongs)" on a regular basis. But, you know, live lightly on the planet and all that. Plus I hear coffee tastes better than a sonic massage. Priorities.

Back on topic, my room mate seems to have the best of it - he has an office job with a decent health package that lets him come in to work basically whenever he wants. He doesn't even have to use an alarm. Then again, his commute is kind of a pain. It's really pretty (though long) by bicycle, but he drives.

I hope to soon have the best of both worlds - no hourly jobs AND no commute. In the meantime, though, it's kind of nice waking up early when I don't have to go anywhere and can just sit and cuddle my cat while I work.

How do you wake up? Are you an alarm clock slave? A caffeine junkie? Do you combine the two like me?

Who Needs Sleep Part II: Biphasic Sleeping?

I am a night owl. But I'm also a morning person. In fact, pretty much the only times I'm tired are around 4 am and around 3 pm. The rest of the time it's go, go, go! So I did some research into polyphasic sleeping a while ago, and decided it was too risky. No, I didn't try it for myself. I decided that there wasn't enough evidence that it was safe, and the only research that's been done into sleep suggests that sleep deprivation is quite unhealthy. That's enough for me, sorry, I'm a coward like that.

Biphasic sleep, on the other hand, is a time honored tradition in much of the world - siestas! A mid-afternoon nap. Mmm, yummy. The benefits of working from home. I usually don't get more than 5-6 hours of sleep at night, and I can really feel a difference in my overall performance. And I work from home most days, so I might as well, right? In theory, a 90 minute nap at 2 pm will improve time management and make me way more productive the rest of the day. In practice, it might just make me groggy and not want to do anything else for the rest of the day. We'll see what happens!

Have you undertaken a similar experiment? What were the results?

Who Needs Sleep?

The past few weeks, I've just kind of stopped sleeping. Whenever I start something, I try and do it all.
I can learn this! I can study this! I can edit and write and yes, of course I can get up super early in the morning and why certainly, I'll do that, it'll be fun to figure it out. And while I'm at it, look how clean the house is getting, and look how much interest I'm regaining in hanging out with friends, and how back in shape I'm getting, and ...

Next thing you know, I'm so deep into crazy land that I'm pondering how much the poppy seeds from my bagel look like bugs when I move my plate back and forth really fast.

That's the thing, though, everyone's work suffers when there's not enough sleep. This is not a secret, everyone knows it. Why is it so hard to sleep?

Well, for the same reason it's so hard to choose between social obligations and work obligations. Going to have to try reigning it in if I'm going to get anything done!

But then, that's self employment. You work harder for yourself than anyone else is allowed to ask you to work.


How do you find balance? Have there been some tough decisions that you've had to make in order to make everything work?