Working from Home
As if I haven't mentioned it enough… I HAVE A NEW WORK SPACE! I am so incredibly excited for multiple reasons:
I really miss people
I needed a little more motivation in my life
It has things I can offer clients that I never have been able to before (a studio!)
I needed a place to meet clients
I needed a change
I worked out of the Northrup King Building in Minneapolis when I first opened my company. In fact, I rented the space before I even had a client! I worked in the space from December 2016 until August 2017 (when I had James!) I really did enjoy it there. I liked having a place to go to every day and it motivated me in ways that I needed as I was launching Falco Creative Media. But when I had James, I had no clue what my childcare plan was or what maternity leave would look like, so it didn't make sense to keep the space. I was planning to go back or find a coworking space. I put out some feelers but by the time I was really ready to make a move, I was pregnant. Once again, it made no sense to be away from the home when I had no “maternity leave” or childcare plan for Francis. What I thought would be a temporary 3 month thing turned into 2 years. It was time for me to get out and see the world.
Don’t get me wrong, there are A LOT of perks of working from home, especially in those first few months with a newborn/ infant. I was able to be around Francis as I worked and that gave me a lot of comfort. Second, it was obviously convenient and free! I didn't have to worry about commuting, rent, parking, etc. Lastly, our house was really clean. It truly did work for the time being. But once Francis started in daycare with James, the negatives definitely started to outweigh the positives.
Working from home can be lonely. Let me correct myself. It can be VERY LONELY. And it didn’t help that I went from one extreme to the other. I came from a rowdy newsroom at a sports station. That room of 14 men and 2 other women became my family. And as you can imagine with 14 men, it was loud. There was rarely silence. And I loved it. It was home. So, going from that to being isolated in a basement office with no windows and no humans (no offense, Motzi) was really, really hard sometimes.
The other thing that I just needed to move on from was my obsession with keeping a clean house. I am not saying our house is spotless, because it’s not. It can always use a deep clean. But from the surface, I keep a very tidy, organized house. I also HAVE to work from a tidy, organized space. So considering that my house was my office, I mentally could not work if it was a mess. Most days I didn't even get down to my office until 10 because I was too busy unloading the dishwasher or putting away laundry. And I should mention that I have a very helpful husband. He definitely does his share so this was all on me. He would always tell me to go work and we could clean together when he got home. But, I just couldn’t. It was very hard for me to go from mom mode, to wife mode to work mode in the same space.
People that work from home are rockstars. I did it for 2 years and I am proud of myself for making it work but I am beyond thrilled for this new adventure. On my next blog post, I will share more about the space and this incredible opportunity. But for now, I am grateful for my new commute, lease, parking and most importantly leaving the house with a basket of unfolded laundry.