Interview - Working when there are other things to do
Warning - this episode has hardly any content about WordPress at all - we just got carried away chatting!
So this episode is a little bit of a departure for us, in that it's much more personal than usual, and has very little to do with WordPress, so forgive us! When we decided to cover this topic, I (Nathan) was thinking that we'd be talking about the things in life my non-work life that I have to do, sometimes in opposition to my work life.
What I mean by that is that there are so many parts to my non-work life that simply cannot be put off or delayed and they sometimes conflict with the work that I have to do. You know the kind of things that I mean... you've have a family, you have kids and a social setup that all need to be kept up and running at the same time.
David has a very different life to me and so we have very different experiences. I have got to be much more adaptable than I once was, largely to do with family commitments.
Let me be very clear on this point, my family is going to come above work every single time, but that does not mean that it's easy to down tools when I need to get on a family matter, sometimes it's not so easy, especially when that family matter was not expected.
I find that I work better when I have an extended period of time to concentrate, so start at 9am, break for lunch and then work until 5pm. This would allow me to get all of the things that I need to do, done. But my life does not allow this. The fact that I chose to be a freelancer meant that I don't have a 'real' reason not to address all of those matters that crop up. Sure, I could pretend that I'm an employee and say that during office hours I'm unavailable, but that's not the set up that I wanted or have.
I don't want you all to think that I'm moaning too! I'm just laying it out there for discussion. I'm very aware that having the ability to go and collect the kids from school is a luxury that many people would love to be able to have.
David has a different experience. He is master of his own time and can work (or not) at any point that suits him. Things that get in the way for David is more about getting distracted or not actually getting to the work that needs to be done.
David also has a habit of taking his work out with him too. He ruminates upon his work even when he's no longer at a computer; get's lost in thought and does not notice what's going on around him.
This topic also covers work-life balance. Making decisions about when we need to work, not always finding an excuse for being at the computer doing work, being at the computer pretending to do work, being at the computer researching about work, reading for work, thinking about work etc. In this industry you could literally spend every waking minute just learning about the latest and greatest technologies, and still get nowhere near the level that other people are at. So how do we know when we need to stop and that we know enough?
This conversation also covers the social side of life. Are you able to find time in your life to go out and meet up with people socially? Do you like being alone and don't really get distracted? Perhaps being alone though in the end means that you always end up working because you have no plans to do anything else?
I wonder if anyone has made time in their lives to ensure that there is no chance for work to push its way in. Do you switch off notifications during the evening and weekend? Do you leave your laptop at home when you go away on holiday? Can you honestly say that you put work in its rightful place when it have no business troubling you?
I guess the big message here is that it's possible in this 'always on' society, to work all the time... because you can. WordPress is available anywhere that there's an internet connection, and so it becomes your work and creeps into your non-work time too, and before you know it, it's all that you're doing. Perhaps we need to make time to get a hobby, put the computer down and get out into the real world.
