Breaking Away from 9-5
As the days get closer to us having a boat I am getting more and more excited. We are finding lots of great resources, we are getting tons of support from everyone we talk to, and the plan is coming together nicely.
One of the funniest things that we have run into is the complete lack of understanding about building your own lifestyle. What we are talking about is breaking free from the day to day grind of work to home to work to home to work to home, to church, to… well you get the idea. We are all very lucky to live in the Information Age. In the Information Age most of what we do at work we can do on a computer at home. For those of us who are entrepreneurs, we can develop large streams of income right from our home using just our computer.
There are many places that you can go on the Internet to find more information. That is really not what the post is about, I will include some links on the bottom for you to follow. What I want to talk about is just what is important.
For us the important thing is to simply do what we want to do when we want to do it, from a location that is of our choosing. We are both teachers and we love teaching. The development of students right in front of your eyes is an amazing thing. It is incredibly rewarding. But who wants to get grumpy kids in desks at 7 am every day. Who wants to get up at 5 am to down some breakfast and coffee just to get to school to find out that the copiers are broken and you cant to the lesson that you had planned?
It is certainly not limited to teaching. I used to be an engineer and I fought the traffic to and from work just to crawl into a florescent light cubical to bang away at a computer all day for what? I suppose that I brought communications and Internet to some desolate places in the world. Norlisk, Russia comes to mind. But the daily grind of going to work at a certain time to get home at a certain time was just not working. So I worked like George Castanza for a while, and of course lost that job.
I guess being forced to work at certain times never has worked for me. I almost stayed in Mexico just because of the siesta. I find that the worst times of the day for me are from 2pm to 4 pm. I am always really good in the morning, and have always thought that I can get more done in the morning than most people can do all day. But I am also finding from about 6pm to 9pm I can be very productive. A cup of coffee after dinner and I can sit at the computer and get some great work done.
Not everyone is productive at the same time of the day. Not everyone is good from 9-5. We do need a standard time of business, but we do not need a standard time of work.
So how do we get out of this 9-5 (or more likely 7-6) routine. Well first we have to change our thinking. We have to know that work is not so much work when you are doing something that you love. Then doing something at 11:50pm is fun and not working. Secondly we have to have a little more self discipline to be able to get the things done that we need to while away from the office. Lets face it, at home there are a lot more distractions. Finally we have to exploit our skills. Everyone has something to offer, a skill or a talent. If you are working a job making widgets you may not be able to break away from the standard work time. But if you can offer a skill or a talent then you can change your work schedule to what you want it to be.
What do we get out of it? More time for you, for your family, for your mental health. Just think no more sick day just to stay home and watch Oprah. As a matter of fact there becomes no such thing as a sick day anymore. You just work when you have something to do. If you have an appointment then no problem. Do a little more in the morning, or stay up late and get things done. Then you can sleep in you deserve it.
Resources to look at:
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