In my eagerness to make up for a slow start in my transition to working at home, I've become a little bit of a workaholic. I get up in the morning and before getting out of bed, check my email on my iPhone. Then I get the little guy up, get him breakfast and ... check my email again. Then, if I don't have anything to start working on for my communications job, I start researching articles for my website writing gig while the little guy plays. After lunch, the little guy goes down for a nap and the work really begins. I try to cram in as much work as I can, either taking up the full 2-3 hours with my communications job or trying to write as many articles as I can. When the little guy wakes up, I try to separate from my computer a little, but I usually check my email a couple more times before dinner. Then, depending on how the day went, I write another article after the little guy goes to bed or at least spend some time searching for article titles to checkout so they're available when I have time to write the next day.

This isn't to say that I don't get distracted by Facebook or Twitter or reading news headlines, but I do end up spending a lot of time on my laptop. When my husband commented that it seemed like I was on my computer the whole time he was home--and this is after spending a decent amount of time working while he was at work--I knew it was time to establish some boundaries. On days when my husband actually works early, I try to get everything done before he gets home so we can spend some time together as a family without the sounds of keyboard typing in the background. I've also tried to put the laptop away more when the little guy is awake, since the whole point of me working at home is to be able to spend more time with him. Last week we took advantage of the nice weather between the crazy storms and went out to play in his sandbox, pictured above. The laptop stayed inside, although I will admit to a couple of quick email checks from my iPhone.

I guess that's the dangerous thing that can happen with working at home--depending on what you do, there's not necessarily a time to "punch out." It can be so easy to spread work out in bits in pieces to the point where it feels like you're working all day every day. Here's hoping I can learn to condense my workday a little bit from now on.