Thank you so much for sharing Monica. I'm going to ponder this and see if I can come up with some tips for an article. We were talking in last night's chat about Type A overachievers and how we do just that--too darn much. But, congrats on your acievements!
Most people who say things like that about working from home have never done it & have no idea. The reality for most of us is that an 8-hour workday happens only on weekends! Our work is right here all the time & beckons constantly. When I first started working from home, I barely remembered to do laundry on a regular basis. So, all that is just jealousy and ignorance of what really happens. But, in my case I tell them they should visit my SOHO site as I help people find great business ideas so they can work from home, too. Usually shuts them right up!
I teach a class on customer service & marketing to independent contractors and I cover taking care of yourself as part of it because if we don't take care of ourselves, we don't eat. We are our most valuable business resource and although getting things done (and LOTS of them) is essential, it's also important to have balance and pace ourselves. I have "burned out" and can easily slip back into "workaholic" tendencies.
I do think defining and posting priorities and "current goals" helps with the focus. We just can't do it all right now. So, I keep a file of "want to do" ideas and make myself promise not to do those until my priority goals are done.
Right now, for me, I've dropped back to one site and I can't tell you how many times I get an idea for another site & go check to see if it's available! But, I have ebooks and other stuff that I HAVE to do before I will even seriously consider that. I realized last fall when I got sick that I had so many projects that I was not fully devoting myself to any one of them enough and I was scattered. So, I cut back a lot! I'm still just as busy, but it's more focused.
