The sun is shining; I should be working on my novel so what am I doing? Surfing the internet, listening to a radio show that was on first thing this morning, and writing a post for the blog….I’ve even got a couple of articles on the go – quite interesting ones too, but am I doing them? Nooooo!

Attention span of a gnat….

Constantly wondering what to do instead of work….Actually I read a very interesting thread on the Friday Cities website – this is the link, but it may not work as the website is a members only site and also by invitation only….and yes…I was invited! If you’d like to be invited to this very interesting site, drop me a line…

Anyway, back to the interesting thread, it was all about How to Stay Offline in order to work…A real problem for anyone working from home and even worse if you’re freelance because you use the internet for research. Fortunately when I sign into MSN – which I tend to keep on because it lets me know when I’ve received an email so I don’t have to keep checking – fortunately, anyone online is also working so although we may say “hello, how are you” and all the rest of it, we generally get on with our work….Or in my case, procrastinating.

Well the thread suggests using Temptation Blocker
as it’s free and will lock the internet for 30 minutes to an hour, thus enabling you to at least do a bit of work. The only way to unlock is to enter a long code so that should put you off. I can quite see how it would work – I’d have to use OneNote (which I use a lot) and take down what I needed to check up on, do further research on and so on and then save them all up until the window of internet opportunity opened again for me. Hmmm, maybe I should give it a go….Maybe there could even be an article in this…..

And just then something caught my eye outside the window – yes I am also very easily distracted…as it’s springtime all the birds are mating….and a pair of huge wood pigeons were at it in next door’s leylandii – feathers and tree branches everywhere. Maybe I should also install a timer on the curtains….

Bored? Have a new adventure!

Sometimes working freelance from home can be really great – freedom to do what you want when you want: need to go shopping? No problem, just pop into town. Want to meet up with friends for lunch? Great, just do a bit extra in the morning and you won’t even notice the hours away from the keyboard. Other times it can be just plain boring and lonely. Monday mornings are the worst without doubt, everyone else is hard at work and so should you too. No one has any time to chat on MSN – neither do you but that’s besides the point. You’ve got a stack of jobs to get done and it just seems like none of them will produce any money. It’s really easy to get sucked into the Monday downward spiral where you feel depressed by mid afternoon and end up sending out emails to all the people you haven’t spoken to for ages…..after you’ve sent the emails you remember why you haven’t spoken to them in ages – you fell out with them and were waiting for them to apologise to you……

So what’s the answer? Well, for me it’s go out….not to do some shopping, although that would be appropriate as I’m working on an article about shopping at the moment, research would be good….But no, I’m trying something else out – all in the name of writing – new adventures, experiences and so on, I’m trying my hand at being a secretarial temp….Having been taught to type at school – You must learn to type because then you will always be able to fall back on it if you don’t find a husband – yes, private education for girls…..don’t get me started….So I can type – quite fast and accurately actually….I also have loads of other office skills too, so it looks as though I can give this a try, make a little bit of money, meet people and more importantly, it will give me more to draw upon for writing!

Watch this space for the further adventures of Chickenlady – soon to be cooped up in a Battery farm office (well, it might end up feeling like a battery farm….).