AnywhereMan

I’m a freelancer. I’m also a husband and a father.  My wife stays at home with our kids and she’s a great mom. Sometimes she needs to get out of the house to get groceries, take pictures, or go for a run. It’s been nice for her that I’m usually at home to keep an eye on the kids so she doesn’t need to load them up and bring them with. 

I know that many of you are parents, and if your kids are pre-school age, this is yet another advantage of the Work Anywhere lifestyle.  While working from home definitely has its negative aspects, being available as a part-time daycare provider has been a good thing.

Obviously my kids agree. I’m like a human jungle gym.

NOTE: Sorry about the crappy audio on this one again. The level meter says I’m okay, but something is distorting the signal. Might be time for a clip on mic.

Image via Wikipedia

Working from home is usually great. It’s nice to simply walk upstairs to have lunch with my family. Having the flexibility to get some work done after-hours is awesome.  Having my kids knock on the door and tell me about their latest accomplishment is priceless.  Most days I can honestly say that there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Today is not one of those days.

My wife and I returned from our trip to Florida earlier in the week and we were blessed to have family pitch in and watch the kids while we were gone. Everyone said the girls were pretty much angels. While I love to hear that, what it means is that they’ve actually stored up all their naughtyness for our return home.

Screaming.

Crying.

Fighting.

And more screaming.

It’s downright awful. I feel bad for my wife who has to deal with it the most, while I lock myself in my office in an attempt to get work done.  But my door can only block out so many decibels, and have moved to my favorite wifi hotspot for the afternoon. Now I’m trying to get some programming done and drinking a delicious Newcastle Brown Ale in an attempt to get back to the low level of stress I attained with a week away. Serenity now!

I really have no great profound advice to go along with this post, just that the flexibility we have to work from Anywhere (home) also gives us the flexibility to escape a temporary nightmare (aka hectic environment) with minimal consequences.  In other words, if you need to get away, have a beer, and get work done…do it!

While I was at BizConf last week, I ended up talking to a guy who was living a similar lifestyle to mine: husband and father of young kids who works from home running his own business. We got onto the topic of how our careers really give us the flexibility to work pretty much wherever we want. He said that his family recently spent a few weeks in the mountains and he was able to work remotely and keep up with his business duties, all while getting some vacation time in as well.  

He then told me about a site called LessCabinFever where you can actually swap houses with other folks who are looking to do the same thing.  Today I checked it out and thought it looked pretty cool even though there aren’t many listings on there at this point. I expect the listing quantity to grow as this is a great idea, especially for us Work Anywhere folks.  

You’ll now see my Grand Rapids home listed among the few listings they’ve got up.  Setting up an account and creating the listing was super easy and I’ll keep you posted on any swaps I make in the future.  After a week in Florida, I’m totally up for escaping to warmer areas in the future (especially in the winter!).

He loves social media. He loves promoting other companies. He loves taking pictures and making videos.

He loves shirts.

Of all the discoveries I’ve made on Twitter in the past year, none have been as entertaining nor engaging as Jason Sadler. Jason wears shirts, just like you and me (or most of us). But the thing is, he actually gets paid to wear shirts, starting with $1 on January 1st steadily increasing by $1 each day until he hits $365 for December 31st.

If you do the math on that you’ll realize Jason will be making a nice $60,000+ salary this year.  And that doesn’t include monthly sponsorships which cost $1500/month. 

So what does the price for a day get you? Jason will Tweet about you (to his 15,000+ followers), talk about you on Facebook, write you up in his blog, do a live video on Ustream, put together a daily recap video (always entertaining!), and take pictures throughout the day and post them on Flickr…all while wearing whatever shirt you want to have him wear. 

Oh yeah, and don’t bother trying to book him to wear your company’s shirt this year because he’s all sold out. And so is almost half of 2010 already. (Act fast to get in on the action!)

Did I already mention he gets paid to wear shirts? Why did you or I not think of this?

The reason I’m introducing you to Jason here on AnywhereMan is that he is the perfect example of someone living the Anywhere Lifestyle. Since he is getting paid to wear shirts, and a person can (and generally should) wear shirts in all locations, Jason is able to take his “work” with him. Just this past week he was in New York City and was able to do his daily social media routine there. In the past he’s taken vacations and gone on other trips without missing a beat. All the guy needs is web access and a shirt and he’s good to go.

I encourage you to check out IWearYourShirt.com, get involved with Jason’s shirt-wearing antics, and even tune in for his daily Ustream show.  Plus, the guy gives a lot of stuff away…or at least his sponsors do.  You’ll have to check out the winner of the June contest.  That being said, I look forward to meeting Jason in person this coming week at BizConf! (as well as his buddy Evan who will be sharing shirt-wearing duties with Jason in 2010)

Jason’s business idea is something that inspires me, the AnywhereMan. Just think of the risk of selling a day of shirt-wearing for $1 on January 1st in hopes that doing it for cheap then would result in the reward of people being willing to pay $365 by the end of the year. That risk has paid off, Jason is able to really mold his work around his lifestyle, and his followers are getting an entertaining dose of super awesome antics…and shirts.

PS – Vote for Jason in the StartupNation Home Based 100 contest.

IWearYourShirt Sample Platter:
 

• IWYS interview on CNN LIVE
• The First Day (this kinda cracks me up – Jason’s come a long way)
• WineLibrary.TV day and Jason drinking all sorts of stuff
• The Tiny Shirt
• The 25 Shirts

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One of my daughters is busy making "crafts" in our living room right now. By that I mean there is a mess of stamps, stickers, paper, tape, pencils, and crayons dominating the layout of our table. She loves her craft time. Who knows what she’ll create today? It’s always something exciting…to a parent at least.

She just walked up and showed me her latest creation: a paper moon with tape hanging all over it.  It was…well…what you’d expect a four year old to make when given the previously mentioned tools and materials.  As she handed the creation over, she asked me if I thought she had done a good job.

Of course I answered, "Yes."

But then I felt inclined to ask her if she enjoyed making her latest craft.  She said she did, and I reminded her that is what’s important when she’s working on these things. It’s not always how good her artistic creations are, but if she’s enjoying herself, that will lead to good things.

It’s been said before, and it sounds so simple and stupid, but that totally applies to my lifestyle as a freelancer. It’s good to ask, "Am I enjoying myself?" on a regular basis. Sure, there are many tasks in our careers that we need to suck up and just deal with, but if in our career as a whole we answer that question with a "No", then it’s time to consider our options.

This is exactly what led me from a regular job to a telework opportunity, and later from that opportunity to taking the leap of running my own freelance business full-time.  In fact, I still ask myself that question almost daily, and it helps me focus on the direction I want to take my business.

Are you enjoying yourself?

The battery on my notebook PC has been almost completely dead for a few months, thus I’ve had to keep myself close to an outlet lately.  A few times I’ve even gone in the garage, grabbed a super long extension cord, and gone through the rest of the hassle of moving my “office” out to the hammock. (Fresh air is important, especially here in MN where we’re stuck indoors half the year!)

Every room in my house does, in fact, have multiple outlets, but this tedious act of putting my notebook on “sleep”, unplugging the power cord, fetching it from behind my desk, and taking the whole system with me has been a pain in the rear-hind (a word invented by my 4 year-old). Lately I’ve found myself tending to stay in my home office.

Today I got a new battery, twice the capacity of my old one. Life is good. I’m on my couch in my living room right now catching up on blogs, following up on emails, and enjoying the freedom that the lack of being plugged-in can bring. Really I’m only feet away from my office, but it doesn’t matter. I have the freedom. I have the “power.” (isn’t that a He-Man line?)

Anyways, just wanted to point out that sometimes just a little thing like a battery and the freedom to move around the house can make a big difference in attitude and mindset. I’m getting work done right now, but really I feel like I’m doing it on my terms and out of my own free will as I’m not stuck in the same place I spend most of my day.  You’ll find that I’m big on the atmosphere of the place I get work done…mood, sights, sounds, etc. A simple thing like a new battery has re-opened my options.  

Other things can have this very same effect. Re-arranging a room, getting a new light in your office, moving your office to another room of the house, putting your desk against another wall, new speakers for your music, a new monitor, etc.  Little things make a big difference when you have the option to be Anywhere but are sometimes stuck in one general area for a while.

Do something different today.

If you have tasks that do not require you to have web access, your desk, or anything else that can keep you tethered to one place, take those tasks somewhere more fun and refreshing. Get some fresh air, enjoy some scenery, and get out of there!

For me, tasks I can take with me that require little or no technology include database designs, book research, website wireframe sketchups, flow/process planning, and even just general brainstorm sessions with pen and paper. It’s always good to get out whenever you can!

Are there any tasks you can take with you?