A couple of weeks ago Tom Nixon authored an excellent guest post that touched on the internal conflict and struggle he’s experienced over the years confronting the question of whether moving to Traverse City is the right decision for him and his family. It made me reflect on our own decision to take the leap, and more broadly on the issue of why some decisions are so hard to make.
First, a little background on our own mental and emotional gymnastics as we contemplated making a move.
Nine months ago we uprooted our family and our business, packed up our belongings, and started a new life 250 miles away in Traverse City, Michigan. It’s an idyllic town, although the process of getting here was anything but.
Selling a house, buying a new one, settling three girls (at the time all five and under) in a new environment and keeping up with the demands of a fast-paced business was hard.
But as it turns out, these weren’t the hardest things. It was making the decision to move – not acting upon it – that proved most challenging.
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Yesterday was one of those days – busy but not particularly productive. That kind of day eats away at me, and they happen more often than I’d like to admit.
As I’ve mentioned before, Heather and I work together from home. Working from home has many benefits, but also drawbacks. We have flexibility, there’s no commute, and it helps keep business costs down.
But there are costs, just not financial ones. And, ironically, the flexibility that comes with working from home is one of the main culprits of the costs we bear. The biggest challenge we face is focusing too much on work which leads to focusing too little on our personal lives. That challenge is multiplied by working together. It’s easy to be physically present, but not mentally so, when your office is your home.
It’s also easy to get distracted. It’s nice to be able to throw in a load of laundry or get dinner started when you’re at home all day, but if you’re not careful you can get consumed by household activities and neglect work. Bouncing back and forth between work and personal responsibilities means that neither get the attention they deserve.
Don’t get me wrong, I love working from home and don’t think I’ll ever go back to working at an off-site physical location. And I’m not alone. A recent survey by MoneyTips found that 86 percent of Americans who work from home love or like their set-up, and 67 percent report that they are more productive working from home than they are in an office.
Like most things in life, it’s all about striking the right balance. {tweet that} While working from home enables the type of life I want to live, at times it can lead to the exact opposite. I like to think that I lead a productive and purposeful life, but my vision of myself and my actual self are often wildly divergent – just ask Heather. Days like yesterday remind me how easy it is to get off-track.
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