The Ugly Truth of Working at Home

Last night I attended my friend Lolly's last class at the Acme Comedy School. The $5 ticket price was more than compensated for by my eating my body weight in red-frosted cupcakes. After the show I was talking with an actor who had worked at home but after three months took a 9-5. When I asked him why he chose to lock up his schedule, he explained that he was lonely and unproductive when he worked from home. I can definitely relate to that.

This is the schedule I lived for the better part of last month:

9:00am Wake-Up & Hit Snooze
… Snooze Repeatedly
9:30am Rationalize that I need the sleep and turn off alarm.
12:00pm Wake up naturally and decide that I should go back to sleep anyway.
1:00pm Wake up and check email and read Blogs.
2:00pm Eat breakfast – cereal & milk.
2:30pm Begin watching episodes of 30 Rock/Dexter/Heroes
2:40pm Eat a second bowl of cereal and continue watching TV.
4:30pm Feel horribly disgusting about watching so much TV and take a shower.
5:00pm Try to do work but get distracted by some part of the Internet.
7:00pm Take myself out to Thai food in the neighborhood (rationalization: if I go outside, I can come back renewed and refreshed).
8:15pm Make a To Do list of tasks that need to be accomplished.
8:45pm Rationalize one more television episode.
9:15pm Berate myself for watching TV but watch yet another episode.
9:45pm Make myself another bowl of cereal.
10:00pm Become so overwhelmed with guilt and self-loathing that I start doing items on my To Do list.
12:00am Get a minor headache from being up late. Take a grandmother strength Motrin and drink a cup of Earl Gray Tea.
12:20am Get back to work.
2:30am Delirium sets in – but work must continue.
4:00am Work is done. Time to blog or surf the web.
5:00am Wonder why I'm still awake.
5:30am Get in bed and go to sleep.

Thankfully, my schedule is much improved of late. My family bought me a laptop so I drive to The Library right after my groundlings class and work there until about 7pm. Then I usually hang out with a friend or see a show until 11, and then I get home and work from 11:30 'til 2am.