Things I Do To Keep Myself Sane

When people ask me what it's like working from home, I tell them that it is better than being thrown groin first into an oily pit of supermodels. I don't have a boss looking over my shoulder, I don't have to get up at a set time so long as I stick 10 hours a day in and I don't have to commute anywhere further than down the hall and downstairs.

In actuality, it's pretty dull. I don't have co-workers to chat to. I don't have a boss to hate on. I just sit at my desk with a justin.tv stream going all day and mainly churn out press releases and short web content articles that don't allow for dick jokes. When you also factor in that I can often go for a few days without actually leaving the house, you get a pretty solid picture of my life. I call it the 'struggling writer' lifestyle, where as many others call it the 'sad sack' one.

To combat this, I've build up a number of protocols to keep my from bouncing off the walls in sheer madness. The 3 I use most are -

1) Facebook

I hate Facebook with all my soul. I hate the fact that it makes me feel self conscious that I only have 200 friends. The fact that I actually know all 200 of the people and could easily invite them out for a beer is neither here nor there. I also only have 98 photos. I just don't take a digital camera with me on nights out and cannot be bothered to edit, label and tag entire reams of photos.

However, I find myself increasingly using it to talk to people. Back in the day, everyone used to use MSN Messenger. Today, I have about 9 people who are still old school and are logged on at times. Therefore, I am left with little option but to log on to Facebook if I want human interaction. I hate it, it makes it look like I enjoy Facebook. Also, it makes it look like I do nothing all day as I'm always on Facebook.

2) Fish

I bought an aquarium. I will admit, I am a little bit of a fan of various animals and figured that buying an aquarium would give me something to do. Where as in an office, people often go outside and smoke or make rounds of tea to take a break, I have no such luck. I can smoke at my desk and I don't like tea. Obviously, the logical thing to do to get me away from my desk for 10 minutes at a time was to buy an aquarium to tend to.

I regret nothing. Sure, it costs £150 odd to set up a decent tank and put fish in it, but it is tremendous fun. One of my fish is even named after Nat Coombs, the guy who hosts the NFL On Five coverage after a few emails got read out on air. I recommend fish keeping to everyone and will probably write an idiots guide to fish keeping on Thursday.

3) Taking The Laptop To The Pub

I admit that this is probably cheating a bit, but it works. Although a vast majority of my time is spent doing jobs for other people, I do try to make sure I have at least a day a week where I don't have to do any paid work so I can work on my own stuff. Along with churning out some gibbering rubbish here thrice a week, I write a fair old bit of stuff that doesn't see the light of day straight away. I've got one book manuscript that is doing the rounds until someones decides to recognise my genius and publish it, I'm a solid start into another and I'm also working on a charity book.

For all of these things, I don't need the Internet, email and such. Nor does it matter if I'm under the influence while writing them, as I edit my work to a stupid degree at times. So I pack up my laptop and head off to the pub.
Speaking of which, it is beer o'clock. See ya'll later!