Working from home

Most days now, when I'm not traveling to visit with a customer, I work from home. I'm typing this post from my desk.

When we built the house, we set up a kind of quasi-guest room, but the only bed in here is a sofa bed, so it's a rare occasion we have an overnight guest. That's good, because I work at odd hours.

There's a DSL with a wireless modem, two Macs, both running Tiger, a small bookcase holding reference materials and supplies, one of those HP All-in-One printer/scanner/copier/fax machines, and a long, custom desktop outfitted for two.

We have two phone systems. Our local, BellSouth phone is a two-line rig with our local number, digits we've had since the late '80's. On my end of the desk, I use an internet phone, Vonage, VoIP they call it, a hands-free set with a 336 area code. And the mobile is somewhere, probably under some papers.


Here's what it looks like.

The desktop Mac I use for IM sessions, for Skype communications, for access to my online calendar - it's kind of running in the background...while most of the correspondence and other work are done on my laptop. The two are connected wirelessly by AirPort, and there's a multi-connection port for printer access.

All in all it's a pretty good set-up, and I am convinced I'm at least 50% more productive here than in our office in Greensboro. Don't get me wrong: I love to be in the office in GSO. You can't replace the value of face-to-face interaction, especially when you're interacting with the bright and good people at BURRIS. But here there's just better opportunities to concentrate, the phone isn't as intrusive, and as long as I set the appropriate status messages on iChat (our Instant Message service) and Skype, I can rock along pretty well.

Typically I listen to music in the deep background. Radio Paradise (www.radioparadise.com, also on the iTunes Radio button under "Eclectic") usually. (Roxy Music's "More than This" is playing as I type this.) Plus, most mornings, also in the background is CNBC's "Squawk Box." Neither really has the chance to distract. But if too much gets to be going on, I'll switch 'em off.

For most of the weekend and into today, I'm also burning cd's, "ripping," as the new age parlance refers to it. I'm trying to get our cd collection into iTunes. Takes a lot less space, and gives me freedom to put together mix cd's for driving. (I'm ripping Ella Fitzgerald's "Best of Song Book" as I type this.)

So, amidst all these apparent, potential distractions, I'm still productive? Yes, I think so. Outside the window the birds are feeding, the tide is coming in, the sun is about to hit the window (forcing me to pull the shade a bit), and I'm in here, wrapping up this post and heading into cyberspace with a few questions for active customers.

Hope you're having a great day too.