A colleague of mine, who works part-time for the magazine, has put very strict boundaries around the hours she’s willing to work. I don’t blame her. In fact, I encouraged her to do this, so that neither of us would be eaten alive by the work.
But the nature of what I do, and the way I do it has more than once found me slaving away, like today, on a weekend. Sure, I’m a little behind on my writing deadlines, but I wouldn’t be blogging about that. I’d just be finishing up the Word file I’ve got on my screen, while the lovely music my friend added to my iPod Shuffle plays in my ears.
The point here is that while I’m cutting and pasting in Word, there are windows for Twitter, Google Talk and Apple Mail open, too. I’ve been in touch with our podcast producer and two interview subjects, and listened to a couple of tech podcasts. Two people submitted articles today, and I wrote to thank them. It’s not that I have to be doing this on a Sunday, but it does happen that the people I need to speak to are online now, and so am I. We move forward, we make things happen. And if we really want to devote some time to family life, entertainment that doesn’t come from a computer screen, or perhaps getting the house clean, the only way to do it is to get up and step away from the screen! I shall do that in one hour. Count on it.
