Election day = work from home

Today was one of those weird days. When I looked at my calendar last night before leaving I only had two appointments. One downtown as a meeting place (more like a loft that has become the hot place to hold off site meetings) from 10-12 and another phone call for 30 minutes in the afternoon. As I thought about when to vote, where to work from (my location is about 15 miles north of downtown, so often I will work from downtown if I have meetings there) and how to handle the day I decided "I am just going to work from home."

In all honesty with technology so advanced, it truly is easy to work from home. Wireless, high speed, and printing technology have all made the home office efficient and functional. For me the harder part is the kids. Even though they are with Kirsten all day, just knowing mom is upstairs in the office is too much of a temptation. But today I knew they would be pretty busy and I could handle it.

It was great. It allowed me to vote during the day, so NO LINE (not that we ever have one, I guess we are lucky). The only downside is we didn't have our usual family tradition on election day. I remember vividly from growing up in NY every election day. My parents voted at the firehouse, about 2 blocks from our house. We would eat dinner, then walk over together to vote. Afterwards we would stop at the Commodore Chocalatier (on Broadway in Newburgh, NY...still there) and get their homemade ice cream sundaes. It was GREAT.

Arnie and I try to establish "traditions" like this in our home and election day is one of them. But this year we decided that Arnie would vote when the polls opened at 6:30 am and me during the day. So tonight won't be "special" but it still is as our 3 year old keeps talking about voting for "John McCain" and "Bama"...too many TV ads in Ohio, we have a 3 year old to prove it.

Back to working from home. When you can give your self this flexibility. You need to be disciplined, but I think you will be surprised how productive you will be..."at work" and "at home." You don't have the commute so you gain all that time. You also don't have nearly as many distractions, the walks to get coffee and lunch, etc. Instead you can throw a load of laundry in, empty the dishwasher, etc...try it if you job allows, as its good to get a break from the normal grind just to think more and get some work done.