Conant Correct by Claire Conant

When you’re working from home full time - either freelancing, contracting, or running a  business -  stocking office supplies can be a big overhead. Printers, paper, pens, clips, staples, Post-It™ notes, notepads, and other sundry items - they can all add up to big bucks.

But not when you can take advantage of the back-to-school sales. I love to head to places like Target and dig through the bins of 10 pens for fifty cents and spiral bound paper notebooks for a dollar each. When I can pack a coffee mug with pens (see left photo), suddenly I feel more like I really have an office, not just working from a spare room in the house. Plus, I just have a thing for pens. 

(Not my actual window, but close to it, except there’s no view of the lake from my window. Image courtesy of easyart.com)

The sun is out, the breeze is blowing softly through the windows, I can hear the birds chirping, and the solitude is the best ever for editing and doing the work I do. I feel extremely lucky. No corporate stuffy, stifled, enclosed office cube with dust mites, fluorescent overhead lighting, re-circulated air that recycles germs, and windows that don’t open. No noisy neighbors gossiping outside my cube. No sitting in traffic for two hours a day. At lunch, I can walk through my tree-lined neighborhood and go get fresh veggies from the supermarket a mile away, or a Subway sandwich, or take Lily for a walk.

If we could all work like this - rather, if corporations realized the benefit in telecommuting - there would be less traffic, happier people, less pollution, gas prices might even go down because we wouldn’t be using so much gas, and life would be grand. Now, I’m not naïve - I do realize that some people have to be in the office or their place of employment. Telecommuting doesn’t work for everyone. I know that. Some people might not even like being at home all the time. But I do, and it works fabulously for me. Just saying.

Now, I really need to edit that doc. TTFN.