I’ve been busy working, my nose to the grindstone all week. I had to go to Pasadena on Monday, Sacramento on Tuesday and Wednesday, had a meeting here yesterday, and am working on regular stuff today. That’s a pretty average week.

The thing that continues to blow my mind as I approach the first anniversary of being a fulltime consultant working from home is how much busier I am. I used to go into the office and spend a good part of the day doing niggly little tasks, taking long lunches, and spending an easy three hours per day commuting back and forth. These days I start work any time after 7am, and am still at it quite often after 8pm. Don’t feel sorry for me though; I do tkae time during the day to do other things, but still, my productivity is much higher than it ever was when I did the 9 to 5 grind. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be able to take a true vacation like I used to: at the old job, when I was off, I was really off. Nowadays, I have to stay in touch most of the time.

Would I go back? Not happily: one year later I have no regrets. We pay more for health insurance; that’s for sure. We have to plan for taxes better as Big Brother isn’t taking big chunks out of my paycheck each month. We have to make our own retirement arrangements. But the freedom, ah the freedom. That makes it all worthwhile.

Generally.