Good folks, we’ve been thinking over here. We’ve been thinking about that little thing so many of us strive for – a healthy work/life balance. As independent businesspeople, self-starters, dedicated types, this can be a challenge for all of us. So we decided to write a little bit about it and get some thoughts out.

Charlie, rockstar writer and overall hopefully well-balanced dude helped put together this little article of ours on work/life balance for indies. Read on, and enjoy. Thanks Charlie for taking our ideas and writing a great piece!

How many times have you told someone that you work from home and heard the response: “Oh it must be so nice to spend all that time at home!”

Of course, as independent workers who run our own businesses or telecommute, we know that while there are a lot of benefits to working independently, there are plenty of downfalls too. For example, the use of technology and setting our own schedules make it easier to work all the time. But our newfound flexibility can also create dangers of overworking ourselves. With fewer guidelines about when and where to work, we can easily fall out of a healthy work-life balance.

As someone who can work from anywhere at any time, some of the reasons you want to separate your work from your life include:

• Family – For many of us, the reason we started our own business or decided to work from home was to increase the amount of time we spend with our families. But when the office is right next to your bedroom, instead of spending that time you saved by not commuting with your family, it can become all to easy to send a quick email…or three…can’t it?
• Friends – Working at home is great, but there’s definitely something to be said for the camaraderie you find in an office. For one thing, people popping into your cube forces you to take a break. For another, when you only talk to other people over the phone or online, a feeling of isolation can quickly set in and that can lead to more serious problems.
• Health – Working too hard or too much makes it more likely that you’ll start having health issues because you’re not getting enough sleep, exercising enough, or are simply too stressed out because of all the work you have to do. It’s important for all of us to take a moment away from our desks and enjoy being outside, with other people, or reading a book (that does not relate to work!).

Creating a healthy balance between your work and free time can often be done just by creating new habits. For instance, instead of working from the time you get up in the morning until you fall asleep on your keyboard near midnight, try setting standard work hours for yourself and include regular breaks during the day. Think about scheduling regular non-work activities such as exercise or lunch dates with friends. Here are a few other steps you can take:

• Work Away from Home – Sure, you left the comfort of a corporate job so you could work at home. But now that you’ve tried it, is it really all it’s cracked up to be? Working amongst other people (whether you work with them or not) for just a few days a week, can improve your attitude and productivity immeasurably. You can try working at the library, a coffee shop, the park or at a coworking space like Office Nomads. You can check out the wealth of other coworking locations on the coworking wiki.
• Dress for Work – Maybe you still prefer to work at home. That doesn’t mean you have to feel like you are at home. Before starting work in the morning, take time to get ready for work: eat, shower, get dressed and go into your office. When you’re done working, turn off the computer and close the door to the office. Don’t go back in until the next day. Separating work and life can happen even within a confined space if you take the time to separate the two.
• Schedule Free Time – If you only plan a break in the middle of your day, it may be too easy for you to decide to skip it and keep working if you don’t have a reason to take it. Instead, try planning an activity for that free time. Make it something that’s hard to back out of like lunch with a friend, a movie, or a yoga class. Taking time for yourself will mean you’re less burned out by work, which will make you a better worker.
• Listen to Nancy: Just Say No – I know it sounds scary if you’re running your own business, but sometimes, you just have to say no to more work. If your plate is already brimming with projects or if you just feel like you have a lot of irons on the fire, tell that prospective client you’re sorry, but you’re just too busy right now. Hey, that might even make you more desirable so they’ll wait until you are free and maybe even pay you more!

Whatever you do to make the division between work and life more concrete, it’s important to remember that it’s always going to be a work in progress. Some weeks it’ll be easier to do than others. No one is perfect and there’s no point in beating yourself up when you realize you’ve been working too hard and haven’t gotten dressed in days. Just promise yourself to keep trying, then take a deep breath, hop in the shower, or go for a walk in the park. You’ll feel better in no time.

Yeee-haw! Susan’s first blog post EVER. I don’t know about you all, but this is a pretty big day for me. I’m surrounded by bloggers daily, and am excited to get my first thrills from publishing my thoughts out on the world wide web.

On a more news-worthy note, a few fun things have happened today at the space. I thought I’d share.

First, I painted another set of walls. We’ve been hemming and hawing over how to get some color in the space to make it feel more comfortable, and it is a spectacular feeling to get the process get started. With the amazing help of our good friend and amazing interior designer Piper, we’ve chosen a few great colors and have started making progress. Today was another set of brown walls – chocolate-colored goodness. Check it out:

Second, thanks to my good friend Drew, I came across a noteworthy article I thought I’d share. The P-I reported on a local gentleman who procured an award-winning vehicle from a 1970′s competition for gas efficient vehicles – this one racked up an amazing 376 mpg! Talk about exciting, and this with 230-plus-year-old technology. You can find the full report here, but this is a particular section I enjoyed:

The mileage from the mostly stock four-cylinder came from heating and insulating the fuel line so the gas entered the engine as lean vapor. Then they drove the car on a closed course at a steady 30 mph.

So some of that wouldn’t work in the street, McMullen concedes. But if the car were made more drivable and lost 200 mpg — it still would get 176 mpg.

“Here’s a car that was 20 years old at the time of the contest that was the project of a couple of guys in a garage,” he said. “You can’t tell me we can’t do better than this with cars today.”

Here at Office Nomads, there is always talk about ways in which we can help to make an impact on climate change and to help create a more sustainable neighborhood in Capitol Hill. Although personally I believe that one of the keys to moving forward is to move away from individual cars and really start digging into better public transportation, I thought this article was pretty uplifting. Though y’all might get a kick out of it.

That’s it for now. Happy Thursday, folks. Over & out.

I’ve got a couple of Google Alerts running about coworking and Office Nomads. Usually when something comes through on the Office Nomads one, it’s under the “Blogs” heading as when Laura posted about us (sorry for just getting around to linking back Laura. No excuses.) and it always starts my day off well when see that because I’m not expecting it.

When the “Web” heading has something about Office Nomads though, it’s nice to see, but I know it’s coming because that means an article has been published somewhere and we know when that’s going to happen.

So imagine my surprise when I checked my email this morning and there was a Web alert for Office Nomads, in the New York Times!

Coworking sites are up and running from Argentina to Australia and many places in between, although a wiki site on coworking shows that most are in the United States. While some have grown-up-sounding names, most seem connected somewhere between the communalism of the 1960s and the whimsy of the dot-com days of the ’90s, like the Hive Cooperative in Denver, Office Nomads in Seattle, Nutopia Workspace in Lower Manhattan and Independents Hall in Philadelphia.

Sweet! This is the second time in 2008 that the Times has mentioned coworking. Obviously Jacob and Susan are onto something. (By the way, I think the name Office Nomads is great and has nothing to do with the communalism of the 60s or the “whimsy of the dot-com days.” I think it speaks to the new ethos in our professional work force. But that’s me.)

Yes, that’s a picture of Susan getting her picture taken. The photo shoot is actually for another article on Jacob and Susan coming out soon.

I stayed at Office Nomads late last night which gave me the opportunity to do two new things in the space, both of which you should do: Take a shower and attend a workshop hosted by Chris Haddad and Beth Yockey-Jones.

First, the shower. After my first-ever shower here, I’ve decided that the shower is an excellent ON benefit that doesn’t get enough props. Here’s why. One of things that I love about freelancing is that I can get up from my desk whenever I want and go for a run. This is really beneficial since I am training for this May’s Vancouver half marathon. But since I was already here, I didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening sweaty and I didn’t want to go home to run, shower and come back. So I brought my running clothes with me, took a shower and smelled like flowers (ok, peppermint) for the event. Yay showers at work!

After the shower and dinner was the workshop which helped me immeasurably.

I first heard about value-based pricing thanks to Chris (he likes to call himself “#1″ since he is ON’s first monthly member). It’s a subject he talks to me about frequently so I know he’s got a lot to say about it and as I build my business, it’s something I’m thinking about. Last night he hosted a Biznik event in the space on value based pricing and pretty much convinced me that charging hourly rates is dumb. Charging for the value you offer your clients is where it’s at, and what I need to do from now on. Keep an eye on his Biznik profile and Web site. Word has it he’ll be hosting more of these in the future.

We talk a lot at ON about how coworking makes things so much for better those of us who work at home. Working away from your company’s (or client’s) office also helps the planet by reducing the amount of trips you have to take in your car. In fact, according to Susan, who knows about this stuff, “Trip reduction strategies are one of the primary ways we can make an impact on climate change in our region.” For us, anything that improves the state of our environment is worth doing. On Friday, there was an excellent segment on KUOW (our local NPR station) about this kind of effort, called trip-reduction strategies, that speaks directly to one of the ways we think ON can save the world. Check it out.

If this is the kind of thing that interests you or might be the kind of argument you could use with your boss to get him or her to let you work at home (or with us) at least a few days a week, keep an eye on the blog. Susan is working hard with Seattle Department of Traffic and Seattle Climate Action Network to make ON a resource for trip-reduction strategies.

Yay for Friday afternoons! It’s always been my favorite time of the work week because whether or not things are done, people start wrapping things up in neat little bows and a sense of relief starts to wash over me.

As I write this, the mood at Office Nomads (normally a light one) is starting to lift. Erik and I just exchanged words over who should replace the beer he drank from the fridge (which he bought in the first place). I bowed out when I realized I could just knock back some whiskey while I put this post together instead. Ah life in an office without HR, rules!

• I stumbled upon Luck of Seven a bit late as the project is coming to an end, but thanks to the wonders of the internets, I can catch up on the adventures of this “open-source journey documenting free culture, social innovators and global change.”
• I don’t play Second Life, but this came through on my “co-working” Google Alert and I think it means that coworking is going to take place in Second Life. Weird.
• This has nothing to do with anything but it’s cool nonetheless: ImprovEverywhere froze life in the busiest train station in the world for five minutes. Completely cool!
• Not to belabor a point, but being alone affects
  you.(via)
• Failure Now an Option.

Have a great weekend!