The Startup Spouses

There are days when you’re just not feeling it - you’re tired, unfocused, inefficient, bored. In the business world, these days are called Fridays. In an office environment, these Fridays can make any worker feel like a kid on a long car ride: you’re strangely optimistic about what will happen when it ends, but the day seems infinitely long. Instead of spending the whole day saying “are we there yet?”, the worker, in true adult fashion, silently stares at her computer screen and waits for the hours to go by with a burning hope that the boss will suggest heading to happy hour at 4pm.

When you work in a company, there are certain strategies for dealing these “Fridays”. The strategies include: drinking lots of coffee, checking your email every 2 minutes, “catching up” with co-workers you haven’t talked to in a while, and cleaning your desk. But what happens when you work from home? These strategies (with the exception of the coffee one) are not effective, because trying to appear busy to yourself is just insane. So what are the self-employed and the entrepreneurs to do with these mediocre days?

It seems to me that there are 3 options:

1. Tough it out. You can chose to accept your minimal productivity, and ride out the work day anyway. With this approach you may be able to get a few small tasks done, thus getting you closer to your goals. However, it may take you way longer than it otherwise would on a better day to accomplish this. For me, this is the most depressing approach. It does not feel good to finish something in 4 hours when it should have taken 30 minutes. And even if I stare at the computer until 2 am, I know that my output is virtually non-existent, despite computer face time. Toughing it out sucks, but sometimes it must be done.
2. Work on non-critical or non-work-related tasks. This option is the equivalent to the worker bee cleaning her desk. This is when you do laundry, wash the floors, organize your mail, etc. You feel productive because you are still getting things done, albeit while blaring 80s music and not really thinking too much. This approach works if you’re totally delusional, which I am.
3. Cut your losses and head to happy hour. If you aren’t good at sitting around getting nothing done and lying to yourself about it, this step might be for you. If this choice sounds selfish and unproductive, well it is. But that does not make the afternoon Bloody Mary any less sweet (I mean spicy). In the creative process, this would be like your “artist’s date” where you would be “re-filling your well.” So maybe cutting the work week short is lazy, or maybe it’s just the thing you need to energize you.

-Kate Miffitt