Rescue Desk

Like most small business owners, I’m always conscious of presenting my best self to clients and business acquaintances. I have a quality (albeit relatively small) collection of jackets, skirts and business suits, I never leave the office without my bag filled with business cards and brochures, and I walk into every meeting and event fully pulled together.  After all, who’s going to trust a professional virtual assistant to keep them organized if she’s not organized herself?

But, let’s face it, sometimes always putting my best professional foot forward takes its toll, especially after several weeks of back-to-back meetings, networking events and staying on my toes when clients call.

My pulled-together self has a secret weapon – R.U.N.  When I execute the launch sequence for R.U.N., I do so far out of sight from my day-to-day professional self.

Codename: R.U.N.

Operation: Rachel Up North

My family has a dinky little two-bedroom cabin that’s planted right into the middle of the Wisconsin north woods.  It’s the first place I run to whenever I’m lucky enough to have a brief lull in my busy schedule.

The first thing I do when I get there? I scrub any trace of makeup off my face, I pull on my favorite pair of old jeans, get my trusty red baseball cap down from the closet, and slap on an oversized $3 sport watch I picked up at a local flea market.

No business suits, no leather-bound portfolios, and no PDA tethered to my hip.

The “raw” me lives like this for two or three days … scouting the nearby trail for firewood, wading in the nearby creek with my dog, taking early-morning hikes looking for a glimpse of the resident black bear, living on hot dogs, and quietly meditating in front of the fire … and doing it all in ratty jeans, baseball cap and cheap watch.  The only technology allowed (per the insistence of my mother) is the 15-year-old microwave in the kitchen.

Last time I returned from a recent three-day retreat from my north woods hideaway, I got to thinking how imperative it is for me to occasionally get back to basics. It’s undeniably one of the biggest weapons in my business-building arsenal. When I’m R.U.N.ing, I simply let whatever happens, happen. I let my thoughts come and go freely. I don’t let a clock dictate my day. I ban the words “I should” from my vocabulary. 

It never fails to provide me with the energy and enthusiasm required to tackle challenges that await back at my office with gusto, and gives me the perspective I need to think outside the box.  I liken returning from my R.U.N. to the middle-of-the-night answer that comes after days of swimming around in the muddy waters of a seemingly impossible question. 

So, take it from me, sometimes the best thing to do when you’re feeling claustrophobic under mounds of paperwork and projects is find a place where you can spend some time just “being.” Be with yourself, be with your family or friends, be with your thoughts.  But, most importantly, just be.

And don’t forget your baseball cap.

My office sits at the top of a hill, right on the edge of a nice little neighborhood. As I sip my morning coffee, I often catch myself staring out the window contemplating something I read in the morning paper, or taking a few minutes to think through the best way to tackle my day’s to-do list. I watch the garbage truck rumble by on Wednesday mornings, kids flying off the bus at the end of the school day, and usually oblige my dog by looking out the window when she lets out a warning bark that alerts me when another dog is incoming from 100 yards out.

This morning, I saw two young boys playing around on the sidewalk. All of a sudden they crouched down, and both went flying down the hill at mock speed on their “wheelie” shoes.

My first thought? “OHMIGOD, they’re going to KILL themselves!”

Of course they didn’t, and they clearly didn’t share my panicked enthusiasm as evidenced by the whooping, squealing, and high-fives that drifted up from the bottom of the hill.

But, it got me wondering. Whatever happened to the days when my first reaction wasn’t a high-pitched freak-out? When was it that my initial thought was “That looks like BIG fun! Let me try!”

I understand that as we get older, we shed pieces of our youthful invincibility every time we survive yet another mistake, risk or challenge, vowing “Holy crap, I’ll never do THAT again!”

But, I think it’s important to try to hold onto at least a little piece of that for as long as possible.

I like to call it Educated Mischief.

It’s kind of like taking “calculated risks,” but runs a little deeper into our inner-selves. It’s that part in all of us that longs to tap into our wisdom and experiences, simply so we can see if we truly can buck the system, take a chance, and put all the faith we can muster in ourselves … and come out ahead.

It’s like taking our years of life experiences for a spin,  putting them to use in ways make traditional conformists cluck their tongues and shake their heads.  It gives a voice to our inner defiant child who wants nothing more than to say “Oh yeah?! Watch me.”

I think anyone who dares to ignore conformity has the capacity for educated mischief. In fact, I think it rears its head in all of us at least once in awhile. It’s the career-ladder-climber who dares to strike out and work for herself. It’s the Mom who doesn’t take any crap when it comes to defending her kids. It’s the guy who musters up the courage to stand up to his bully boss. It’s the high-powered suit-wearing executive whose absolute favorite part of the day is evening … when she moonlights as a dog-walker.

It’s the kid who channels months of wheeling around in the driveway just to fly down a hill.

Don’t be afraid to partake in a little educated mischief. Embrace your inner rebel and let it out to play once in awhile, and see where it leads you. You might be surprised what you find when you trust a little unconventional wisdom.

If you ever hear about how successful gazillionaires got their start, it’s not unusual to hear their story start with “I built my first gizmo on the tool bench in the back of the garage…” or “My first office was the cramped corner of our basement…” or “My business was born between meals at the kitchen table…”

What do all these stories have in common? They started at home.

It’s often the most logical (and sometimes the only) option to starting a small business. The commute is three seconds, the dress code includes whatever is clean, you can start and end your day when you like, or reward yourself after a string of 14-hour days with a random Tuesday afternoon walk through the park.

But, it also means the commute is only three seconds, there are days the clothes you’re wearing are only questionably clean, days run together as your scrambling to build your business, and sometimes the Tuesday walk through the park is thwarted by worry about what you’re In Box is doing while you’re away.

But, to maintain my sanity and still make progress, I’ve been discovering little tips and tricks for the newly christened home office … whether it’s a converted spare bedroom, the back of the closet, the shed behind the house, or an underground bunker.

Go Pit Bull on your time
I treat my day like I would any on-site job, and decided early not to be shy about setting office hours. Granted, I usually shuffle in earlier and stay later, but it helps me stay committed to growing my business without feeling like the “bad guy” when chatty neighbors or well-meaning friends call for mid-day favors. It’s easy enough to say “Sure, I can help! I work from 9 to 5:30, so if it’s before or after, let me know!”

It’s OK to walk away
This is the blessing and curse of the three-second commute … it’s damn near impossible to walk away at the end of the day. But, for your sanity, try.  Burnout is not an option, and walking away is the best line of defense. For me, walking away means literally shutting down my computer because it’s a hassle to fire it up again for “just one more quick thing.” It’s not always easy, but I try to do it fast so everything is shut down before I realize it. Like ripping off a bandage.

Separation of Church and State
Along the same lines as walking away, I’ve found it’s imperative to have truly dedicated spaces for work and life. I resist the temptation to grab my red pen and take even a simple editing project from my office into the living room.  I fear it’ll start with one project, and before I know it, every surface will be covered and I won’t have an escape. By limiting your work to its rightful place, there’s no need to worry about escape. It’s amazing what simply closing the door can do.

Coffee Breaks
OK … this is actually code for “meeting.” But, it’s the only workaround I could come up with since vowing to shun meetings after my life in corporate America. But, it’s my way to get my tail-end out of the office, make sure I still have some clean clothes hanging in the closet, and stay connected with the outside world. In my line of work, it’s also an effective networking tool, as I often schedule follow-up coffee breaks with people I meet at events just to get to know them a little better. I try to schedule at least two or three coffee breaks every week.

These are just a few of the tricks I’m picking up along the way, but so far they’re pretty effective tools in keeping me motivated and somewhat balanced. It’s not always easy to work from home, but the pros tend to outmaneuver the cons if you’re conscious about how and where you’re spending your time.

Imagine my surprise when I logged onto my computer and found Google had turned out the lights.

Weekend mornings are usually the time I reserve to scour the Web on an inspiration treasure hunt for writing exercises. It’s quiet, my e-mail isn’t dinging with new messages, and the phone stays silent.

My plan was to do some research on the upcoming Small Business Week in April (which I’m sure I’ll gush about later), but I switched gears when my screen went black and saw Google had flipped the switch on its home page.

A few clicks later, I read about Earth Hour … yet another going-green initiative to add to my seemingly never-ending list of things I need to be doing in order to “do my part.”

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a fabulous idea and I plan to turn off the lights from 8-9 p.m. tonight. But, between always being mindful about reducing, reusing or recycling everything I lay my hands on, I’m starting to wonder when I can start reducing, reusing or recycling the guilt that comes when I miss something.

Some of it comes naturally … reusing my office paper, tossing soda cans and glass bottles into the bin in the garage, flipping off the lights when I leave a room, and lumping my errands into one trip (although, I admit that’s as much about being freakishly efficient as it is about being environmentally responsible).

But do you know how many times I’ve had to listen to my lecture after forgetting to bring my reuseable bags into the grocery store? Or the shame that comes when, in a rush, I overlook the sticky note on the front door reminding me to reduce the heat from “slightly chilly” to “downright freezing” when I leave the house?  Or when my conscious chastises me when it’s time to clean the bathroom, and I find only half of my cleaning supplies are considered environmentally friendly?

I know nobody is perfect, and I realize every little bit helps. But, every time I run across a new national “whatever”-out to go green, I look forward to the day that I get to sneer at my conscious with an exasperated eye roll and a well-timed “Pipe down. I do that already.”