I declared this the year of good health . I acknowledged that taking care of myself was better not only for my personal health and happiness, but for my business. I decided to start with small changes, like getting up and doing yoga every morning.

I made it five days in a row.

I don’t even know what happened. I have continued to go to bed at a decent time and get up early, but instead of doing a bit of stretching, I opened my computer and went to work right away one morning. By the time I realized what I’d done, I was pretty solidly into the flow and couldn’t tear myself away for 30 minutes of deep breathing and stretching. Before I knew it, a week and had gone by and I hadn’t so much as touched my toes.
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I asked my friends on Facebook to recommend a cleanse to start my 2012 off Gwyneth style.

I made a vision board that focused on health as a pathway to happiness.

I wrote about embracing the end of the year as a time to step back and relax, to regroup instead of moving forward.

So really, it’s my own fault that I spent about three weeks battling a combination of viruses I now refer to as the Iowa Plague. I basically asked to be knocked on my proverbial butt, forced to let work and my usual end-of-month organizing slide. My colon, I assure you, is cleansed.
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Here we go again: the kids are off of school and the rest of the world tries not to let that interfere with their non-vacation schedule. While I don’t recall my vacations being an inconvenience for anyone when I was a child, it seems every parent I know goes into full on scramble mode when holiday breaks leave children home during the week.

My children have been on break from their virtual school since last Friday. Fortunately, we’re visiting relatives in Iowa right now and the kids have been able to focus on spending time with loved ones instead of homework. Of course, I still have projects to finish up and deadlines to meet. Am I freaking out about my lack of routine?
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One of the things I appreciate about my lifestyle - that of a digital nomad who lives and works on the road full time - is that I am pretty much the boss of everything. I decide when I’ll work, play, and sleep. I pick which projects I’ll work on and which I’ll turn down. I get to choose whether I’ll accept or negotiate deadlines. I eat breakfast at noon if I want and have no consequences for spending the entire day in my pajamas. As you might imagine, it takes a fair amount of self discipline to keep this train on the tracks, what with no one waiting to tell me what to do.

I tend to keep that train moving by focusing first on activities that pay me. Specifically, I start my day with the highest paying tasks and move on down the list according to dollar amount and proximity of deadline. This perfectly sounds logical, yes?

Unfortunately, no one pays me to brush my teeth.
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I notice it every single year. Fall marks the end of summer, the beginning of the school year, and a flurry of productivity for me. And then, like clockwork, Halloween passes, the first chill sets in, and I’m much more interested in finding a new TV series to watch on Netflix than I am creating anything groundbreaking. The most productive thing I want to do is make Christmas lists and gifts. Work? Only because I have bills to pay.

When I worked in an office, this annual slump was managed by a list of daily tasks and a jovial attitude that said “come on, guys, you don’t want to work either!” I kept my bosses happy enough and enjoyed the security of a regular paycheck, confident that I’d focus more on getting ahead again when the new year had come.
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It’s not uncommon for me to be on an airplane on a Tuesday afternoon, on a conference call on a Saturday morning, and answering email late into the evening on any given day. One of my favorite things about my mobile lifestyle is that I’m not chained to a time clock or some antiquated schedule that dictates that business gets done from 9 to 5 on five select days of the week. One of my least favorite things, however, is that I seem to have lost my designated time off in the process.

I take my cell phone with me everywhere, allowing me to respond to emails and take phone calls even if I’m not sitting at a desk. I don’t have set hours during which clients or editors can contact me, which I hope makes up for the fact that I might be unavailable for several hours in the middle of a work day. It would be hypocritical of me to tell someone I won’t work on a Saturday, I think, if I also haven’t worked on a Thursday. I strive to make myself available as much as possible in order to make up for the times I’m not available and for the unpredictable nature of my schedule.
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I work in the mornings.

This is just the way I’m wired, for whatever reason, and I’ve learned at 31 years old to embrace this little quirk. I get up, open the laptop, and get to work. When the work is done, the playing can commence.

Except, of course, when it doesn’t work that way.

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One of the biggest advantages of working remotely - flexibility - is also one of the things that makes working on the road so difficult. Like many people, I love routine and am most productive when I can quickly get into the flow of creating. Airport lounges and unpredictable hours can make slipping into a working frame of mind a slower process, which equals less work done on the road.

Unfortunately, I live on the road right now. All of my work is done from a “remote” location and so I’m constantly adjusting to a new environment. However, some weeks require more flexibility than others, like when I’m on a short business trip or press tour. These trips are loaded with travel, meetings, tours, and very little downtime. The downtime I do have is usually spent at an airport gate or on an airplane, or in a hotel room after 9 o’clock at night. Of course, I have my laptop with me in these places and can almost always access the internet — so what’s the problem?

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This is the last post I’ll write for Full Time, All the Time from the comfort of anything resembling an office. This is probably also the last week I can reasonably claim to work “full time.”

One week from today, my family and I are moving out of our suburban home and into a 24 foot travel trailer RV. For the next year, we’ll tow that portable house all over the United States with our old SUV, working and living in cities and campgrounds that promise free or cheap WiFi. My kids are calling it The Biggest Vacation Ever, but I won’t exactly be on vacation. I’ll still be working - although hopefully less than full time - because someone has to pay for the campground fees and cereal.

Things, they are a-changin’.

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There’s a plethora of advice available on how to get ahead in your career. Whether you work for a Fortune 500 company or own your own one-woman-show, you can find tips on every magazine rack about how to climb higher and earn more.

But have you ever stopped to think if you really want to move up in your career?

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