When I signed on four years ago to write this column, my intent was to discuss the constant quest for a work-life balance. I imagined sharing my best productivity tips as well as commiserating about the days when those tips inevitably failed. Over time, I also began sharing how my definitions of "work" and "life" were evolving . But while the balls changed in shape and color, the desire to keep them aloft always remained. Recently, however, I’ve begun to question my understanding of balance itself.
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The blogs are buzzing with news about an internal memo announcing changes to the work-from-home policies at Yahoo!, a tech company that has seen more ink dedicated to its CEO than its products in the last year. The gist of the memo is this: all telecommuters must report to Yahoo! offices by June, or quit. The gist of the response in my news and social media feeds: CEO Marissa Mayer is setting back women. Personally, I have more problems with the criticism of the policy than I do with the mandate itself.
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A few weeks ago, I wrote about how learning about my Myers-Briggs personality type helped me get more done by pointing out my natural weaknesses. We’ve also talked a lot about how working parents can’t be expected to do it all. In order to get it all done without doing it all, we’re often told to delegate, but what does that look like in a real household?

It’s easy to say that we need to delegate, to hand out tasks for others to complete, but many working parents find that easier to discuss than to actually implement. In reality, poor delegating leaves kids with dry cereal for lunch and laundry piled up for weeks. Any control freak will tell you that the reason they maintain a tight hold on everything is because past attempts to recruit help have ended in disaster, with reports needing to be redone and apology phone calls needing to be made.

I’ve been experimenting with delegation for a few years now, and I’ve learned a few things about how this and other tricks can make up for my natural weaknesses - without sacrificing the end result of a happy, functional home and work life.
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As a working mom, it’s important to me to make time and space in my life for quality relationships with my husband and kids. It’s also important to me to make time for friends. Unfortunately, most of my favorite women have a hard time finding time for friendship.

Part of the problem is that the majority of my friends work “real jobs,” which means they aren’t around for coffee or lunch dates during the day. It also means most of their evenings are packed with family fun, dinner, and household chores. That leaves nights after kids are in bed, which is usually spouse time, or weekends, which are often spent at kids’ events or running errands that couldn’t get done during the week. The life of a working mom doesn’t have a lot of room in it for girlfriends.

What are a bunch of working women to do?
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It’s not uncommon to blame children for a couple’s inability to have nice things. My husband and I, however, have no one but ourselves to blame.

A year ago, my husband and I sold just about everything we owned - including our beautiful home and my beloved shoe collection - so that we could move into an RV and travel for a year with our kids. That year of travel has come to an end and we now have room to put stuff again, but we’re not running out to replace all of our stuff. Why? Because we don’t want to go back to real jobs.

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I’ve been working towards one significant professional goal for several months now:

Get published in print.

(I’m pretty sure that’s not cool to admit out loud, but whatever.)

In order to research that goal, I’ve invested hours and money on research and tools. I’ve pushed through the scary first steps and I’ve “put myself out there.” A lot.

Thus far, all of my bylines are still digital.

The last few days I’ve been struggling with the decision to quit. It’s hard to work with no feedback (which is pretty typical in publishing) and I’m cognizant of all the people who want to be published writers and never are. My family is planning a move and will be setting up a new home soon, which is going to require money I’m not making from researching and pitching. I’m going to have to make some choices about the future of my career. But how?
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We tell our children that we don’t expect perfection, that it’s effort that is being measured, but are we misleading them? Are we misleading ourselves by pretending results don’t matter? I’m biting my tongue a lot in front of my kids so as not to dissuade their belief in trying, but I’m not so sure that’s best for any of us.
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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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When I worked out of an office, I took for granted the availability of free office supplies and equipment that made getting my job done easier. When I worked from home, I took for granted how easy it was to work pretty much the same way as I had when I worked from an office. I already had an internet connection, installed an extra phone line, bought a printer, and set up a UPS account with my home address. Now that I work from the road, I’m constantly working to find unique solutions to everyday logistical needs.
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First and foremost: I’m back. The last post I wrote on this blog did not, obviously, turn out to be my final post on this blog. That being said, the writer may be staying the same, but the blog itself is changing to reflect my new work/life situation and a growing trend among working women ever.

While full time work used to mean putting 40 hours in at an office, many of us are now working full time, all the time, because we have no office. We work from our homes, our cars and our travel trailers. Some of us are freelancers, some fortunate employees, and some real-life business owners who realize that office space is so 2005.

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