I’m not the world’s greatest networker. I love hearing people’s stories and asking about their work, but I habitually forget to carry business cards and I’m not very good at explaining what I do. I do, however, accept business cards when they’re given to me. In the past, I’ve wondered if that was a futile activity, but I’ve discovered an app that promises to make collecting cards more useful.
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As I type this, I’m sitting in the middle of my bed in our RV. I’m wearing the black leggings and tank top I put on underneath a black wrap dress when I got dressed in at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco two days ago. That outfit was cute, but two days of working from my bed later and, well, the smell is more of a concern than the appearance.
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When I first moved into an RV and began working from the road, I had a long list of freedoms I was going to enjoy. At the top of the list was the ability to work (and not work) whenever I wanted.

I imagined spending Mondays at the beach and Saturday afternoons writing. I was going to be a timetable rebel, free from society’s antiquated rules about when we should and should not be working. Who says, after all, that we are more productive on Wednesdays than on Saturdays? Who decided that the hours between 9 am and 5pm would be set aside for working? "Who says?" I demanded with anti-establishment indignation.

Henry Ford said.
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We pulled into the Grand Canyon Thursday night. We were going to be camping for three nights, giving us two days to take our time exploring one of Earth’s most famous wonders. I’d worked extra hours earlier in the week so that I could unplug and enjoy four total days of driving and playing tourist.

About five minutes after checking into our campground, I got an email on my iPhone announcing a bit of a work emergency, something that demanded my attention within the next 12 hours.

My cell phone service promptly vanished as soon as I finished reading the email.

We unhooked the travel trailer from the back of our SUV, made sure no dishes had been broken in the transfer, and put the TV back in its place. Then I went hunting for wifi.
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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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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’m reading about Secret Santa drawings and office holiday parties, and I admit to being a little jealous. Yes, I get to roll out of bed at 9:30 in the morning. No, my lunch isn’t going to mysteriously disappear from the fridge. But working outside of the typical office environments also means I don’t have face to face interactions with co-workers. Ever.

I am by nature an autonomous worker, a trait that makes the mobile lifestyle a good fit for me, but occasionally I miss lunches with colleagues. I don’t miss meetings, necessarily, but I do miss having someone in my field readily available for brainstorming and feedback. My husband and children don’t make the best sounding boards for questions on marketing or target demographics.
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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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