Getting up and getting out ...

Or maybe not ... the past couple of days have been a battle of willpower of getting up in the morning and getting off to work - and I have failed :-/ Maybe it's the flexibility of academic life allowing me to work from home when I don't have meetings; maybe it's having a TV again after so long and staying up late glued to the idiot box; maybe its because it is pouring outside and I feel a bad cold coming on; maybe I am just a lazy person :-) Why is it that sometimes self-motivation seems next to impossible?!?

Well, in my case I think all of the above reasons have something to do with it. Of all of them, being labelled as 'lazy' is probably the explanation I dislike the most. In fact when I was talkingto a friend yesterday he was joking with me - I said "I am working from home coz I felt like a change", and he replied "Well, maybe for a change you should come into work". Of course I was immediately on the defensive - was he implying that I am lazy and don't go into work enough?! .. well, the fact that the statement hit my buttons would indicate that even I think I am a bit of a lazy so and so .. at times I probably am. But can anyone define ourselves to be one thing or the other - isn't it more the case that we are different people every day, every hour even every minute?

Now, all this doesn't mean I think it is OK to be lazy all the time, every day - when stuff needs to get done, I get off my butt and get it done. And I definitely enjoy those mornings when I get up *wanting* to get into work, which is the case most days. But then on occassion I just want to chill out and work on my own schedule from home - which is one of the reasons I sacrificed the big money of software consulting to return to academic life. And anyway, on a good day I am even more productive when I am at home :-)

So here I am, sitting on my living room floor and working away (well, ok writing this blog right now, but I have done some work this morning! and more will get done later on - I promise) Thank goodness for broadband and wireless networks.