Winter. Perfect days to withdraw from the cold outside. Cold and gray, a time to retreat into the comfort of one one’s couch and close the shades. A time of the year to concoct reason upon reason to preclude oneself from braving the elements.

Now, take a job where you work from home a significant portion of the time, throw in a fairly significant workload, and you’ve got a perfect recipe for some cabin fever.

I’ve been doing this new job for about eight months now, and I knew working from home was going to be a challenge. I was correct. It’s tough, particularly for somebody such as myself that doesn’t easily pick up the phone and say “Hey man, let’s go shoot some pool”. (As a sidenote, even though my pool table is currently in storage there’s a swank poolhall right down the street from me…so if you ever feel the need, just give me a ring. ;) ) Not only that, when your office is just a few steps away, it takes a lot of self-control to disconnect mentally and physically.

As such, I think the closed shades of winter hit me particularly hard this year, despite a couple weeks in Florida. ;)

This is a reminder to myself to go outside; to call people if only to say hello; to step away from work even if I don’t have something else more important to do. This type of thing was easy when I would work with people every day, but it now requires an extra effort. That, and the MacGyver DVD set (thanks, bro!) will only last for so long.