I've been away from home (where I work) for a month, staying at my mom's during and after her big surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Trying to work at her house and not really being able to accomplish much, along with not knowing how long I should / will be there and/or how often I'll be coming back helped clarify the importance of having dedicated workspace away from family, and away from home. It got me looking for for temporary office space so I might actually be able to work while I'm there AND feel justified in that expense (my mom lives a significant distance away from our home and is not in any way "commutable" in anything more frequent than weekly back-and-forths.

Being at my mom's and unable to work properly is encouraging me to acknowledge that PAYING FOR OFFICE SPACE is *always* justified. You are always going to pay for it one way or another. It's better to pay for it in a quantifiable monetary way and get to DESIGN that space SPECIFICALLY FOR WORK rather than pay by letting your work suffer because you are distracted, unfocused and undermining your efficacy, productivity and the REWARDS of work.

It shouldn't have taken me two decades to inch so slowly towards recognizing how much I not only WANT my own office space, but actually NEED it.

It is more costly to not have focused, dedicated work space than it is to rent/pay for space.

I'm not sure when (or where) I'll be able to implement this clarity and actually set up dedicated work space away from home, but I'm grateful for everything I've been challenged by and learned over the years cementing a clearer vision of what "WebWhore Headquarters" should be, and solidifying my confidence that it is the right thing to invest in (and should be an intrinsic daily functional reward of working for yourself).

Follow-up posts to come about my experiences sharing office space in "co-working" environments, and how gender leads so many of us enculturated as women to sabotage ourselves by not prioritizing secure, separate home and work spaces.