I'm not alone in thinking working at home, while it has its benefits, mostly blows. I mean I love the time with my kids – but on the other hand, I am attempting to work while I am home with my kids. Who, while lovely, are an infant and a preschooler and thus have no respect for deadlines (want to know how many times I have had to stop writing this and tend to someone? Five. So far. And the preschooler is napping. It would be twice that if she weren't). Plus, there's the pets, and the home phone, and the temptation to load the dishwasher/run a load of laundry/get a jump on dinner instead of work during that brief period when everyone is happy or at least quiet.
The solution would be an office outside the home, but what I'd have to pay for additional daycare plus rent in even a cheap building or shared space would cost major bank – and as a freelance journalist/itinerant blogger, major bank's not happening.
I've casually talked with friends in similar lines of work about sharing an office – not something we’d have to be at every day, but a space where you have a desk and co-workers who can get their own cups of milk, but without all attendant hassles of actually working for each other. Lo and behold, this is not an original idea but a new trend, called coworking, the idea being it's more professional than hanging at Starbucks and more social than working alone at home.
One woman started a coworking space called Cubes and Crayons in Menlo Park that includes, wait for it, childcare. Both of which are available the amount of time you need it and not a moment longer. I have no idea if she's interested in franchising, but if any of you want to open up such a place in my neck of the woods, I'll be your first customer.
