don't fall into the "But it's sunny, I want to play!" trap

As summer settles in it is getting harder and harder to face sitting in the office all day long rather than going out and working in the yard or playing on the ATV or going fishing or... there is so much to do in Alaska in the summer. From boating to hiking to planting flowers the list goes on. And with so few really good days (I hear that Anchorage was ranked last in the top 100 best cities for bar-b-cue days), it is so hard to be good and ignore that little devil on the shoulder telling you "work can wait, come and play!"

So, how do you appease that little devil when he decides to start encouraging you to go out and play rather than sit inside? Plan your weeks out.

You should have a good idea of what times you need to be working (for me I have to be at the computer from 6am to 9am if I want to make any money), you should also know when things are slow enough you don't have to be there (I can usually take it easy anywhere from 3pm to 5pm). Maybe your working is entirely dependent on you and you can work best at 2am, or maybe you have to be ready to go at exactly 9:15am. Whenever you need to be at work is the first thing to mark out on your weekly time sheet.

Now, you also know how long you have to be working to make ends meet. Or at least you know if you have to put in 9-5 hours or just a couple hours a week. Decide how much time has to be dedicated to working, deduct the areas you already marked as "must be working" and the remaining time is what time you can shift around and put wherever you want it to go to fill out your work week.

Check the weekly weather report now. Is there rain for the next three days then a few days of sunny weather? If you want to take the kids to the amusement park or zoo you would want to fill in as much work hours on the rain filled days as you can so that when the sunny weather arrives you have your work done and can go play with the kids.

More dangerous is the sun for three days, then four days of solid rain in the forecast. You plan for playing for three days and say "I'll make up for it when it's raining!" But what happens if the weather man was wrong? You're looking at sunny skies and are stuck with twice the work you should have had because of three days of playing. You need to decide that yes, it's sunny for three days then raining for four, but... do I really want to be working at a burnout pace for those four days? What if a movie I have been wanting to see is on and I can't record it? What if an old friend stops by or calls? What if there is an emergency?

Don't schedule all of your work in the last few days of the week, because you might have a hard time catching up when the time comes. Instead plan that you need to work a set amount of time on the sunny days as well, and stick with it. You have your reward times, and you can schedule to get to do the things you really want or have to be doing. If you balance out the work and play, then you are going to have a much better chance of making your work at home job work out and get to making you an income you can retire on.