I’d like to offer an alternative view.

Perhaps it has something to do with the way my brain works but I find I work best when I’m not putting myself under pressure to avoid distractions, when I can quickly deal with something and get back to work, or when I can step away from my desk for a while for a physical and/or mental break.

Here are some ways in which distractions or breaks may actually aid your productivity:

• Pauses to take care of small errands, send quick email replies or pay bills give you a mental break and also change your eye focus
• Getting up from your chair to get the mail, stack the dishwasher, or change a lightbulb gives you a physical break from sitting on the chair but also gives you something menial that you can easily do while focussing your thoughts on your work.  Pulling away from what you’re doing and thinking of it from a different angle can be refreshing.  It can also remind you to eat and drink – something that can be overlooked when concentrating hard.
• Taking care of chores and errands throughout the day prevents a long list building for the end of the day, which you can begin to dread.  I find that I sometimes waste more time thinking about the little things I need to do, while trying to concentrate, than actually doing them – quickly getting them done frees up my mental burden
• If you are continually finding ways to be distracted and put off doing the work, perhaps this is something you need to think about – why are you avoiding it? What are you afraid of?
• Going out to have lunch or coffee with friends is not only a physical and mental break but it also breaks up the monotony and loneliness of working from home.  You would do this if you worked in an office, so what’s wrong with doing it when you work from home?

I no longer feel guilty when I succumb to distractions.  If I feel that I have had a productive day, and haven’t stressed out getting things done, then the distractions were worth it.  After all, if I wanted a slave driver, I wouldn’t be working for myself, right?

In pre- and early Christian times, women were revered.  In many religions, women were worshiped for their life-giving role.  Somehow, over the last two centuries, the tables have turned, beginning with (at least in the Western world) the growth of the Catholic church and the decline of paganism.   For hundreds of years, women had no rights and no other expectations on them other than to marry and bear children – and even then many had no say in whom they married. And indeed, if a woman tried to step out of their constricting bounds and seek employment or choose not to marry, not only did they receive scathing criticism from men but also from other women.  Many early authoresses wrote under male (or neuter) pseudonyms so that they would be taken seriously.

In the last century, women have slowly fought their way into board rooms and building sites and (though the glass-ceiling still exists) gained equality in the workplace with men.  Thanks to the Suffragettes, Women’s Lib and everything in between, women can now work, vote, drive cars, become political leaders and more.  However, women are still prisoners of their own stereotype.  The article talks about how pregnant women and mothers in the 1950’s and 1960’s were shunned – they were not seen as sexual, valuable beings but rather as vessels for children – wearing sacks to cover their shame, staying inside all day, being treated as if they had an illness when giving birth.  Contrast that to today’s trend of Yummy Mummies – women feel much more liberated and free when pregnant and as mothers.  However, it’s still an image, it’s still a facade and it still eeks of shame and embarrassment of the physical effects of motherhood.  Instead of covering up with sack-dresses, women are dieting to maintain thin bodies; birth is still largely treated as a medical process (the number of unnecessary caesarian sections performed each year is huge); women are pressured more than ever when it comes to the decision about whether to breastfeed or not – they are not fully educated on the issues and when it comes down to it, breastfeeding in public is still largely not accepted as politically correct, which is a major factor in the decision whether or not to breastfeed.  Pregnancy and birth are still reduced to a clinical, medical, regimented process – not the beautiful, natural, miraculous events that they are (not to mention vital to the survival of the human race!).

When will women end their self-sabotaging and embrace this role, when will they realise that they can choose to work and also choose to be a mother (and be proud)?  It’s women who have to lead the way on this.  Enjoy pregnancy, embrace the experience, support each other.  Choose a birthing clinic or home birth rather than a caesarian in a hospital (studies have shown birthing clinics and home births with a birthing attendant or Doula produce a less painful and more enjoyable labour experience, with fewer complications); choose to breastfeed and be proud of it; enjoy your baby’s early months rather than worrying about getting your body back and going back to work; learn all that you can about motherhood and make informed decisions for you and your family.  I don’t have children yet, but I know that when I do, this is the attitude that I will take.

Water storages are at record lows and we are faced with the scary thought of consuming water from catchments in which the water level is for the first time approaching the sediment layer – which harbours and encases many toxic chemicals. Urban Melbourne is currently on Stage 2 water restrictions (on a four-stage plan), but many Victorian towns have been on Stage 4 restrictions for months (and some level of restriction for years) and some even have water brought in from other towns. Crops are languishing and I’ve heard reports from inside sources – you won’t hear this in the news – of at least one suicide a day from farmers who can no longer suffer the pressure. I won’t go into what the government is doing to help these people or plan for the future, but in short it’s not enough. I’m not ready to blame climate change for the current water crisis – it’s an infrastructure problem (I will stretch it to say that I think the government has for too long been distracted by affairs outside our wide, brown land).

The immediate crisis is a stretch of 11 very large bushfires in the state’s southeast which have already burned through over 200,000 hectares, casting a thick pall of smoke over the city (over 200 kilometers away) and even further west. A recent string of very hot, very dry days and nights and a hot northerly wind has turned the bushland into a giant tinder box. And it’s not even Christmas yet. There is also now a series of grass fires in the west, about 80 kilometres from the city, some (or perhaps) all of which were started intentionally. Not as a back-burning exercise (which would be futile in this weather) but by “firebugs”.

Living in the city, it’s usually hard to imagine the heat, the fear and the exhaustion of those fighting the fires, or attempting to save houses in danger. However, with the water shortages at our doorstep, the smoke choking us whenever we walk outside – to the extent that fire alarms have been triggered in some city buildings, we can’t escape the realities of this harsh country.

Spare a thought this summer for the Victorian firefighters, farmers, and people who have lost their homes, their crops, their livelihood. And pray for a wet autumn.

There is one aspect of this house that really irritates me, however, and given that I recently read “The Design of Everyday Things”, it sticks out in my mind even more: the location and function of the light switches. Everywhere you look are switch panels with anywhere from 2 – 5 switches. It has taken lots of investigation to discover the function of some of them (such as the doorbell doesn’t work unless one of the switches near the kitchen is on) and some of them are placed without reasonable relation to the light they control (e.g. the switch for the outside courtyard light is in the hall with a bedroom in between).

It doesn’t stop there! On entering the spare bedroom and study, I automatically feel for the lightswitch on the same wall as the door; but stupid me, they’re not there! They are on the adjacent wall, causing much confusion in the dark and handprints on the walls.

I’ll go even further to describe the panel that greets you when you walk in the front door: 5 switches and a dimmer knob. The living room light is controlled by the switch above the related dimmer, ok that’s easy. The middle bottom switch controls the inside light above the door. Got it. The two right-hand switches BOTH turn on the front outside lights, one immediately and one with a half-second response. Ok… The top middle switch seems to do nothing. After much playing and waiting, we discovered that when the top middle switch is turned on with the bottom right switch, the front light will eventually go out and come on when a sensor on the outside wall is triggered. Even the four-switch panel in the bathrooms confuse me: upstairs they control normal light, fan, light in the IXL unit and heater in the IXL unit; downstairs, the same four-panel switch but only light and fan – two unused switches.

And that’s just the lights… The oven works as such: a switch on the wall must be turned on, then you can select the oven setting and temperature, ok that’s easy. But it doesn’t work until you then press the clock/timer’s “Reset” button… I never know whether to push or pull the atrium doors.. You need to walk through a bedroom or study to get to the back yard… Many of the cupboards are far too high for me to reach… And I can’t get the internal door buzzer to unlock the front gate – it buzzes but stays locked.

I could probably go on. I must mention that this house was featured in a book about architecture, highlighting good use of small spaces. Indeed, it has a surprising amount of space for a small house – plenty of storage (which we needed!), shelves, an inner atrium with water feature, good-sized main bedroom and ensuite, complete laundry in a cupboard complete including trough (MUCH more than I had in our last house in Australia which had the laundry taps in a cupboard in the kitchen)… It’s strange to think of all the work they put into the aesthetics of the house and the comfort of its inhabitants. But it seems they forgot to think about the interaction between the two.

So, here’s a tip: when designing something, don’t just think about how it looks and how it functions, think about how a person interacts with it, no matter what it is. Make it obvious. (Read “The Design of Everyday Things”!).

In the past few months however, the brands I have come to love have started disappearing from the supermarket shelves to be replaced by “home” brands (some of which might be gluten-free but packed with preservatives, colourings and/or MSG). After seeing a report on the evening news, I realised that this has been happening with other product lines as well. So I’m boycotting these generic brands. I know it’s nice to have a cheaper alternative but this is going too far in the name of profit, if you ask me – the smaller, more specialised brands are being pushed off the shelves. I would boycott the big supermarkets altogether if I could get what I want easily and quickly from somewhere else, but as I currently live in the outer suburbs of Melbourne that’s not easy.

Ok, the world is rife with issues in this day and age but I’d like to think I’m doing my part to resist the corporations and maintain consumer freedom of choice. Taking care of the little guys. Will you join me?

I’m also waiting for Jean Auel to finish her series, another installment in a series by Dean Koontz and something, anything!, from Dan Brown.