I haven’t been sleeping so well this week. I wasn’t sure if it was the work being done in our apartment which is emitting strange smells, our attempt to go to bed early in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Iceland, the earplugs I’ve lately been wearing, or the changing weather that leaves me sweating under a heavy comforter. After a terrible night of sleep that left me groggy and discombobulated all day yesterday, I started to wonder if it was something else keeping me up at night.

Working from home always makes it difficult to regulate your hours, and I’ve always had this problem. There’s no real 9-5 for you, you tend to work odd and even late hours. Years ago I would find myself still at the letterpress studio in Oakland, well after midnight, trying to trim a wedding invitation I wanted to send out the next day. In the crunch days of our iPhone game (Patchmania), I remember staying after 2am to upload translations into Apple’s iTunes interface. But lately, I find myself up editing photos in the dark, or reading the zillions of articles I have saved in my browser tabs. It also doesn’t help that I tend to do my best writing late at night, when things start spilling out of my head.

Nursing a headache on Thursday and growing suspicious that my new vitamins were keeping me up, I suddenly realized I wasn’t giving myself any time to unwind before I go to sleep. My brain is still going so fast that I’m going through my to-do list for the next day, anticipating when the floor guys are going to refinish the wood, while putting my head on the pillow. So last night, after an hour of Pilates and a delicious take-out avocado salad, I took a hot bath, put my phone away, and tried to relax. By the time I got into bed, I was calm, with nothing particular clouding my thoughts. And I slept great.

I’m very thankful to have this work being done to our apartment. The photography space will allow me to improve my work, take better photos, and make high quality content for this blog. But having everything I need at home means I have to be better about giving myself time to unwind, especially before bed. Most people would love the option to work from home, but while there’s no commute, it’s very difficult for you to know when your work is actually done (hint: it never is). That means I have to have good discipline about when to call it quitin’ time.

Here’s hoping the weekend brings better sleep because as I consider our itinerary for Iceland, it wont be very forgiving!

Please share any tips on how to keep better at-home hours in the comments below. And I hope you have a great, restful weekend, full of happiness and a little bit of adventure!

P.S. If you want to follow along with my studio renovations, check out my Instagram Stories.