50 Things You’ll Accomplish By 5pm When You’re Working From Home

“Freelancing” or “working from home” is like music to our ears, or like the sight of champagne gushing forth from an majestic fountain or subsisting in a pool of Nutella. Wake up as you please. Work as you please. You are (almost) your own boss. Wear your pajamas to work, the office is your bed. Consider brushing your teeth at noon. It’s a rather sweet deal.

As glamorous as the idea of working from home may seem, living up to the actual potential of the day is not as successful. Pattering about in pajamas is ideal, but to get work done without the restrictions and rules of office etiquette takes the resolute to work, the steadfastness of monks. And for those of us who lack such determination, here lies a day in our lives working from home:

1. Stare off into space for more than an hour but less than two.
2. Glance sideways at your laptop.
3. Separate whites and coloured clothing for when you finally decide to do the laundry.
4. Spend a considerable amount of time wondering whether you should do the laundry. Decide against it.
5. Trim toenails.
6. Trim pubic hair.
7. Make a list of things to do for work.
8. Look your list of things to do for work over and over again.
9. Create a new list of things to do for work, as your handwriting for your former list isn’t consistent throughout.
10. Stare at the contents of your fridge.
11. Clean under the sink and behind the toilet and on top of the kitchen cabinet.
12. Message everyone in your recent text history just how much of a struggle this day is. Begin message with “ugh” or “ugh” followed by the present day of the week.
13. Watch hula-hooping tutorials.
14. Fold underwear the Mari Kondo way.
15. Create folders for your e-mails with titles corresponding to your moods, e.g. “Angry”, “lol”, “WTF??????”
16. Arrange spices according to color, then height.
17. Resolve that you would rather be dead than take up recreationally competitive hula-hooping.
18. Make an omelette.
19. Figure out how to maximize the utilization of that kitchen cabinet above the fridge.
20. Feel overwhelmed by all the work you need to do.
21. Search for chicken pox scars.
22. Message everyone in your recent text history just to check-in, seeing that there’s no time like the present to do so.
23. Delete e-mails to and from exes.
24. Delete e-mails to and from exes from trash.
25. Realize that e-mails to and from exes would make good material for the 5th chapter of your memoir. Scour the internet on how to retrieve permanently deleted e-mails.
26. Doodle.
27. Make a list of whimsical celebrity children names that could also alternate as band names.
28. Do a thorough Google search on former child stars.
29. Make four lists: “Work goals”; “Life goals”; “Personal goals”; “ASAP’. Write each bulleted point on an individual Post-It.
30. Search for a prominent wall space to tack up your new lists.
31. Consider checking in with your parents. Decide against it.
32. Pick at your toes
33. Sign up for free trials.
34. Message everyone in your recent text history (other than your parents) about just how much you hate the phrase “touch base”. Attach with it a picture of Kim Kardashian crying.
35. Complete the online survey printed on your receipt from the gap.
36. Stare at the contents of your kitchen cabinets.
37. Order a facewash with diamond flecks in it from a Japanese retailer on Amazon.
38. Listen to voicemails from your former landlord to remind you that rent is due.
39. Message everyone in your recent text history (other than your parents) a screenshot of a funny thing Kim Kardashian tweeted.
40. Consider working. Decide against it.
41. Take a nap.
42. Overwater plants.
43. Remove ingrown hair with your bare hands.
44. Open a multitude of tabs on your web browser of all the articles and essays you’ll read when you have the time.
45. Wash your face.
46. Search for a new gig. This current one requires too much of you.
47. Pick at scabs.
48. Message everyone in your recent text history (other than your parents) about how irritating restaurant delivery minimums are.
49. Make a list of all the things you could do when you should be working.
50. Wonder way the day went

Congratulations! It’s 5pm and you haven’t done your work, but the back of your toilet is looking mighty spiffy!