Climbing Cringe Mountain With Katie Chappell | Before the Work Begins Podcast

It's my favorite thing.

So do you work in the cafe rather than at home? Do you have to leave the house?

I find it way easier, yeah.

If I'm at home, I'm just like, "Oh, I'll pop a wash on.

Oh, I do, all the dishes need done." I'm just like, do my head in if I stay at home.

'Cause so you used to travel quite a lot for work, didn't you? And now you're more home-based.

Yeah, yeah.

So with the live event illustration, I sort of tried out having it as an agency, and we did loads of in-person work, and I would take on a lot of the in-person jobs as well.

And they're usually in London, and from where I live, you can get there and back in a day.

I can be there at, like, 11:00 AM and leave at 7:00 PM.

So I was doing that, like, sometimes once a week, and which is really fun and exciting when you don't have-

Yeah

... a family to, like, worry about or anything, or even just, like, energy levels.

It got to the stage where I was like, "This is not fun anymore.

I don't feel like, 'Cool, I'm going to London.'" I feel like, "Oh, my God, I'm going to London." [laughs]

And that's not how you want your life to be, is it?

No.

You want the nice things to be nice.

Exactly.

And I just, I think I appreciate more just chilling out, being at home.

And it's funny 'cause I think I used to be more like, "Yeah, going to London means I'm successful."

Yeah.

And now I'm like, actually, my, like, my idea of success has changed.

So I'm like, if I can be at home and have more relaxing time and quiet writing time, like, that for me now is much more luxurious than sitting on a train for four hours, being stuck in King's Cross Station 'cause it's delayed.

Do you feel like your mornings have changed much since you've changed your work?