During my experience working from home, I have found there are numerous advantages and disadvantages to a home office. One of the biggest pros and cons is the hours: the flexibility is great, but the fact that you never really “leave” work can lead to too many late nights. When I’m feeling overworked, especially if I’ve been focusing on one large project, I welcome a certain amount of distraction to clear my head before I revisit a design.

As with any creative field, I think that taking your mind off a project for a brief time can make the editing process more effective once you return to the task at hand. I find that editing improves with this method not only for design layouts, but also with photography and especially copy writing. Ideally I like to have multiple clients at varying stages of the design process, so that I do not spend 3 days straight designing logos. But, when business is slow or monotonous I have a collection of sites that I visit to keep me from burning out. So, without further ado here are a few of my favorite distractions. (Bonus: Some of these “distractions” can actually lead to productivity on another level!)

Of course, everyone’s #1 office distraction. For the sake of productivity I try to limit my facebook visits to evenings and weekends, however I do sometimes visit my Business Page to update blog posts, new clients and changes to my own website during the work week.

Before I started visiting this site I listened to their Podcast: Freelance Radio. Freelance Switch is part of the Envato family of sites, and is a site for, by and about freelancers. It is not exclusive to web designers, but also includes writers, graphic artists, photographers…any creative field with a high percentage of freelancers, really. I have found this site to be both amusing (I think the Freelance Freedom comics are quite funny, but that’s probably just me), as well as a helpful tool for running my small design business. The podcast features a cast of four freelancers plus guests, including a copy writer, web designer/photographer, graphic artist and social media expert.

While this site is in no way related to anything web design, it is absolutely my favorite distraction. The Kitchn is part of the Apartment Therapy group of blogs, and is loaded with helpful cooking tips, yummy recipes and all sorts of advice for those with addictions to their kitchens. And, even though this blog is no help on a professional level, I do consider it a great source for my “other” job of housewife. We have had many a successful dinner here in the Spontarelli household thanks in part to The Kitchn. Not to mention, I am an even bigger fan lately since they published my photos of a recipe (I was way too excited about this!). Another fun cooking blog I like is Smitten Kitchen.

W3Schools is more of an educational site than a distraction, but if I can distract and educate my self at the same time then even better! W3Schools’ mission is to answer the question ‘What does a Web developer need to know?’ They cover the basics in essentially every aspect of web design, from HTML to JavaScript and beyond. I have used W3Schools as a resource throughout my web design career, especially after discovering that many of the methods of web design I learned in college were already outdated upon graduation. They provide a great foundation of knowledge, which can be followed up by more advanced tutorials at sites like Lynda.com.

Blogs for designers are great in a number of ways. For one, they’re pretty much always fun to look at, and they can be a great resource for inspiration, tutorials, free downloads and more. Line25 is a blog that showcases a lot of great sites on the web; Function is a good mix of resources and advice; Web Designer Wall is gorgeous just to look at, not to mention its varied reviews and giveaways; and finally Outlaw Design Blog has a cool, functional website with great how-to articles and resources.

There are a few photo blogs that I check in with now and then, starting with the company that I work with, dmfoto. I love seeing which photos from recent weddings made the front of the slideshow (especially if they’re my photos!), and the blog is great for getting the whole picture of a wedding day from start to finish. Other photographers that I follow less regularly include The Blue Blog by StoneBlue Productions, a Lynchburg photographer and videographer with great style; Gavin Gough, a famous travel photographer whose work is often seen at Getty Images and Lonely Planet; William Neil, who is another talented photographer that really has a great eye for images and is not afraid to create his own photographic moment.

There are a few sites I’ve come across that are just plain fun to visit. Wordle is a “word cloud” generator (like the one at the top of this post) that makes your words into art. Animoto is a site that takes your selected photographs and puts them to music in a really well-done way. We’ve used it for fun in the past, but it could easily showcase a portfolio of images as well. XKCD is one of my husband’s favorite time wasters and generally he’ll send me a link to one comic, which leads me to press the Random button a dozen times or so to view more “romance, sarcasm, math, and language” humor.