Casual Fridays: Slack or Shine?

It's hot in my office these days, so hot that I sometimes retreat to cooler parts of the home I also call "work" in search of a more bearable temperature to combat the heat put off by the laptop that is my most productive co-worker. This summer I've worked at the kitchen table, in the living room, on the couch and in the backyard.

While I've been galavanting around the house in search of cool, my home office has been falling into a pit of disrepair. It's been easy to put up with the stacks since I haven't been here this much, preferring instead to smash work into compact chunks and instead go play with my family. Summer's slightly slower pace has afforded me the luxury of cutting back a bit on work hours, and since I'm my own boss it's a blessing I've taken for granted. I find that those I communicate with in my work are also a bit more casual during summer, and that the pace of things is generally slower.

Today, I'm thinking about how to best maximize upon that less frenetic tone of summer, and just how to take advantage of the roughly six weeks my calendar holds before things begin to get crazy again in late August. I have a few options:

1. Continue the way things have been going. Work enough to get by, but preserve the bulk of my time for family and fun.
2. Take advantage of the quieter pace to get organized and get ahead. Plan now for those crazy Fall months I know lie ahead of me. Get my office organized, get ahead on some financial records that need straightening, and stockpile some projects up front so that my pace will be more bearable in September.