Every now and then Jane and I are asked about our daily life living off the grid.
We do write more information that is only available to our newsletter subscribers. You are subscribed to the Off Grid Newsletter right? Top Right corner of this page.
For those of you who are curious about our daily lives here goes...
Les is a very early riser, oftentimes getting up at 4 AM, but usually around 5 most days. Being up early is not really necessary for off grid living, but he does his best work, and best thinking early in the day.
One of the first things done is to check on the renewable energy system, how are the batteries? Is everything working fine? Is the wind generator still up and going?
Les likes to walk around and do a physical check of the house and the solar and wind equipment first thing. If something needs to be fixed or there's a problem, it is much easier to make daily plans this way.
It doesn't happen very often, but it is nice to know it when it does, about every 3 months we have to fix a minor item in the equipment.
Living off the grid is not really a technical life as some make it out to be. Once your system is set it will run quite nicely with only minor maintenance.
On a daily basis just a simple check is all we need to do most days.
Jane is up around 6 AM each day (so many years on a farm has her conditioned to get up early). She takes a while to get going, but most days her switch is set to 'clean' as soon as she rises.
After a light breakfast we like to work outdoors until noon.
In the summer there is the garden and building projects like our new work shop this year and various other small projects. During other times of the year there is firewood, lumber cutting and various other work to be done around our homestead.
We always have a master list of projects and each week of work is planned so we can get the most out of our time.
Each afternoon is spent in our office working online answering correspondence and writing about off grid living.
We enjoy breaking up our day this way, much like how Helen and Scott Nearing taught us so many years ago.
And over the years we have found it best to do the hard physical work in the morning too. It is much more difficult to go out in the afternoon and try and be motivated to get at it when some task is waiting for you.
The psychological advantage to us is immense to work the other way round.
Some of you may work differently, but Jane and I find that earning our sit down time is well worth it and leads to a better frame of mind too.
There are days when we change our schedule too.
It is a tremendous advantage for our family to have us working at home, with our life really being our living as well.
Visitors marvel that we spend so much time at our gardens and various building projects, sometimes entire blocks of several weeks.
But it works best for us. If you want to get things done, have a good plan and know what you want, then following a good schedule will help you achieve your goals.
If your goal is to begin living off the grid, then start out with a good plan.
