It’s been pretty interesting setting up a new schedule as a freelancer. I once set up a meeting with a friend, and I asked him what day works best for him. I said, “I assume that Monday is out, since it’s a holiday.” He answered, “Holidays mean something different to a freelancer. I’m free that day, so let’s meet.”
I didn’t understand what he meant at the time, but now I do. As a freelancer, projects come in waves. There will be days that I’m deep in the middle of multiple projects, each with different deadlines, and there are days where I don’t have any projects in or due, so chunks of my time are free.
I’m also learning that a lot of my time outside of what I used to think of as “work” is time I actually spend working. Promoting myself on social media, researching contacts, networking, creating content, deepening my skill sets, organizing invoices, and so many other things, these are all done during my “free” time. So, that means that my workdays and non-workdays feel less structured than they used to when I worked a corporate 9-to-5, and they don’t always align with week and weekend days.
When I have a project with a deadline in (or am working on multiple projects), this is how I will typically structure my day:
Wake up and have breakfast. This time is pretty flexible for me. Sometimes it’s 7am. Sometimes it’s 8.
Before 830 am. Check and respond to emails. Check socials, like LinkedIn and Medium.
8:30 am to 11:00 am. Uninterrupted copyediting, writing, or proofreading.
11:00 am to 11:30 am. Walk and then a quick lunch. I will sometimes eat lunch while I’m working, which I know I shouldn’t do, but some days, it just works out that way.
11:30 am to 2:00 pm. Uninterrupted copyediting, writing, or proofreading.
2:00 pm to 2:30 pm. Quick break and email check. I may fit in another walk or a quick bout of yoga here.
2:30 pm to 5:00 pm. Uninterrupted copyediting, writing, or proofreading.
5:00 pm to 530 pm. Prospecting and email check. Prospecting includes building out my contact list, contacting folks, and setting up meetings as needed.
6:00 pm to 7:00 pm, Dinner with the family.
7:00 pm to 7:30 pm. Art. This time is flexible. Sometimes, I get 5 minutes in. Sometimes, I get an hour.
7:30 pm to 8:00 pm. Daily blog post. This melds in with the art. Some posts don’t take long, others can be a slog.
8:00 pm. Free time! I’ll watch movies with my family, work on my short story writing, work on a video game review, or read books for pleasure but also for professional development.
11:30 pm to 12:30 am. Sleep. I know this is far from the 8 hours of recommended sleep depending on when I wake up. But a long time ago, I feared I was suffering from insomnia. I would try to go to bed at 10:00 pm, and I would toss and turn and stress about not being able to sleep. Then, I decided to just wait until my body naturally got tired. And this seems to be the sweet spot.
Now, this is an ideal day, and sometimes I’ll have meetings, or doctor’s appointments, or school functions for my daughter that will interrupt that schedule. It’s generally pretty flexible, and I may work later than 5 or earlier than 830am.
On the days where I’m not working on a deadline project, the uninterrupted work time will be taken up by writing or fun activities like going to a museum or to the park.
Those two-and-a-half-hour uninterrupted work blocks are a luxury that I never really had as a manager in the corporate world. It is amazing how much I can accomplish with that uninterrupted time. It allows me to get to a flow state and to power through my projects. It’s one of the major reasons that I’ve really been drawn to working freelance.
How do you set up your workdays?
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