Making the Most of My Time (Most of the Time)

October 9, 2020 ~ iambeastwood ~ 2 Comments

During a recent conversation with a connection on Twitter about time management, I received an interesting reply: “I wish more freelancers would talk about this!”

After exchange messages with this person, I realized that others might find a shred of value in hearing my approach. Here are my thoughts on how to manage my time as a full-time freelancer (which I have been doing for about six months now), coupled with how I also made things work as a part-time freelancer (which I did from mid-2015 until roughly the end of 2018).

*** CAVEATS: I’m married, in a household with no children and two wage earners, and I’m covered by my wife’s health insurance. This grants me substantial privilege in developing my schedule and taking on work, which I recognize many of you may not have. I have done my best to present this advice while being sensitive to challenges that you may face but I do not. ***

Break the day into chunks. When I have several projects on my plate at a time, I try to organize my day into 90- to 120-minute blocks. That way I’m able to focus on 3-6 different tasks in a given day. If all goes well, it means I don’t have to scramble and spend several hours on a piece the day that it’s due. (Yes, I was in fact That Kid in school.)

Depending on the time of day or the status of a project, the work done in this block could be outreach to potential sources, secondary research, writing, or a final edit. Sometimes I set aside a block of time for general administrative what-have-you, which can include outreach as well as invoicing, doing my taxes, trying to fix my printer, and so on.

Write when the brain is ready. I’m a much more productive writer in the afternoon and early evening, especially for anything that’s rather technical or research-driven. Other freelancers prefer to do their writing in the morning, to get it out of the way, or as they sit down to have lunch. If you’re able, I suggest trying to write when your mind and body are most up to the task.

Do the easy stuff first. Since I don’t tend to do my best writing first thing in the morning, I focus on other tasks if at all possible. Sometimes it’s reading and research. Sometimes it’s interviews and meetings. Sometimes it actually is writing, but it’s not stuff that requires a lot of deep analytical thought.

For example, one recent project involved writing profiles. The vast majority of the work involved straightforward secondary research and plugging sentences into a pre-formatted template. This was a great task to do for 90 minutes while I sipped my morning coffee and got my brain working.

Take a break when focus fades. Between 2 and 3 p.m. every day, I start to lose focus, no matter what I’m working on. In a 9-to-5 desk job, there’s a temptation to try to power through – but in making my own schedule, I use this time to step away from my desk from a bit.

If you find yourself losing focus around the same time every day, and you have flexibility in your schedule, try to do something else. In my case, I usually go running in the middle of the afternoon, or if it’s an off day I may get a head start on dinner. The key, I find, is to do something you like to do, as opposed to something you have to do, like laundry or dishes. Yes, it’s nice to get those chores done, but if your intention is to take a break, and you just replace one work-like task for another, then it’s not really a break.

Set concrete boundaries. For me, this is less about when the work day begins, pauses, and ends. It’s more about when or whether to extend the work day or week. In past lives, I’ve gone to grad school and written a thesis at night, and I’ve worked a second job with morning, night, or weekend shifts. From my late teens into my mid-30s, the beginning and the end of the work day / week was always a bit blurry.

Now that I’m able to work only one “job,” I value my nights and weekends. If I have to do work outside the bounds of the typical work day, these are my preferences (in order):

Get up early and start before breakfast. Might as well get it over with, right?
Work past 5, but stop for dinner. That way, there’s a clear end to the day.
Work until 5, stop for dinner, and then resume after dinner. This is if I know that the project I need to finish will take a couple hours.
Work on the weekend. I only do this for a couple hours at a time, for a single project, and as a way to get ahead. If I need to catch up, I save it for Monday.

Note: I have done this maybe 5 times in the last 6 months. This is by no means a habit, nor am I suggesting that you make it one. Instead, I’m suggesting that it’s worth thinking about how you’d prefer to tweak your schedule when you have more work to do. That way, when it does happen, you can anticipate the impact to your schedule, plan accordingly, and avoid preventable stress.

Build time for prospecting. It can be hard to do what amounts to unpaid work, but it’s important to build time into your routine for actively looking for new work. Even if things are going well, you should at the very least be making a list of the publications, institutions, or clients for whom you’d like to work. I keep a running list, and when I have free time that isn’t on a Friday afternoon I’ll send some inquiries or follow-ups.

For some people, this is a process that happens organically; the list grows as they read the news or social media and find something of interest and plunk it in a working document. Other people may prefer to devote a couple hours at a time to doing the research and finding contacts, so it’s a more formal part of the work schedule. Whatever you prefer, just make sure you keep it up.

Naturally, these are general rules of thumb and aren’t written in stone. Right now, for example, it’s closing in on 3 p.m. and I’m writing instead of running. Lately I’ve also been more likely to work past 5 p.m. than before 9 a.m. — in large part to mirror my wife’s schedule, which is much less flexible. And at the end of this week the “chunks” of the day were more like 3-4 hours instead of 90 minutes.

That said, I’ve found that having some general guidelines for when and how I work has made it easier to maintain my focus when I have a lot to do. This ensures that I’m organized instead of overwhelmed, and it leaves me time to do the things outside of work that need to be done – whether it’s running, folding laundry, or spending quality time with my wife. If you haven’t yet created some guidelines for how to manage your time as a freelancer, I encourage you to do so.

Finding New Routines in a New World

May 7, 2020May 6, 2020 ~ iambeastwood ~ Leave a comment

One of the strangest parts of the last couple months has been trying to figure out a new routine. (I almost said “hardest” instead of “strangest,” but in the grand scheme of things, many people have had a much harder time over the last month.)

I’ve never really had a set routine in my professional career.

February 2003 to April 2005: Newspaper reporter. My schedule was at the mercy of, um, the news. (Mostly long School Committee meetings.) I filed all my stories from the office, usually while eating a meal I’d delayed.

April 2005 to June 2019: Technology journalist, research analyst, and content person at a PR agency. At several roles and for several companies, my schedule was fairly flexible, with the option to work from a couple days a week. Some companies wanted this firmly scheduled; others just wanted an email or other notification that morning. In one role, I was a remote worker with a set start time to my day. Dress code was mostly business casual, but there was no fashion police. My routine was that I didn’t really have a routine, and it worked fairly well.

June 2019 to mid-March 2020: Conference producer. This role, for reasons I don’t fully understand, required me to go into the office every workday, with set hours every day pr my contract as well. I also needed to wear dress pants and button-down shirts, except for casual Fridays. I initially welcomed this, as it brought some structure to my work schedule, but it wore out its welcome.

Mid-March to early April: Suddenly a full-time remote conference producer. Glad I remembered to bring home my mouse and laptop charger. Regret leaving behind the mouse pad with the wrist guard. Miss my second display. No longer wearing dress pants or button-down shirts. Work day bookended with meetings.

Early April to present: Feeling like a lost child wandering through an unfamiliar department store. Up and working at 7 a.m. some days while staying in bed past 9 a.m. other days. Calling it quits at lunchtime some days while working well past dark other days. Wearing jeans some days and Simpsons lounge pants other days. Running before work, or after work, or during work, or maybe not at all. Eating too much some days, and not enough other days. No real meetings on the calendar.

Lest you worry: I am getting assignments, hitting deadlines, and generally feeling good, all things considered. Only once in the last month have I had cookies for lunch. I’ve been outside (either running or walking) at least six days a week since mid-March. I’m not talking to the cat any more than I usually do. (She doesn’t listen anyway.) Caffeine intake is no different than usual, and sleep schedule is (mostly) circadian.

My concern isn’t Getting Things Done or Keeping a Clear Head. Rather, it’s swinging the pendulum somewhere between a regimented schedule and a free-for-all. It’s been particularly strange due to the inability to leave the house; the temptation to take on additional work is strong because, well, what else am I going to do these days? (That said, we did order some puzzles this week.)

I want to resist that temptation. The new routine I see for myself is full-time remote work without much externally imposed structure. If I’m combining a too-big pile of cobbled-together assignments with the sudden and wonderful ability to go outside, see people, and do things, I can imagine myself in a world of hurt.

I have a few steps for myself, and I’m writing them here so that I have no choice but to commit to them.

Resubscribe to healthcare newsletters. I used to begin my day with a scan of the news – more than I cared to, really. But I did it out of necessity. Now I can be more selective in what I read, and it will be a more relaxing start to the day than whatever I am doing now.

Give myself time to write. I don’t (yet) think this will come down to, say blocking off the entire morning or afternoon. For now, it’s more about doing it in large chunks of time, as opposed to wedging it in between phone calls or waiting until the end of the day and hoping I can finish my deep thought before dinnertime.

Get that second display. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone? The improvement to my productivity will be well worth the investment. (I had no idea that external monitors were so cheap.) And while I’m at it, I just might get another nice mouse pad, too.

Stand up. Some days, once 3 p.m. rolls around, I move my laptop over to a vacant shelf on my bookcase and work while standing up. I don’t always remember. I should – it helps me focus a bit more and lets me stretch my legs.

If you have tips for developing a routine while you work from home, I’d be glad to hear them.

What I’ve Been Doing

April 8, 2020 ~ iambeastwood ~ Leave a comment

Like so many of my friends and colleagues, my full-time job was recently eliminated as a direct result of financial pressures brought on by the rapid spread of COVID-19.

This decision was neither shocking nor surprising to me. I made a conscious decision to pivot into the event industry in June 2019, to apply my content experience to producing health care conferences that convene a wide range of stakeholders to discuss challenges, opportunities, and trends. I harbor no ill will toward my former employer and wish my colleagues the best of luck in navigating such a difficult market at such a difficult time.

The last few days have been…well, they’ve been interesting. I started working in February 1997, midway through my sophomore year of high school, at the local grocery store where my mother also worked. I left in the spring of my senior year of high school, only to come back during winter break of my first year of college and then again during other breaks. (Apparently college is a little more fun when you have some spending money of your own. Who knew?) I took a work-study job on campus my sophomore year, balanced the grocery store and an internship that summer, and have basically worked at least one job ever since.

Waking up Monday morning with no job to go to felt a bit weird. I’d love to try to find a more eloquent way to describe it, but, well, it was just weird. It’s not so much that I don’t have a steady paycheck; rather, it’s that I don’t have a specific job to do.

With that in mind, I’ve managed to find a few things to do to keep myself occupied.

Learn Excel. As a writer, I typically use Excel as a way to organize data in pretty charts, not as a way to make calculations. Over the last few days, I’ve spent some time on the Microsoft Excel learning site watching tutorial videos and reading articles so I can do a lot more with spreadsheets. I still have a way to go, but at least now I can write basic formulas.

Clean the house. In the last several months, I walked past the stovetop no less than 56 times and thought, “Wow, that’s a mess. I should clean it.” This week I finally did. While it won’t help me get paid, it’s an accomplishment nonetheless. Since then I have tried to focus on one room of the house at a time. Setting small, incremental goals has always help keep me focused.

Join professional organizations. As I focus on freelance work, I’ve been looking at professional organizations that match my interests and skill sets. These include the Association of Health Care Journalists and the American Society of Business Publication Editors. (If you’re joined similar groups, I’m open to recommendations.)

Reach out to former colleagues. I have been humbled at the gracious offerings of support that I have received from former colleagues. New assignments, introductions to those who are looking for work, and even simple well wishes have helped boost my confidence amid so much uncertainty and (gestures widely). The support and outreach has also shown me that there is work out there.

Get it together, man. I work best when I am organized. The last few days have given me a change to put things in their place — new email folders, new desktop folders, new lists of opportunities, updated spreadsheets, adding deadlines to my calendar, etc. Much like cleaning the stove, it’s given me a good sense of accomplishment. It’s also helping me prepare for the work that I’m beginning to do.

Zone out. I have to admit that I’ve taken a little bit of time for myself. My guilty pleasure is Dr. Mario on the NES Classic.

The last few days have represented a “new normal” for me (and countless others, I’m sure). Keeping busy in a productive way has helped me prepare mentally for what lies ahead and take away some of the uncertainty about what’s next. If you face similar professional or personal uncertainty, I hope you’re able to do the same.