What’s My Day Like?
April 21, 2010 by Cherie
Filed under About Cherie, Featured
Recently Eliza from Life of a Homemom interviewed me about what my day is like. It’s a question I get a lot in one form or another, and I think it’s because it might be hard to imagine what you might do in an entire day if your schedule was your own. It’s easy to picture yourself sitting in front of the boob tube or hanging out at the coffee shop, but none of the freelancers I know really do that. (Coffee shop? Sometimes. TV? Never.)
My schedule is usually different day to day, although there are some routine things about it. Before I tell you about it, I have to recommend Yaro Starak‘s post about how his days go. Yaro makes his money from the Internet, so he shares the type of schedule that other work at home folks do. (Except he’s incredibly successful and makes tens of thousands of dollar a month.) Yaro seems like a cool guy, so that’s one reason I interviewed him at Working Writers. He also makes a good living and is independent, something every writer can learn from.
Anyhow, I’m usually at my desk by 7:30 each morning. I’m not at all a morning person, so I get up about fifteen minutes before this. I can barely function in the morning, and find that searching for jobs first thing really helps center me. It’s something I used to do even before I was a full-time freelancer and even before I did a daily job listing at Working Writers. Searching for jobs (even when my schedule is full) is something that really motivates me. After I post the listings I’ll usually check email, Facebook, Twitter, and then log off and either shower or work out, depending on how my schedule is.
I always work on client projects next before my personal stuff. I take a look at deadlines, do what I need to, and by then it’s usually lunch time. I tend to eat at my desk. I always did this, even when I worked at a “real” place. During lunch I may continue writing, check the online news outlets, scan my stats from the day before, or play online Scrabble. I’m a huge Scrabble freak, and I will kick your butt if we ever play. Trust me on this!
After lunch I do some more client work, make some calls to prospect for work (which I absolutely despise), send out letters of introduction, or work on my own projects. My own stuff includes my personal blogs, books I may be writing, marketing my work, or looking for new ways to monetize my blogs. I also take a break and let my dog out, play with her, run to the post office, or do errands. When that’s done, I do some more work on my blogs or client projects.
After that I take a break and make dinner. We eat, clean up, and depending on how my day has gone, I may wrap it up for the day or continue working. Most weeknights you’ll find me plunking around on the laptop at night while I watch TV. Sometimes I do crafts at night.
This is my weekday schedule, and you may have noticed that there is an incredible amount of flexibility. That means my day is usually very different during the week. I have the flexibility to do lunch with a friend or pop in and work at a coffee shop sometimes, but it usually needs to be planned out. I rarely just take off and goof off without prior planning. I probably should, but I don’t. I also end up working a bit on weekends.
The other thing is, when I do client work, sometimes I still have flexibility, but I schedule time to do it because if I don’t I just will never get it done. I have a couple places I write for where my schedule is my own, and that’s good because I can fit in projects when I don’t have other deadlines. But if I don’t? I end up doing things at the last minute even though the requirements are flexible.
Now you know what it’s like to have a freelance writing schedule! (Sort of.) Does anything about this schedule surprise you?
