So lately I've identified a major failing in my freelance life: routine. My routine is bananas, as my brother and Gwen Stefani would say, b-a-n-a-n-a-s. Well, perhaps, to be more accurate, the truth is, I don't actually have a routine. I'm up all hours of the night working, avoiding work, watching the 2 a.m. showing of the Nanny, eating dinner because I ate breakfast at noon. Freelance work lends itself to getting the work done with an all night writing marathon and sleeping in the next afternoon, which for me, leads to five weeks of a completely backwards sleep schedule.
In the meantime, everything is suffering. My weight is up because I'm not eating properly (i.e. no breakfast, little lunch, junk for dinner and whatever I can forage at 2 a.m.). I noticed the symptom (the weight), so I hired a personal trainer. While I make my training appointments (mostly), I have yet to get to the gym one single, solitary time in between appointments to actually do the workouts she is teaching me. The symptoms are becoming overwhelming, and I'm feeling increasingly guilty for not getting my butt out of bed in the morning to work, even if I had been working late the night before.
So how do freelancers do it? Make a calendar they tell me, get a planner! Schedule in time for your lunch and leisure. Tried and failed. I think it all comes back to some advice I gave an old friend - just get out of bed early one day, and then do it every day. Eventually you'll get your schedule back on track and be full steam ahead. The truth is, it's a lot easier to do that when you actually have a "reason" for getting up. My schedule was almost normal this spring because of my art class and my teacher's iron-clad attendance policy. I still managed to screw it up with all-nighters, but it was better. Now it's completely willy-nilly.
So, I'm sure you were expecting some grand solution to the schedule problem. Well, when I figure it out, I'll be sure to share the secret! In the meantime, I've got to unlock the motivation to create a routine. The healthiest time of my life was when I worked for Proforma. I had to be at work at 8 a.m., and lateness was really not an option. So I went to bed by 11:30 p.m., dragged myself up, showered, put my menu for breakfast and lunch in a lunch bag and drove off to work. With an eight hour day, a lunch break and true motivation (not getting fired), I lost 40 pounds and got a heck of a lot of work done.
How can I recreate that routine at home? Discipline - which has never been my strong suit. I get the work done, and I get it done right, but I don't always come out of that process unscathed. So this month's task: learn how to motivate myself into a routine that accomplishes four things 1. Gets the work done on time and at a high level of quality, 2. Allows me to get proper sleep, 3. Allows me to get proper meals, 4. Allows me free time to spend with my hubby.
Are those even in the right order?
Well, I'll figure it out eventually. Feel free to leave me your tips for creating a routine at home.
I feel your pain, Julie. But this may be the best argument of all why working at home is not the optimal situation for many writers. Having a place to go to--even if it's a small corner--will solve some of these problems.
A new book by William Zinsser, "Writing Places," talks about all the places he's worked at and written from. And while he had a home office for awhile, his most productive years were working from small subcontracted office space. You might even investigate doing such a deal with a trade of services. That might just help all of these problems.
Posted by: John Ettorre | July 13, 2009 at 01:37 PM