Why don’t I have time?
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010I’ve recently starting working for myself. I absolutely love it– I love the projects, I love the work environment (right now I’m in my bed, with my cup of tea), the commute is tolerable (at some point I’ll have to migrate over to my desk) and I absolutely love having control over things.
But I thought I would have more time.
More time to set up my own projects, more time to spend blogging, more time to socialize, more time to learn and more time to work on my hobbies.
Except I don’t.
I don’t think I’ve ever worked such long hours. All my own projects, my pro-bono work, and even just keeping blogging (weekly blogging here sure hasn’t consistently happened) have taken the backseat. I love my clients, and I’m keeping them on good timelines, but I say I’ll have them something in a week, and I blink, and a week has gone by. Of course we all know that everything in web design takes longer than we expect, and I’m getting better at estimating and managing this, but it’s still a big thing. I must be doing something wrong, right?
This is a public display
I’ve put off the following things too long. I’ve been reading a psychology book that says people that go on weightloss programs on tv lose more weight because they are held accountable by more people. This study said that this works for lots of other things too: Tell lots of people what you’re planning on doing and you’re more likely to complete them, out of sheer will not to have to try and explain later. So here it is: a list of things I don’t get paid for, that I need to finish this month.
-A Smashing Magazine article that I researched in late January
-A pro-bono website for a non-profit learning program for kids that I started in January
-My own professional face, for more serious clients that I’ve been talking about making for months
-Design for an iphone game that my friend has developed that I’ve been toying with for months
Now, hopefully, out of sheer embarrassment, these four things will get done. Now remind me not to take on any more client work… I need to have fun one of these days too!
P.S. If you want me to berate you for anything, leave it in the comments, and I will make your life a living hell on march 30th!
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What planet do you inhabit, my lovely?! Working for yourself equates to longer hours and less time for other priorities. Thought this was common knowledge. Rough with the smooth!
Have you ever tried a productivity system? We use parts of the GTD (Getting Things Done) approach, which aims to increase productivity and reduce stress. Is all about lists and prioritising. There are gmail plugins you can use to help with it. Might not work for you, but there are lots of potential methodologies you could investigate.
Good luck with your challenge! I can’t wait to berate you x
“the commute is tolerable (at some point I’ll have to migrate over to my desk)”..that made me laugh..poor you!
You need a super playlist! Like ‘Eye of the tiger’ on repeat or something..(ok maybe not that song but you know what I mean).
I guess the whole planning thing is something you’ll learn along the way – you’ll find your balance
Maybe it’s one of those things where you put a lot of energy into lift off.
Anyhow go kick some project ass xx
Thanks guys!
I am definitely getting a lot done, so I’m not worried about THAT. For productivity, I’ve been using a combination of “The Hit List” and my apple calendar (I was only using the hit list before, but I was very occasionally missing overall deadlines and found it hard to track meetings, so I’m tracking deadlines for big items on the calendar now). Hopefully I can get onto these non-paid stuff and get some new dresses made!
The freedom of freelancing has too sides and it can it you alive
the biggest challenge I found when I started freelancing was not to take too many projects up (learn to say no). You can still deliver but there’s no time for friends or sleep or you just fail to deliver because you won’t be able to juggle things.
If you get the right balance between work and fun, you’ll never want to go back to 9-5 job.
BTW if you don’t know it, check out http://freelanceswitch.com/, their Freelance Freedom comic rocks and sometimes they post useful freelance advice.
Welcome to my world! Kat, I’ve been working for myself for 2.5 years now and I’m still finding myself standing at the end of the week, wide eyes, wondering how I fitted living in around all that work! So I can’t tell you it gets any easier.
What I struggle with is knowing when to stop. When I worked for someone else I never worked past 6pm and now I don’t even notice that time arrive (except on yoga days when I’m gone by then). What I’m trying to remind myself is that I’m still working for someone else the client – and I’m sure they want me to have a life as much as my boss did (and I do!).
Now I should be telling you that time tracking helps. And it would, if I wasn’t being too hard on myself. Because I track ALL my time, even if I haven’t done any client billable hours (happens some days) I can still see if I’ve been productive (i.e. not on Twitter and reading blogs all day) so I should be able to clock off after a good 7/8 hours without guilt. But do I? No, I still think ‘oh but if I could just do a couple billable hours on top of all that’. Crazy. This has got to stop. Let it be a lesson to us both!