Insanely busy freelancer needs time management help.

[phantasmagoria]

I've had a kind of pootling along freelance career for the past few years but it has suddenly gone MENTAL and I don't really have adequate childcare and my dh is just moving out.........
I need to become some kind of robot or uber person. I am very good at wasting time when I work at home.
PLEASE can I have your time management tips, efficiency tips, or even blow by blow, minute by minute timetables of how to manage.
Working in the evening is not really an option,my dcs don't get to bed till after nine and if I try and work then I can't get to sleep till about 4, and I still have domestic stuff to do then.
Cheears.

WHat I want, really, is, a pep talk on HOW TO BE A MORE GROWN UP AND MORE EFFICIENT AND GENERALLY BETTER PERSON, please.

What are you doing to make you such a successful freelancer, ehhh?? (jealous)

Are you trying to work and look after DC? And you're working till 4AM and then doing domestic stuff? Wow.

What about sharing childcare with friends in a similar situation?

Wow, you sound like a challenge.

Just how bad is it, your problem? What makes you waste time during the day?

There is no magic formula. You just have to cope... I've been freelancing since my DS1 was 1 year old and now he's nearly 5 and DS2 is 2 1/2. Work does tend to fluctuate and during the manic times I've just had to cope: I did have a childminder for DS2 before we moved house while DS1 went to preschool so I got three solid mornings work a week. She cost me £3.50 per hour and since I was earning £15-20 per hour it was worth it and DS2 loved going to her house (she didn't sit in front of a laptop all the time like boring mummy!). Would a child minder be a viable option for you?

I've trotted it out many a time. use your oven timer. if ( as I suspect form your post) your problem is popping on to mn, the news, doing domestic things when you should be working then the over timer's for you. set it for 50 minutes. WORK for 50 minutes. when it goes off you have to get up to turn it off (this is why you use your oven timer and not the clock on your computer). you stretch your legs, possibly make a cup of tea or put one load of washing on. then you set it again. oven timers are great for self discipline.

i think you need to get some proper childcare to help in some way - if you try to do too much you will end up frazzled and run down and probably wont do anything very well

dont try and work in the evenings - you will get too tired to do it properly

other stuff - food ordering online, have a cleaner once a fortnight if poss. get some decent lunches in so you eat properly rather than wander around snacking

cut back on the mumsnet!!

Could you get an au pair? To deal with the domestic side of things and a bit of ad-hoc childcare

Childcare, sweetie. Lots of childcare. Set days in which you work, with childcare.

It's a job, and you need to think of it as such. Not as 'coping', but as work.

You need adequate childcare, simple as that I'm afraid.

Plus oven timer tip sounds good!

can I wave to MI - haven't seen you around for eons. hope you at everyone at the IC are well

I agree re childcare but am guilty of trying to manage without myself. if I weren't moving in 2 months though I would be sorting some out, but at the moment am muddling through til we move.

Yes, but yours are school age, which shifts everything. With preschoolers especially, you need to have time which is work time.

And not housework etc time. I'll put on a load of laundry, but that's it.

(obviously this doesn't obviate MN/watching backclips of Strictly/emailing mates...)

(Hat, drop me an email!)

Oh, sorry, I should have said, they are AT SCHOOL!And I HAVE a cleaner, and I do order food online.

And 9-3 is not enough atm, so I have childcare till 7 two days a week. I know that sounds like a lot of time for working, but with meetings and all that, and what I have to do, it isn't.

I've had a crazy year, with lots of periods of not working - sick kids, marriage collapse, minor nervous breakdown, etc etc - and I think I've got out of the habit. Today I went to the LIBRARY (imagine!) and to my great surprise, found myself about 3x as efficient as when I am at home.

I think when I AM at home I will adopt the oven timer tactic. I like it, a lot.

I like this section of Mumsnet. There are quite a lot of us aren't there. HELLO, to all of youse.

ooh, what kind of freelancing do you do Phanta?

Lists.

Make a list at the beginning of each week of everything that you have to do on each project that you're working on (assuming there are separate things). Have a separate list per project. Have a list of personal things and another list for home/family things.

You can buy post-it pads which are pre-printed lists. I use these and stick them all on my wall, underneath the print outs of my calendar.

Then everyday take a couple of minutes to decide which of the things on your lists you are going to do that day, and when you're going to do them.

Making a list isn't enough - you also have to allocate a specific time to complete each task.

Be brutal about taking the time to plan but also the time to do your work. But build in time for breaks. I allow myself 10 minutes on MN after I've completed every task, or every hour.

post it things to do lists

Sounds like a case of really bad timing. What a horrendous year this must have been for you. You probably aren't in the right mindset at all for this sudden career success. Nevertheless, here it is. And you need to try to embrace it and make it work. This will only happen if the workload IS physically doable. It might be that the frame of mind you are in has blurred your ability to know when enough is enough. In my opninion you need to ask yourself two questions:

1. Have I taken on way too much?

If the answer is yes, then you need to do something about it. If the answer is no, you can manage the workload without becoming a freakazoid then ask yourslf this.

2. Do I need to work until 5/6/7 on a further day/2 days a week.

If that is the case you should find more childcare. MI and Flowery are right. Much better to have childcare than try and juggle kids and calls/screen work when you are becoming a single parent.

I worked very, very hard every day from March until August this year and I too find that if I work after 9 I CANNOT get enough sleep. You must definitely ban that. You need to protect your sleep.

How long is this project(s)?

Sounds also like you might want to spend a bit more time in the library!

Also, figure out what you're good at when. eg, I know I'm best at getting the 50 quick emails out of the way done at the end of the day, when my brain is a bit frazzled so can't concentrate on anything more complex. So I consciously keep those emails until the end of the day - which is hard because it's instinctive to respond to them immediately but defeats the purpose as then they distract me when I should be working on other things.

Also, at the end of the working day, take a few minutes to think about what you're going to do tomorrow, tidy up and get ready. So that when you arrive in the morning and are a bit scattered, you can sit, look at your list and get started.

So agree with Blinglovin's second point and wish I had the discipline for the first.

another thing is to do some realistic calculations and set interim deadlines. Not sure what kind of work you do but if, for example, the only external deadline you have is to sumbit a report by the end of November then it's hugely helpful to look at your calendar, count up your available working days, and work out that by the end of week 1 you need to have written chapter 1, end of week 2 you need to have done xxx etc. Personally I find writing what I'll be working on each day onto my calendar really helpful. The main point is to scare you into getting your arse in gear! IME any deadline that is more than 2 weeks away is just useless as a motivational target - even if (or, actually, especially if) the task is huge (says she with an end of Nov deadline and, as yet, no broken down timetable...must take own advice)

YES.. I LOVE ALL OF THESE THANK YOU. Too many good ones to pick out. What do you all do? I know MI is a fragrant journalista.

Am scriptwriter - for theatre before you get excited - I don't know Daniel Craig or owt like that - so I have historically been shite at dividing up tasks into smaller units. It's just been "write script 1" "write script 2" "write script 3" etc. But I NOW, in a golden eureka moment, realise that in order to survive I MUST do this. And also incorporate lists. I used to be ruthlessly disciplined and organised, and at th emoment I am a bit like that Cornelia Parker shed. But every day in every way etc.
FI, this is the first time I've been on MN today. Hurrah.

'Tis a good shed though.

Welcome to Mumsnet!

scriptwriter sounds good. even if you don't know Daniel Craig. In fact theatre sounds better - I envisage a world full of very exciting creative types who work til mid-night, then go out to theatre-y bars, and get up at midday. please don't shatter my illusions .

I do human rights stuff. policy and legal advice, and research. we're not very creative but very serious and dreadfully worthy . only went freelance 5 months ago - but took a sabbatical a couple of years ago to study, which required similar self-discipline etc. that was when I invented the oven thing.

Sounds about right hatwoman, in that I am permanently sleep deprived, in that Edna ST Vincent Millay(sic) way.

Ah, hats, my bezza is one of you - a permanently furrowed , very earnest, totally brilliant, scabrously funny human rights bird. I saloot you for your righteousness.

Toots, my darlin, I have been on MN for fecking YEARS, sporadically. But I have just changed my name and after a MN desert - for reasons see previous posting but one - have just hopped on again. But hello to you too..... What do you do.

Could you go to the library every day during school hours? It's pretty hard to timewaste in a library; libraries were the only place I could ever pull an essay together. You could give yourself a proper lunch break in a cafe and everything
to give your working day structure

"FI, this is the first time I've been on MN today"...Thought you meant ever. I'm a script writer too. Animation, radio, tv, mostly animation at the moment though.