I have been tremendously productive this week, and I believe it is all due to the new schedule I have set myself. In the past, I have created schedules but found them difficult to follow. When I began working at home, I was all about the idea of working whenever I want. While some people can do that, most freelance writers do need to set a schedule, no matter how loosely followed it is. I have discovered that setting up something that I am able to tweak depending on the day is more beneficial that creating a strict routine that I feel I cannot work around.
So, this week, my schedule has been as follows:
7:00-8:00am – Get up, eat breakfast, chat with my husband before he leaves for work, and check my email and forums.
8:00am – Begin writing.
11:00am – Break from writing to shower, have lunch, any errands or housework, and some leisure time for forums and other sites.
1:00pm – Resume work .
4:00pm – Finished with work for the day.
I have found that this gives me plenty of time to reach my daily goals of how much work I want to complete, and also allows time to chill in the middle. I can suffer from writer burnout fairly easily if I try to write for more than 3 hours straight, so breaking up the day makes it much easier for me. Plus, I allow time for any non-work activities that need to be done for the day.
I don’t feel bad about tweaking this schedule, but I hope to follow it on most days. Tomorrow, for example, will be slightly different because I have a doctor’s appointment at 9. I plan to only work in the afternoon hours. However, a couple days this week, I started back writing before 1pm and was able to write over the goals for the day. I have already met my goals for the week, so tomorrow will be an easy day anyways.
Do you follow a working schedule? If so, what does your schedule look like?
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Kecia, I know scheduling yourself can be really hard! I’m finally getting my schedule set too.