Making a Freelance Schedule Work For YOU

Walking Away from Burnout

Last week, I shared with you how I got to the point where making the simplest of decisions was a lot of work.  I was terribly distracted and needed perfect conditions to do easy tasks. 

I had to stop, REST, then back up and take a look at how I got there.

Several months ago, I created this awesome detailed schedule.  I was going to be organized and knock this thing out of the park!

I got caught up in new things not on the schedule.  Other things dropped off.  I didn’t adjust my schedule.  I just kept plugging along.  Adding in this and that along the way. 

To be fair, birthing a freelance business involves many details.  So I justified everything I wanted to add in.  After all, I need this running already!

Before I knew it, I was overloaded trying to hold up to some ideal schedule that wasn’t even working for me.  I disregarded the start/stop times because I usually found myself not finished with tasks.

That, my friend, is the perfect recipe for burnout.  Too many irons in the fire and ignoring time-frames that safeguard peace and sanity – and relationships.

I’m realizing that a schedule isn’t just about time management.  It’s about realism staring you in the face.  It’s understanding that just because you can fit something in doesn’t mean that you should.  You may be stealing quality from something else.  You may be stressing yourself out and stealing your happy self from your loved ones.  Like I was.

This week I wanted to share a post Sheila Wray Gregoire wrote in 2013 that reminded me the value of re-evaluating the schedule.  Let me know what you think!

My Daily Schedule for Blogging, Marketing, and Speaking 

Overwhelm Shutdown

Things to Look at to Bounce Back

“How long will that video last?”  I asked my husband.

The question was innocent enough, but the tension in my voice suggested otherwise.

Have you ever felt like a computer … and you’re running at the maximum RAM capacity?  Like one thing more and your screen shows that little busy symbol going in circles?

That was me going into last weekend.  One thing more and I couldn’t think. 

If my husband made a short comment to my son, it totally scrambled my brain for a bit.  A video?  Forget it!

You see, there were signs.  I ignored them for too long. Are you experiencing any of these?

•             Can’t think
•             Don’t “have time” to take care of yourself
•             Tremendous pressure to make it all happen
•             Persistent nagging headache
•             Stomach seems increasingly picky
•             Distracted
•             Exhausted
•             Lack of creativity
•             Fill in your own unique symptoms of stress

 Overwhelm Hurts

It feels like the proverbial catch-22.  No time to relax and let go.  The wolf is at the door.  Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

Maybe if I start earlier.  Work later.  Problem is, burning the candle at both ends only uses up the candle faster.

I realized I needed to stop.  I saw my opportunities to put in extra time go up in smoke because I just didn’t have the focus to work.

Here’s what I needed to do:

•             Write down all of the things I felt like I needed to do
•             Sit down, away from your work, and rest. 
•               Remember the big picture.  Praying helps.
•             Evaluate what items actually must be done now.
•             Let all those items go that aren’t honestly musts.
•             Make time for activities that replenish me.

The trick here is to actively avoid thinking about the non-critical items. The unnecessary pressure needs to let up.

I found doing a task and taking a short break helped me cope.  It gave me space to transition between tasks.

I needed to carefully review my self-care:

•             Having my daily time with God?
•             Taking my supplements?
•             Eating enough fruits and vegetables?
•             Exercising 20-30 minutes 6 days a week?
•             Taking regular breaks?
•             Sleeping 8 hours a night?
•             Drinking my water?
•             Mentally celebrating my small wins?
•             Doing simple refreshing things like a bubble bath?
•             Using a schedule for time management?

I was falling short on all of it.  Yet these are the most crucial things to staying on top of my game.  Without them, I lose sight of the big picture.  I lose my creativity, my peace of mind.  

At first, I was thinking that focusing on the business was the big picture.  But it’s not.  Not for me.  Being in the Word regularly, engaging in relationship with God and asking Him for direction first is the biggest picture of all.  

From there, go back to scheduling self-care. 

THEN I can get back to doing my freelance business – big picture style.

Weekly Challenge

I finally got my logo done.  Now we’re working on the web banner, favicon, and all that.

This is Week 1 of the 12 week program.  I spoke to my accountability partner for the first time yesterday evening.  We are supposed to email our daily six. 

Monday through Saturday, we are to make a list of six action items that move our businesses forward.  For example, I have a research project.  I’m breaking that down into action items and plugging away at six of them today.

I got so little of the email challenge done as to have done nothing toward it.  That adds stress whichever way I go with it.  However, it doesn’t rank high enough to stress myself about whether or not I’m getting to it.

My focus will be on finishing up the research project I’m doing and decide on a specific marketing method to stick to.

What are you doing to move your business forward this week?

A Little Inspiration to Tame the Savage Email Beast

Email Fatigue Is Real, But You Can Stop the Pain!

Counting the Cost

 

Have you missed important emails like I have?  

Freelance businesses or anyone working from home already has to battle the temptation to “stay at work” just a little longer.

But email strikes everyone.  And it has a special little curse.   We can check it anytime, often without disturbing anyone else.   In the car, standing in line, laying bed, even in the bathroom for crying out loud!  We sneak a peek everywhere because ... we don’t want to miss something important.

It happens anyway.

The worst part: we signed up for it!

• Professional growth blogs to help us up our game
• Free e-courses to optimize our game
• Quick, easy, healthy recipes to save our dinner-making sanity
• Inspirational quotes to keep us going when we want to give up
• Individual lists for market study to stay on top of our game
• Travel offers for business trips and that escape to a small island nation with no internet
• E-bills/E-banking to help us stay on top of our finances.

The list of possibilities are endless.   All good things.  

That doesn’t even include your other email which is just for fun, spiritual growth, hobbies, bills, notes from friends and family …

It’s easy to get 50 or 100+ emails a day that aren’t directly related to work.  Worse, it’s easy to get sucked in by great-looking free offers enticing us to sign up for more.

It’s time to get that monster vanquished and I’m determined.  Want to join me in reclaiming your inbox sanity?  Read on!

Unsubscribe, Unsubscribe, Unsubscribe

Streamline for better time management.  Less inbox distractions means less things to intend to get done. Merely deleting (or worse, ignoring) the stuff you aren’t reading is only creating pain for you tomorrow, or the next time they send you something. 

If you aren’t going to read it, you aren’t getting any benefit from having emails sent to you, right?  Let go of guilt and shame about what you “should” read.  Be realistic about your time, those things that move your business forward, and cut the cord! 

If it helps you feel any better, create a bookmark to their website, in case you find some spare time and want to re-subscribe.  (Decluttering bookmarks will be another project for another time!)

Subscribe Wisely

I have developed a new policy.  When I subscribe to something, I will give it 2-4 weeks max to evaluate.  I will access the return on time investment. 

Inbox offenders who send multiple emails a day don’t take me as long to remove, unless I want it for market study.  If they are sending a great email once a week, it may take a month for me to decide if it’s something I want to read regularly.   

If the majority are saved to “get back to later” it’s a candidate for elimination.  If I’m really unsure, I’ll give it another week or two.

It always comes back to priorities.  There isn’t enough time to read all of the great stuff out there.  No shame in realizing it’s time to let go.  (I'm trying to build up my courage to do this - can you tell?)

Make Use of Technology Helpers

If you Google inbox helpers, you’ll find a slew of options like Unroll.me, Boxer, ProtonMail … etc available to help you manage your email.  Quite a few people swear by them. 

For me, it’s just one more technology thingie to figure out.  It’s more potential to get a setting wrong … and wasting time tracking down which setting is creating the problem.  That annoys me enough to avoid it until someone proves fantastic value to overcome potentially wasted time.

I prefer to make use of filters to sort some of my email ahead of time.  You can also just make folders and manually move each email as it comes in so that you see it as it comes.  

Inbox Zero does that.  I tried to open the site today, but couldn’t.  Lots of other articles are available if you are interested in that system. 

I have set up an entirely different email for my market studies so that I’m not sidetracked until I’m ready to engage with them.   I don’t want to see folders with 163 emails in them.  Too much pressure.  We’ll see how I like doing it this way.

Develop Folders To Suit Your Style

I made one for actionables … one for emails I must deal with and empty often.  Putting it there meant out of sight for an uncluttered inbox, but readily accessible for action time.  It's a favorite for bills or reminders to renew my car registration.

Another folder is for billing reference.  I have this silly thing about holding my payment receipt until the next billing cycle.  Makes me feel invincible in case someone says they didn’t receive my payment.

When I have a project I’m working on, I put “1” before the name so the folder sits on top.  It’s more convenient for me to engage with it several times a day.  Others might find that obnoxious … your mileage may vary.

The Great Purge

I have folders from when I tried to create a system before.  Full of good things.  Several hundred good things.  In 54 folders.  I’m slowly coming to accept that I must let go.  If I haven’t read them by now, what makes me think I’m likely to do so in the future?  It’s time to purge these, too.   

To borrow a Flylady-ism, organized clutter is still clutter.  Yet, some of that is archived stuff  I refer to and I appreciate the organization.

You know by now I wrote this to myself to bolster my courage to tackle this beast of 1000's of emails.  Good stuff mixed with stuff I'll never miss.  But I will do this.  Do you need to join me?  Post below and we'll hold each other accountable!

Once I have done all of the unsubscribing I need to do, and I shift things to their new folders, I won’t miss any more email – unless of course my email provider is slow to get it to me. 

A big part of my motivation is some email trouble.  Some of yesterday’s email quietly sneaks into my inbox 24-36 hours later and sits down with yesterday’s emails as if it arrived yesterday, too.  I already looked at yesterday’s email, so I only look at the most recent arrivals.  If my inbox is empty, I won’t miss them anymore.  Take that, slow email provider!

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Weekly Challenge

Last week has been about bits and pieces.  Preparation details.  My logo is still in process due to delays on my end, then on his end.  This morning I received word that the revisions should be received today.  It’s after 6 and I haven’t seen anything yet.  May just be a slow email thing and I’ll have a notification in the morning.  Fingers crossed!

I’m still working on assigned reading.  Apparently this week is the foundations week, an introduction to the system.  The 12 weeks starts next week.

Depending on how much spare time I have, I want to see my main inbox reduced by 1000 emails.  I will make myself subscribe from 10 lists.  That’s going to hurt, because I like them … but I’m not reading them.  I will also change emails for the marketing study lists that are still in my regular mail.