Being able to work from home is great. After 14 years of corporate drudgery, it’s a relief to not have to doll-up every morning, drive down to the office in midst of heavy traffic (the urban equivalent of the migration of millions of wildebeest making their way across the Serengeti grasslands), gulp endless cups of tea and coffee and as the day ends hope to make it back in time to do some grocery shopping, grab an hour of exercise and cook dinner for yourself!
Working as a freelance business writer I have to admit, I feel much more in charge of my life. Now there is always an income trade-off, which I would not like to discuss in this post.
The Mobile Office
Over the last couple of months, I’ve had to move across 3 different cities due to family reasons. But what’s absolutely great was that I could be there for my family and enjoy time with them, whilst continuing to work from various corners of wherever I was staying! Which is again such a contrast to my formal work days when if I wasn’t working on own desk, I couldn’t focus or felt that something wasn’t right. But now all I need is a quiet corner and I’m ready to fire away at the keys on my cheerfully pink colored notebook.
Challenge of Managing Time
Now this is really the tricky part of working from home. Contrary to popular perception, it is just so hard to find a few continuous hours to do my work in; and this when I don’t even have kids! The time killers you may ask – the internet, phone calls from friends, lengthy lunch and tea breaks, discussions with family members! Now as enjoyable as that may be, it eats into your productive daylight hours. And while I enjoy staying up late into the night, writing at that time of the day is not something I cherish.
So I decided that I needed to do something to cover everything during the week. Here are my quick tips for saving time!
Another valuable time saving tip – shop on any day but the weekend . Avoid the rush in the malls and at the payment counters by shopping during the week. Ha – what joy not having to wait endlessly outside the trial room!
So that in effect is how I’ve learnt to manage my time better as a freelance writer.
Does anyone else have any other novel tips they’d like to share?