(Nimue)
I've spent most of my adult life as a self-employed person. That calls for discipline and being able to organise your time and shape your own working day. Up until recently I've handled that by having a really structured way of doing things. What work I've done has varied a lot over the years. Back when I was doing a lot of social media work and Twitter was busy at eight in the morning, it made sense to be up and busy then. Mostly however, my time has been mine to figure out.
The good thing about having a structure is being able to get up and get on with things. Structure means not having to be decisive day to day, and that can be efficient and it can reduce the amount of figuring out required.
The kinds of projects I'm working on at the moment mean that what I need to do varies a lot from week to week. I'm not as well served by trying to have a structured way of responding to this. At the same time, other aspects of my life have changed so that it benefits me to be more flexible. I'm out and about more, there's more music, more scope for adventures, and more scope for working in unexpected places. Sometimes it makes sense to work at weekends and take time off in the week as I fit my own activities in around what the people closest to me are doing.
It turns out that I can do perfectly well without much structure, so long as I have a plan. Currently I'm exploring having plans that cover a week or two of projects, from which I can decide how to handle the day to day stuff more flexibly. It's a looser way of working and at the moment I'm a lot more comfortable with it. Given twenty four hours of warning I can flex in any way I need to, and most days I have a lot of wriggle room. I'm enjoying it. The amount of work I'm able to do has increased, and I think I'm working to a high standard at the moment. I feel that being more flexible is supporting this because it's helping me not to get bored with the regular stuff and not to feel trapped or overwhelmed in face of larger projects.
For a long time I was obsessed with finding the optimal running order for doing things and the most efficient ways of working. I've rejected that idea for now - not least because I'm bored with it. Currently I'm exploring what gives me the best work/life balance, what nourishes me and helps me stay interested in what I'm doing and resourced enough to keep doing it.
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