As anyone who does freelance work knows, scheduling is important not only for making sure you have enough time to get your work done, but also for having time to do other things you enjoy. Back when I was only teaching English for a living it was easier to organise my time because I simply worked around the weekly scheduled classes. But since I started “diversifying” the line between work and my own time began to get a bit fuzzy. This is good in a way because it means that I am finally attaining a goal I set for myself over 25 years ago – to have my work be the same as what I would want to do anyhow when I got out of bed in the morning – but it also posed the challenge of making the most of my waking hours…

Most of you know that my plan to start doing a few different jobs from home stemmed from not being able to teach for more than a year and a half due to the whole cancer/op/chemo thing, and also from the fact that the teaching market is not what it used to be. Plus after almost 20 years of teaching I was more than ready for new challenges. When I started working on my new projects I was still recovering from the effects of chemo so I’d feel good if I managed to get anything done. But as I started feeling better I realised that I had to start organising my time because it seemed that sometimes whole days would slip by without any clear sense of accomplishment and yet it felt like I was always working.

Getting back into a serious gym routine has helped because this is a clear two-hour period of my morning that needs to be fit into my schedule. This came about because my yoga instructor Ana broke her ankle last spring and I really didn’t like the substitute that was hired so I started my own workout routine, but I was still looking forward to going back to my 8.30 in the morning yoga classes once Ana returned in September. Or so I thought. I found out yesterday that the gym management isn’t taking Ana back and at first I thought I was really going to miss those early morning classes. Then I realised that the natural routine that has developed over the summer didn’t actually include getting up at 6.30 in the morning three days a week, and that in fact my body is happier not doing exercise so soon after getting out of bed. So this has all worked out rather well.

Turns out my natural wake up time is around 7.30 and that I am actually more productive doing other work first thing in the morning. Then I go to the gym around noon (Mon-Fri), which gets me home by 2 o’clock for shower, lunch & siesta, and then back to work again (including English classes starting in October) from about 5.00 – 9.00. It’s a good schedule! And of course, it’s also flexible, which is one of the big pleasures of being your own boss. With September (the “new year”) coming up this week, and a new job to focus on, it feels good having this new schedule sorted out. Especially as it just kind of evolved naturally over the past few weeks.

How do you make the most of your time?