Shaping a sustainable working day
A sustainable working day gives priority work time to progress, accommodates ordinary demands and interruptions, and has a recognisable finishing point.
Priorities and daily progress
Stephen Covey’s rocks metaphor illustrates putting important commitments before small tasks: a bucket filled first with pebbles cannot accommodate large rocks, whereas pebbles fit between rocks placed first. The rocks represent priorities such as family, health, clients and career ambitions. Writing an obituary as an exercise can clarify what matters and what someone wants to be remembered for, with that sense of purpose helping motivation.
The Motivation Myth links motivation with success and recommends recognising daily progress towards a larger goal, such as writing 200 words or completing an hour’s writing rather than celebrating only the finished document. A longer-term goal can be divided into daily work, with attention to completing and celebrating those daily achievements.
A next-day list can distinguish tasks that must be completed, important tasks and desirable tasks, allowing lower priorities to fall away when necessary. Daily or weekly to-do lists can help maintain focus, with some writers handling one project at a time and others assigning different projects to morning and afternoon.
Task order can follow deadlines, then the date a request arrived, while also giving priority to personally important tasks. Booking each task into calendar slots within working hours can reveal when deadlines cannot be met and more time needs to be requested.
Time, breaks and a finishing point
Complete productivity every minute of every day is not possible, and even enjoyable jobs include days of drudgery. More work will always remain, so maintaining balance includes knowing when to finish for the day.
Freelancers have to create the boundaries that make a workday finite. A lunch break away from the desk and deadlines for finishing at a reasonable hour are two practical boundaries. The Pomodoro technique alternates timed 25-minute work periods with five-minute breaks to support focus and keep the mind fresh.
One freelancer defined working hours and days, planned genuine vacations and displayed the schedule on printed spreadsheets, remaining flexible for urgent work and deadlines. She checked email and took professional calls only during working time because a quick look at email readily became answering, doing tasks or planning work. During vacations, an automatic reply informed clients of her absence and promised a response after her return.
Freelance flexibility can allow unscheduled lunches, gardening, exercise or school events during ordinary working hours, provided deadlines and agreed meetings are honoured and work is made up when needed. One freelancer nevertheless preferred regular hours, generally starting by 9 am and targeting six chargeable hours per day.
Occasional evening or weekend work may be needed to meet a deadline, but working hours should include focus on the task, frequent breaks and only occasional email checks. Outside business hours, setting projects aside for exercise, enjoyable activities, friends, relaxation and sleep can support returning to work refreshed.
Tracking and managing time
Recording client and administrative time on a notepad and transferring it to a weekly timesheet and client files at day’s end can make gaps between office hours and recorded work visible. Another approach is a project timer paused for unrelated email or social media, with the logged hours reviewed weekly. Whether a timer runs during coffee breaks, unrelated calls or errands changes the picture it gives of productive time.
A day contains 86,400 seconds that cannot be carried over into the next day. Time-management strategies can be adapted to personal circumstances. Inefficiency, prolonged decisions, procrastination, interruptions, unproductive meetings and difficulty declining new requests are threats to time management.
| Challenge | Strategies |
|---|---|
| Increase efficiency | Track project details; use organisational templates; maintain an accurate project schedule. |
| Start the day quickly and effectively | Plan a specific task for the following morning before leaving; work during the most productive hours; start with an easy task or clear a difficult task early; maintain plans at large, medium and small scales. |
| Start a project quickly and effectively | Allow time to get organised; gather materials; begin with easy tasks; track project parts in a spreadsheet; work in periods shorter than three hours. |
| Fight procrastination | Enforce breaks for creativity; use mindless tasks between projects; commit five minutes to an undesirable task to encourage continuing; monitor time for time sinks; avoid pitfalls such as Facebook or perfecting slides; do one thing at a time. |
| Manage distractions | Use a to-do checklist; check email at specific times; schedule known interruptions; postpone nonurgent replies; use do-not-disturb functions. |
| Control meetings | Give sufficient notice for preparation; provide a clear agenda; keep and circulate accurate detailed notes; reserve 15 minutes before and after for preparation and follow-up; follow up immediately; communicate clearly; keep the calendar current and block work time. |
| Protect time | Decline when needed while offering a solution or alternative; clarify expectations on both sides; front-load the day or week. |
Days in practice
A pharmaceutical regulatory writer’s typical day in 2008 began with optional exercise before arriving at the office at 9 am for breakfast, calendar review, meeting preparation, email and voicemail. From 10 am, meetings alternated with drafting, resolving reviewer questions, preparing work plans and aids, coaching colleagues or checking their documents, with lunch during the day and departure at 6–6:30 pm.
A home-based freelancer’s Monday on 13 January 2014 began at 9 am with 27 emails: 16 sales messages, seven personal messages and four work messages. Updating, signing and scanning a CV, writing to a potential client and checking three client email systems occupied the morning before chargeable protocol work began at noon. A dog walk and lunch preceded workshop-assignment reviews, with interruptions limiting completion to four assignments. From 3 to 5:30 pm she worked on a report’s methods section using five Word files and a PDF, followed by roughly half an hour’s work while cooking between 5:30 and 6:30 pm before choir practice.
Another freelancer’s day at a client’s office on 11 February 2014 included two morning meetings on a summary document, lunch with colleagues and an afternoon planning revisions and formatting tables. After a full billable day, the evening included an article proposal, email, accounting and workshop preparation before private time at 9:30 pm.
A California freelancer’s typical day in 2007 began with calls or email by 6 am to accommodate other time zones, a school-preparation break around 7:30 and two to three hours of writing on office days. She limited continuous writing to three hours because interest, creativity and focus declined, then exercised for an hour and handled billing, calendaring, marketing and appointments without an assistant. Two days a week were allocated to client meetings and presentations outside the office, and research, literature review and reading occupied 9 pm to midnight every night.
A freelance in the Azores described starting late after waking without an alarm, with a volcano delaying direct morning light until 8:30–9:30 despite summer sunrise around 6:30. She wanted to complete projects in a couple of hours and spend the rest of the day gardening, but work did not arrive in such a convenient pattern.
Unpredictability and working at home
A senior regulatory writer described rarely completing the day as planned because multiple projects and questions required rapid changes of direction. Meetings could provide welcome social contact, but she still needed substantial time alone for concentrated work.
For some freelancers, home brings distractions such as entertainment, family, pets, shopping and the garden, requiring deliberate self-organisation. Taking a deliberate 30-minute break outside with coffee can be one response before returning to focused work.
Other freelancers reported sustained focus at home: one left breakfast and lunch dishes until 6 pm, drawing on experience of newspaper deadlines amid activity. Another put deadlines before television and walking, apart from three daily dog walks.