After all my hopes of having this super flexible work schedule, the last year and half have proved that work still sometimes feels really incompatible with being a parent. There’s days when you feel you’re neglecting work, and days when you feel you’re neglecting your children, neither is great and the guilt can…
Category: Productivity
Sleep: An Undervalued Superpower
My consumption of podcasts rose exponentially this year – partly from trying to distract myself from the painfully long runs of marathon training and partly trying to make the long car trips to a friend in the midlands a bit more productive. I found “Diary of a CEO” for the first time and…
How to Keep Yourself Accountable
I’ve had a really unexpected success this year – it’s something I’ve been meaning to trial for a while and now I’m a little bit addicted. I signed up to a time tracking app. If you aren’t using one, here’s a few reasons why I’m sold: Project Value for Money Some of my…
How to Work Together Well
Something you need to get used to as a freelancer is regularly starting new work. And it’s not just the work that’s new – it’s often a new organisation, new people/team and even a new industry to what you might have worked in before. New starts are always steep learning curves – a…
For the Love of Lists
I remember deciding last year that I’d set half a day aside every week for business admin. It was really important, I decided, to safeguard that time and I’d be able run a business properly this way with all the right things in place. And honestly, I think I’ve managed that a handful…
How Not to Be an Employee
After being an employee for 15 years, it’s easy to get stuck in an employee mindset. But freelancing is a very, very different. You need to break out of old habits and set new boundaries. So, what’s different and how do you hold onto not being an employee? It’s a business arrangement First…
The Summer Productivity Challenge
In July the summer holiday stretched before us – 6 weeks of sunshine and I only had 50% of my planned working time blocked out for contract work. Perfect. I had all sorts of plans. And yet somehow pretty much spectacularly failed at them all. What happened and why didn’t the school summer…
Juggling Priorities
A critical factor of success in many roles is how well you can manage your time. Like loads of people I’ve experienced huge shifts in working patterns over the last few years, from going part time with condensed hours around the kids, to sliding scales of homeworking through the pandemic. Going freelance has…