This week is a continuation of the balancing act, with three active clients taking up roughly 4 days total each week. I\u2019m doing different roles and work for each and sometimes I\u2019m able to keep the work very boundaried to specific days, and some weeks I end up doing bits for all of them on the same day because that\u2019s just when people\u2019s availability is for meetings, stuff comes up, life etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband and I are splitting Mondays half each for work and half each looking after our daughter at the moment. I did the school run with my son, and then hosted some friends and their kids at our house for a long-overdue catch-up over coffee and cake. We tag teamed at lunch, and I went straight into a meeting about supporting people with disabilities into self-employment, as part of some evidence gathering I\u2019m doing around historically what\u2019s worked, what they have learnt and what they\u2019d do if they had a magic wand. This feeds into a pilot I\u2019m designing to trial a new support programme. I followed this up with a chunk of business admin and cleared down several email accounts, updated my cashflow and bit the bullet and asked an existing client for some feedback I can use on the website. I also organise a 6 week block of coaching sessions as someone had an amazing offer going (as they\u2019re training) and I also got brave and booked an amazing course for some fairly serious money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chaired a meeting first thing looking at key news headlines for an organisation’s comms work, like the new Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) plan from government to coordinate our response, as well as checking in our weekly priorities such as prepping a blog for International Women\u2019s Day and the next issue of the external newsletter. We also cover policy, and we talk about ideas for bringing together expertise in early years\u2019 setting to explore how to support better transitions into primary schools and embed early intervention, in line with a core priority around reducing primary school exclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I spend the rest of the day working with this charity \u2013 I do some quick socials for them, update the website and edit an article ready for releasing from one of the team ready for LGBT+ History Month. I prep for an event I\u2019m chairing around getting the youth worker team more involved in feeding into the policy work. I check in with the research we\u2019ve commissioned to see if Department for Education have granted permission for them to access the National Pupil Database, and I go back and thank those who contributed case study information and insight into the response we made to the Education Committee\u2019s inquiry into persistent school absence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another block of time with yesterday\u2019s charity \u2013 exploring more connections around their primary school exclusion work and building a network of organisations who\u2019ve taken incredible steps to change their approach. I talk to the service manager about facilitating some customer journey mapping with their team, to look at all the touchpoints in a child\/family\u2019s time with us, with a particular focus on ensuring all the documents and resources used hang together well and present the charity effectively. Finally I book in a rare onsite meeting in London for the next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I swap over to do some more background reading, stakeholder mapping and policy-space scoping for the employability piece of work. Then do some more business admin, including booking in a co-working session next week which I’m excited about, send some invoices and agree an extension for one of my contracts (hooray!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spend the day working on handover for an event I\u2019ve designed for a charity, ensuring the project plan is up to date, that everyone\u2019s clear on responsibilities prior and during. I update facilitator notes and give more details on all the activities drafted to ensure that the facilitators on the day are confident in what they\u2019re delivering and what they\u2019re trying to achieve. We have a quick meeting to run through this as the event is fast approaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also go back to my notes from Monday and give some more thinking time to how this pilot could be designed and flesh out some more detail on the overall proposal. It\u2019s a really exciting bit of work and I\u2019ve learnt a huge amount around disability. It\u2019s also really interesting to approach the self-employment question. I\u2019ve got another meeting next week to add some more detail before hoping to get the draft sent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also spend an hour on the phone with a guy I mentor through the Cranfield Trust. He does incredible work, almost as a one-man band, in a crisis-support charity. We caught up after a bit of a break due to business on both side. He\u2019s had some significant highs and lows to talk through and we celebrate an incredible new funding partnership that\u2019s developed. Next up for him is formalising his ideas and plans into a structured strategy and business plan so I pop some ideas and resources over by email and we agree to catch up within a month to discuss progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I take the morning of the split shift again, and go straight into a meeting with my other client who are rebranding on a tight budget. We talk through the latest designs and scope out next steps, including tentatively when it may launch. I spend the rest of my morning updating a toolkit I\u2019ve written for them on impact measurement for charities, and particularly on the value of volunteering. I begin looking designing a member-wide survey for their members to capture key statistics, priorities and challenges so we can begin tracking trends, identifying support needs and utilising their insights to develop our leadership but I run out of time. Time to tag team and I spend a few hours with my daughter before heading out on the school run to round off the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Complete two applications for work given the tight deadline and lack of space in the week. Keep an eye on a brilliant tender that I\u2019ve spotted, which has a longer deadline so I\u2019ve got time for that over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relax. Exercise. See friends. Do some family stuff. Attempt some life admin. Eat good food. Drink a bit of wine. Manage a bit more of my book. Ready for next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Photo by Manasvita S<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week is a continuation of the balancing act, with three active clients taking up roughly 4 days total each week. I\u2019m doing different roles and work for each and sometimes I\u2019m able to keep the work very boundaried to specific days, and some weeks I end up doing bits for all of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[33],"tags":[13,11,12,21,25,10],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-day-in-the-life-2","tag-charity","tag-consultant","tag-freelance","tag-non-profit","tag-self-employment","tag-start-up-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t