One of my favourite things about being freelance is the variety it provides.\u00a0 Wednesday felt like a particularly good example of that variety, as well as the brain-stretch you need to keep jumping between different work, so here\u2019s another insight into a day in the life of a charity consultant:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Start the day because even though both of my kids know exactly what a gro-clock (programmed to \u201cwake\u201d at 6.30am) is and what it\u2019s for, it\u2019s done nothing to recalibrate their early waking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trying to deny the fact that everyone is awake because I don\u2019t quite feel ready for the day. Wonder how much more productive I’d be in life if I managed to secure a run of waking up past 6am…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Standard morning faff of getting the kids fed, hosed down after breakfast, dressed and packed for nursery\/clubs. I managed to squeeze in 15 minutes of yoga. It might not be a huge amount but it\u2019s what I can realistically squeeze in every morning, plus I figure over a week it adds up to more than two hours if I\u2019m consistent. In between sorting the kids, I manage the usual morning jobs of cleaning up the tsunami of breakfast, unload\/reload the dishwasher, put a wash on etc, those jobs that have a groundhog day quality to them because you never seem to get on top of them 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I take our youngest to nursery, and hurry back so that I\u2019m time to set off for the school run with the oldest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
School run with the oldest, and manage to get back to my desk for 9am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m doing a half day for one of my long-running charities today and spend some time working through emails, attending an all-team meeting virtually and creating handover materials for the new team coming in who will take over the policy and communications work I\u2019ve been holding temporarily. It’s a great period of growth for them and I’m loving being part of setting their foundations so that the new permanent team can hit the ground running. A big part of the policy handover is setting the context for where work is now, including its history and ambitions for the future, alongside detailed landscape mapping so the new team are aware of key contacts, partner organisations, government inquiries, publications and key events to get them up to speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I manage to run out of the door to go for a quick swim at the local pool. This has been a big ambition of mine since I started working for myself, to try and use my work breaks more effectively. It\u2019s only the third week running that I\u2019ve been but still progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do another slice of time with this morning\u2019s charity but with a communications focus, preparing a lovely guest blog for release tomorrow, along with the upcoming social media and let the author they\u2019ll see it up tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I manage to squeeze in a rare bit of business admin, updating my cashflow spreadsheet, creating a LinkedIn post, giving feedback on a recent course I attended and checking for updates on a freelance network I\u2019m part of \u2013 they\u2019re always in the loop with amazing research, events, toolkits and work opportunities. Nearly get lost down a rabbit hole of incredible things to explore and save another 3 things to my “sometime never” reading list!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Event prep for an away day I\u2019m delivering next week. I flesh out the event outline into the rough script I\u2019ll use on the day, start creating resources like the slide deck and handouts, check timing and make an order for some more stationary. I love working with this charity, and it\u2019s wonderful to come back to deliver a 4th<\/sup> event for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quick meeting to check in on charity work 3, some really interesting co-design work with a freelance colleague. We meet to reflect on last week\u2019s kick off meeting, agree next steps and check the draft project plan. I\u2019m really excited to be doing this work \u2013 the charity are really enthusiastic, it\u2019s an area I\u2019m really keen to deepen my knowledge in as well as working with another freelancer which a rare bonus when working for yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rush to do the reverse pick up as my partner\u2019s away in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Begin the dinner\/clear up\/quick garden games\/bedtime as everyone\u2019s a bit frazzled from a long day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Try and resist the urge to do some more work while the house is quiet and fail \u2013 so put in another hour or so of event prep because next week is looking a bit dicey with sports day, and two school strike days in the mix.\u00a0 While I\u2019ve got the opportunity I get this chunk of work sorted so that I\u2019m ready for next week \u2013 all my materials are ready for the event, stationary is on its way and for some extra fun, I add fidget toys to the order. This event is very focused on giving\/receiving feedback and personal reflection and there\u2019s something really beneficial about adding movement into the thinking process that can help open people up. Plus they\u2019re quite an engaged lively group so my gut feeling is they\u2019ll go down well. I just need to keep them away from my kids in the meantime<\/p>\n\n\n\n Too late for having such early risers for kids. But at least now I’m ready for next week given the uncertainty with the school strikes. It\u2019s feeling like a good period of mixing comfort and growth for work at the moment. Go to sleep dreaming of what else would be fun to take to facilitated events…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo by\u00a0Kreeson Naraidoo<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of my favourite things about being freelance is the variety it provides.\u00a0 Wednesday felt like a particularly good example of that variety, as well as the brain-stretch you need to keep jumping between different work, so here\u2019s another insight into a day in the life of a charity consultant: 6am ish: Wake…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":480,"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-479","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\t4 \u2013 4.45pm: Charity 3 – Policy Co-Design<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
4.45pm: Pick Ups<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
5.30 – 7.30pm: Dinner & Kids’ Bedtime<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
7.30pm: More Event Planning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
10.30pm: Bed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n