Last week I started my own personal experiment – which is more of logging time than an experiment, but still. Ever since ditching my day job a year ago and going full time freelance, I felt like I have been logging in a lot more hours at the computer or behind a notepad. This, of course, wasn’t with the same amount of sheer boredom and exhaustion that I experienced doing financial work for a large institution. It was, and is, infinitely more enjoyable and rarely does it feel like “work”. There are the days of stress or putting out fires or trying to juggle multiple things at once – those days are trying, but they are luckily few and far between.
The other issue contributing to working more is that for a long time I did not have an office to go to outside of my house. There are pros and cons against this: while it is difficult to not feel guilty when you just want to relax, I do some of my best work late at night. So I began tracking last week exactly how many hours I work, and the answer for last week came out to exactly 65. The most I logged in one week at my old job was 55, and I wanted to never set foot in there again.
Now to be fair, this isn’t 65 hours spent writing at my computer like something out of “The Shining.” For a writer, I do disturbingly little time writing. I consider “working” not only writing, but designing some client sites, photography, networking, emailing with clients, accounting work, developing proposals, research, and even some coffee conversations. For example, this morning I set out to have coffee with a friend and it turned into a group of four, all discussing a spontaneous idea for a business project that we could develop using our individual skills. Because this was an in-depth discussion with some very real impact, I labeled this time as “work”.
This week I am keeping track once again, but will be identifying how the time is being used. See how much time this week I spend writing, networking, research, or developing ideas at coffee shops. I’ll write a blog post next week with the results.