#freelanceroutine

[seafarerstudio]

Do One Thing: Freelance Edition

This guy keeps me on track during the day

"I could never do what you do." I hear it all the time from friends and acquaintances who live in a land of biweekly pay schedules I've long since forgotten. Some of these people are right, of course. Their financial burdens too great, their familial responsibilities too vast, their personalities too risk-averse to jump ship for the wild world of startups. But most of them actually COULD do what I did, if only they'd learn the delicate art of unrelenting self-directed motivational manipulation. 

See, starting your own business may be foolish and insane, but it's not really extraordinary. At least not anymore. As the cracks in our economic system come into sharper focus, so does the necessity to develop skills that you can sell directly, without the intermediary of a company.

But to do it? That's the real struggle. Right now, I'm sitting at a cafe in my hometown, trying to desperately to not read a recap of last night's Nashville (a show, dear reader, I don't even watch). I have no immediate deadlines. If I quit right now, nothing bad would happen. No one will fire me. No one will even really know. I could sit here and read people panic about ebola on Twitter all day with absolutely no consequences beyond an all-consuming sadness for the deep selfishness of humanity. 

And yet, I write this post. I research a few startups I might want to work with. I draft pitches. I send out emails gently requesting payment. I claim a few content farm articles on topics I find interesting, which I treat as book reports for money. In short, I work. For at least a few hours. Every single day.

Because I can't afford to have zero days anymore. I have to do at least something each day for Seafarer, this thing I care for so deeply that I abandoned my 401k and my NYU library privileges and hundreds of business cards I didn't have to pay for.  How do I get something done each day? I manipulate my brain mercilessly in the following ways:

Stop thinking: My whole job is thinking, mulling things over, figuring things out. But when I really need to get things done, I stop all that. Identify the single thing I really need to get done. Then I don't eat, read, daydream or Gchat until I do it. 

Write it down: I'm a Virgo; I've never met a list I didn't like. At any given time, I have at least two to-do lists going: a daily electronic version on Teux Deux—check it out and an old-school weekly Moleskine. If I don't cross something off on each every day, I feel bad, and no one likes to feel bad.

Identify the next step: This is an old GTD technique, and the only one I employ on a regular basis. When a goal seems too big to tackle, how do you proceed? By identifying the next step. Even the biggest goals are just a series of little steps. I just can't let the size overwhelm me. Want to land six new clients? I'll start by reading Crunchbase's daily newsletter to see if any interest me. Want to teach a copy course? I'll fill out an inquiry on General Assembly's website. I might not accomplish the goals until next week, or next month, or next year, but I've made some progress. And sometimes a little sustained progress is all it takes.  

Make it a game: When all else fails, I like to bet against myself. External motivation is not a scarce resource when you have a boss, because the pressure to do your job or be embarrassed, scolded, or fired is always there. Not so when you are your own boss. So you have to give other people the power. Commit to arbitrary deadlines. Use an app like Lift as a prompt and as motivation (don't break the streak!). Bet a friend $20 that you can finish your whole list by end of day. Really pay up if you don't. When you know you can do something, it's easy to blow off. When you think you can't, you try your damnedest.

[seafarerstudio]

Tom's Routine: Waking and Working With the Rising Sun (A Lesson in Self-Discipline)

After finishing Daily Rituals by Mason Currey, we at Seafarer Studio have set out to test and report back on some of the rituals. Admittedly, I may have jumped headlong into one particular routine that I was not prepared for. Reading through the rituals Currey presented, I noticed that many of these brilliant minds of past and present started their day with the rising sun. I wanted to see if this worked for me. The short answer to that question at the moment is: I just don't know.

The first thing that I realized was that my night owl lifestyle was not conducive with getting up between 4:45 and 5:00 am. On the first morning I awoke and stared blankly at the ceiling for about four minutes before relenting, begrudgingly, to sleep again. Day one and things weren't looking good.

Day two went better than expected. I woke up in Harwich Port, MA, a beautiful little village on Cape Cod (this may be the root of my problem—who wants to wake up with the sparrows on vacation?). As the sun was slowly rising (or at least I thought it was, this day proved to be particularly overcast) I made my way for the beach in hopes of clearing my mind and watching the sun come up over the vast Atlantic. It felt great being the only one on the beach. There is something eerily humbling about being the lone soul on the beach looking out at a seemingly empty ocean. I felt inspired and clear, prepared and driven, ready to take on whatever the day threw at me. That day I had more energy than any previous day, more energy in fact than the days I rose at 8:00 am. This was a strange yet insightful phenomena. If only the feeling lasted.

Days three and four were much like day one: roused from sleep by my alarm only to be reduced back into my unconscious within 30 minutes of waking. There's a certain feeling of disappointment when you set out to do something and your biology fights you every step of the way.

What I did take away from the this experiment, which I am grateful for and which I think is a lifelong lesson, is the necessity of discipline in everything you do. The discipline to do what is good for your "future self" and to forego the musings and immediate pleasures sought after by your "present self." For present self, getting up early makes no sense. Present self craves nothing more at that moment than to be back asleep. Meanwhile, future self is screaming, "GET UP AND MAKE SOMETHING OF YOURSELF!"

My goal is to find a balance between these two selves. Present self may have won this battle, but this war is far from over.  Over the next few days, I'll continue to discipline my body and mind to be focused on my future self and not the selfish tendencies of my present self, which means more early mornings, more coffee and potentially more disappointment. Only time will tell.

[seafarerstudio]

Day 1: This is Weird

And I thought last week's vague spirituality would be strange. One of the biggest myths I hold onto as a freelancer is the idea that I basically work a normal schedule. Sure, I work late nights and the occasional weekend, but lots of people do that. So I was surprised to find just how hard it was to hold to a strict schedule. 

One of the biggest challenges we face is not having a dedicated workspace. Since 3rd Ward shuttered in October, we've been working partly from home and partly at an odd assortment of cafes and public spaces. While the constant changing of scenery is stimulating, it's also a huge waste of time. We spend precious minutes deciding where to go, scouting and pouncing on seats near a power outlet, moving around when we feel we've overstayed our welcome. When you can work in two-hour bursts peppered throughout the day, this isn't much of a problem. With a hard start and end time, it's much more unwieldy. 

Today we were on deadline for a big project, turning around copy for the Prospect Park Alliance's new website. We got in a groove around 3:30 p.m, and didn't really want to stop at 5. So we didn't working straight through until about 6 p.m., when we had to leave to catch an event at the New America Foundation. It's odd how much of a difference that hour makes- 5 p.m. feels incredibly early, 6 p.m. feels just right. We'll see if it gets any easier as the week rolls on. 

[seafarerstudio]

The Old 9-5

This week, I'm trying my hand at my old, pre-freelance schedule: the dreaded 9-5. For five years before I started Seafarer, I worked as a publicist at The New School, a place very dear to my heart. Representing Parsons, the university's design school (of Project Runway fame), taught me everything I know about art and design and inspired a thousand interests that follow me to this day. I loved that job and the wild assortment of people drawn to its progressive academics. So I thought I'd try to recreate that experience of a creative day job.

The truth is, though, I never really had a 9-5. Most days I would work until 6:30 or 7:00. If I had no pressing post-work plans, those hours would sometimes bleed to 8:00 or 8:30. A 5:00 p.m. hard stop seemed ridiculous. As it turns out, it might be.

[seafarerstudio]

Days 5-7: Becoming Routine

The last few days of Miracle Morning were heavy on morning and light on miracles. I kept up a version of the routine on Friday and through the weekend, focusing on the stuff I found most useful and altering or discarding the rest. 

Predictably, the things I was most resistant to ended up having the most long term appeal: meditation and visualization. I don't really have trouble working writing, reading and exercise into my day (and prefer to do the other two at night anyway), but pausing to clear my mind and prioritize is a real struggle. Learning to spend even 20 minutes a day on these things was incredibly useful. I hope to ultimately make them a part of my final daily routine. And I'll revisit a much stricter (read: actually waking at 6am) version of this routine later this summer.

Next up: The 9 to 5'er. Is 9-5 really the ideal work schedule? Should we break our habit of working late into the evenings? We'll see next week. 

[seafarerstudio]

Day 4: Backslide

One of several thousand Google Images for "forlorn puppy"

It was bound to happen. After a very productive third day, I had one of those days with absolutely no focus. Normally, this is one of those situations in which freelancing is a huge benefit. You can ride the wave of productivity on those extra productive days, and when you're not on deadline and not feeling it, you can go see a movie or something. Not so today.

The culprit is my super late bedtime. Like many people, I can get a lot of work done when everyone else is sleeping (likely because I haven't broken the habit of constant email checking, a project for a different week). This means getting up really early or staying up really late. For the past two years, I've been trending later and later. So my hyper-productive day yesterday didn't end until nearly 4am. And my wake up time slipped to 10am, meaning I was behind from the moment I got up.

That rushed feeling is exactly what the Miracle Morning is meant to combat. But this is part of the process, right? I'm back to the routine tomorrow. 

[seafarerstudio]

Day 3: Starting to Get It

This is what Google Image thinks "productivity" looks like. I agree.

Today was great, and I think I know why. I got over myself. At least enough to embrace the parts of this routine I'm finding silly (visualizing my future- it's just like daydreaming but with goals!) and see some of the benefits.

I woke up at 6:30 and got to meditation right away. I can see now why people call this a practice—it takes a ton of work to focus on your breathing. I'm really only able to hold it a few seconds at a time before I'm inevitably interrupted by some to-do list item or existential worry. But it has been useful to pay attention to the machinations of my mind as they are happening. As someone who never went through performance training or therapy, I sometimes feel like the feedback loop between what I physically feel and how I process it is remarkably long. Meditation, even for 10 minutes a day, seems like it will help with that. 

Other changes I made to the program today: my exercise was yoga on the roof, which was breezy and beautiful and gave me crazy amounts of energy. Writing just before getting to work, in the first hours of my day, was a good adjustment, because I'm sharp then. I continue to reserve reading for evenings (and the subway, secret reading room of all New Yorkers). Once I got to work, I was very productive. I can see the benefits of this routine already. 

[seafarerstudio]

Establishing a Baseline

What does a routine look like when you have no routine?

That’s the question that prompted this whole experiment. But the truth is, I do have a routine. Or several. Depending on what kind of work day it is. Sometimes I’m in an office at a regular 9 to 5. Sometimes I have a call at 10:30, and I can sleep in a bit before getting to work. Sometimes, I’m on a deadline and wake up at 4am to get writing done. Sometimes, I stay up that late instead. Those hours—the ones in the middle of the night, when the majority of the city is fast asleep—are unfortunately some of my most productive. Why? Because they’re stolen. They make me feel like I’m getting ahead. Also, I’m generally really tired. A desire for sleep can be tremendously motivating.

So a typical day, if there is one, looks something like this: snoozing my alarm for an hour or two before finally getting up around 8 or 8:30 am. Depending on what I need to do, I’ll either get right up, shower and head out, or spend some time reading the news (Twitter) in bed. Then, I’ll grab breakfast and head to work: a nearby cafe, a local park. If I have the time, I’ll try to take a long walk there instead of the subway, to get a little activity in. Then I’ll settle in to work for a few hours—as long as my battery lasts, or my coffee tolerance can bear. Then it’s time for lunch and a location change. Often, if it’s a particularly busy day, I’ll meet up with friends for a few hours in the early evening, and then head home and back to work until it’s time for bed around midnight or 1am.

After two years, this is as close to a daily schedule as I get. But I’m bored of it. It’s so typical. It’s basically a 10-to-6 without the benefits of office life. I’m so tied to the idea that I should be working during East coast office hours (this was particularly strange when working from Los Angeles last summer, a topic for a different post) that I don’t make the most of my time. My schedule, even in my own hands, is heavily influenced by my many years of work experience and conditioning of when and how we work. It’s a habit I’m hoping this experiment can break.