What's your freelance/work at home routine?

thanhmy Level 1

September 26, 2017, 2:18 pm

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What are your working hours and how do you structure your day? Do you prioritize your tasks?

One thing I love about working for myself and specifically online is that I can set my own working hours.

This is great because my number one priority is being mom. My 2 children (2 year old and 4 year old) go to play school in the morning so I get to work for 3-4 hours before I pick them up at 12. It is during this time I manage to get the bulk of my work done so I run through all my emails quickly and then I do content writing and research for my blogs. I am a morning person and I get my best work done early, as the day goes on my brain gets slower.

I then make them lunch and settle my son down for his nap. Then I settle my daughter down with a movie or with some drawing things and I am lucky if I manage to get another 1-2 hours work in.

Once my son is awake there will be no work done until my children are in bed, so I make supper and do household chores.

I then usually work again at 8pm for a few hours.

How do you structure your day and why do you do it that way?

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vinaya

vinaya

I have been working from home since 2007. Until 2014, I did not encounter any problem because I could work when I had work or when I wanted to work. However, when I got married, I had to manage time for my wife. There were serious family matters to be handled. The family things were a great distraction. Before, marriage, I would work all through the night, sleep all through the morning and walk all through the afternoon. However, after I got married, I did not have the freedom to work. A baby boy was born to us couple of months ago and the baby is a great distraction.

9 years ago

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kgord

kgord

I work most of the morning most days and then early afternoon and sometimes into the evening, but some days I am working outside the home so that takes precedence, and my work at home hours are devoted to doing reports for the job.

9 years ago

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augusta

augusta

I work mostly in the mornings when my kids are at school so that I would have ample for the them.later in the day.

9 years ago

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wiseagent

wiseagent

I can't spread my freelance work schedules this way (in 3 periods) because of my regular work. So, the evening is the most convenient time for me. But this turns out to be good because I always work better at night. What

What

9 years ago

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honeybabe

honeybabe

I always wake up early in the morning around 5 A.M. Will start to prepare food for my daughter will go to school at 6:30 A.M. Then after that will start to clean the mess hehehe... I mean household chores. That’s the time I will open my computer and start to work while drinking coffee.Mostly I will stop doing online work around 2 in the afternoon.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

It sounds like pretty much all of us, like you here, are early birds when it comes to our online work. I wonder if that is because most of us feel that we do our best writing in the morning after a good night's sleep, if indeed we had a good night's sleep. I use chores to give myself breaks in my writing, actually--to pace myself a bit.

9 years ago

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Pixie06

Pixie06

I usually wake up at 5.30 a.m everyday. I start my day with my morning exercises and then I have breakfast and I do some household chores. I start working at 7 am and take regular breaks during the day. However the time that I stop working depends on the tasks that I am actually doing. If something urgent crops up during the day then I try to catch up my work at night or I try to wake earlier the next day. Your success as a freelancer will depend largely on your time management and organizational skills.

9 years ago

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Tronia

Tronia

Wow! and I thought that I wake up early. You are definitely an early bird. I guess it is easy if you are used to it but still.

Also, I completely agree with you. If you want to be a successful freelancer you have to put in the effort and time. A lot of it depends on you and your own personal discipline.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

I think that it is essential to exercise regularly, especially if you are working from home and doing online work. It is so easy to get into bad habits doing this work, and even the best of us can become sedentary as our muscles atrophy from the disease of the desk and the cubicle. I think studies have shown that this can kill your heart and health pretty quickly, and a lot of offices are starting to use the "stand up at your desk" options to keep people healthier. However, when you are at home working, you really do have to discipline yourself.

9 years ago

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overcast

overcast

I spend around 1 hour writing articles for different blog network and sites. Also I spend around 3 hours writing on forums. And 8 hours day job. So pretty much 12 hours are booked in life. Rest of the 12 hours have 5 hours of sleep. And rest for the activities. And that's where the things about the freelancing needs to be balanced. I have not yet delegated the work to other people. And that's what is limiting me as of now.

In future I would have to wait and see how that works out. I may add few more hours to subcontracting. And hoping that would work out for me.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

Can you recommend some article writing sites? If I could pump out some of those for pay like you are doing, and do so in an hour, that would be awesome. It sounds to me like your plate is definitely full! I hope you are making some time for leisure and loved ones while you tackle these many pursuits!

9 years ago

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overcast

overcast

I mostly do write for one foreign language. And the pay is minimal. But I am doing it to save some money for another business. If you know any specific foreign language then do let me know I can suggest you some in that case. Not much time left for myself and the family though. So on that part I am struggling a bit for sure. I guess we have to learn how to balance things a bit as well.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

Thanks for this response! Unfortunately, I am only an English speaker. I did take four years of Latin, which helps me some with the Romance languages, but that us about it. Therefore, I do not think that I would be proficient or of any use at a foreign language or translation site or job, that's for sure--

9 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

My day is hectic from Monday to Friday. Maybe I am so good in time management that I am able to accomplish my daily chores. I have an office job and more time is eaten by the heavy traffic on the road such that I leave for work before 5 am and reach home before dinner at 7 pm. And during my slack time in the office, I do my online writing work. At home after dinner, my relaxation time is also spent for my internet session to open my Facebook account and also do some writing. Take note that I have a family to bond with.

9 years ago

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Krisleen

Krisleen

I usually wake up at 8:00 AM. I eat breakfast first. At 9:00 AM, I start working on my freelance job. I work on it until lunch. I take a break from freelancing after lunch and do my business by that time. I am working for a site where there is a reset time. The reset time is 4:00 PM here so I go back to freelancing again and I work on it until 6:00 PM. I take a break again after this. At 8:00 PM, I do my business again until 10:00 PM. Basically, I do freelancing part time for 4-5 hours and I do my business for around 6 hours. This is just a temporary routine for now because I know things will change once my business takes off or definitely when I get married in a few years.

9 years ago

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Tronia

Tronia

I honestly don't have a firmly set routine since I am a freelancer. Some days I work for over 8 hours and sometimes less. It honestly depends on how many tasks I got left to finish. Generally, I wake up around between 7-8am and then have a nice breakfast. After that, I start checking what I have to do on that day and throughout the week. I usually finish towards evening but I do take breaks whenever I need to.

9 years ago

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wiseagent

wiseagent

Sorry to ask you this, but... Do you live just working as a freelancer? Because I think that 8 hours of daily dedication is kind of impressive (even if there are breaks during the way).

Anyway, nice job with your routine.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

This is a great question because I have always been interested in how everyone else does this--I guess to compare myself to them and to see how unorthodox I am? At first, I had no set routine, but I found myself losing money and opportunities to make money really quickly. So, now I get up every day at five a.m. at the latest and start doing "jobs" that I already have. I try to finish this all up by lunch, Then I eat and go for a five mile walk. I get back home and start looking for new jobs in the freelancing arena and see what I can nail down. After that, depending on what time it is, I also check in on my online classes. I am doing twelve hour days lately and am not sure how long I can keep that up!

9 years ago

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wiseagent

wiseagent

I try to keep a frequency of at least 3 to 3 and a half hours every day (always prioritizing the evening time because that's when I work better.), increasing on weekends to 5 or 6 hours (depending on what I need to do).

Following an order of what I must do is not exactly a priority for me, but the amount of daily hours is always constant because I always try to comply with all my activities.

Discipline is one of the names of the game when it comes to freelance work.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

I agree with you that discipline is the true key. I am also like you in that it does not matter to me, necessarily, what order I do things in as long as I get a certain amount of stuff done every day. I have daily goals and longterm goals, but I tend to do things in increments in different ways every day so that I do not get too bored with my freelancing routine

9 years ago

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wiseagent

wiseagent

Are you reading my mind?! Haha!

This is exactly the way I see things and how I work. The order doesn't matter (in most of the time), as long as I fulfill all my daily obligations. I try to keep a frequency of jobs done daily.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

JoeMilford

I would like to ask you about the order in some small terms. There are certain freelance tasks which are easy to take care of quickly, and some take a bit longer. Which ones do you do first? The quick ones to get them over with? Or do you put the quick tasks off towards the end of your work shift because you know you can execute them quickly?

9 years ago

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wiseagent

wiseagent

I go with the second option because the fact that I know I'm going to finish them faster makes me more focused on solving the ones that are more difficult.

If I stay too long stuck in the hardest I divert my attention.

9 years ago

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kgord

kgord

Some days I work more at freelancing than others. It really depends on the time I have available and how much time it takes me o do my other work. Since, I do mystery shopping, I guess technically it could all be under the freelancing rubric.

9 years ago

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wiseagent

wiseagent

How do you handle when you have many deadlines to achieve?

Of course it depends on how much work you have, but could you handle it well? Sometimes the pressure complicates and messes everything up but we have to learn to deal with it.

9 years ago

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peachpurple

peachpurple

I wake up at 5am in the morning to get redy breakfast for my son for school because the bus comes to pick him up at 5.30am. School starts at 7.15am, so you can imagine the ride he had everyday in the bus. After that, I will be online for an hour before I prepare for breakfast for hubby. Then I put clothes into washer, boil water in kettle, sweep and mop the floor, wash other clothes by hand, hang out laundry and then back to online for 2 hours. Then household chores again.

9 years ago

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cmoneyspinner

cmoneyspinner

Up whenever I wake up. Turn on laptop, access the Internet, sign in to various home biz accounts, get my coffee, work all day. Break in between for meals and bathroom needs. I work until I get tired and/or my eyes get weary. Yes. I know. These are terrible work habits. But they are hard habits to break! What

What

9 years ago

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ColdFlameChris

ColdFlameChris

I'm a transcriptionist at GoTranscript. I do transcribe audio/video files into text. The rate is $2.23 per audio minute file. I know its low but this is the job that I know that really pays regularly. If you have any other good online job, please let me know. Thanks in advance. What

What

9 years ago

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Judas2018

Judas2018

As someone who works a regular day job 3 to 4 days a week - and gets to work from home twice a week or gets a day off once a week - I try and structure my freelance routine around that. It's a lot easier though in a time where handheld devices exist. So I can tweet, return messages, emails (answer or send) - when I have a small break or at lunchtime. If I'm at home, I can correspond a lot quicker and be more interactive on social media for longer periods of time, those days. I get stuff done though without much if any real stress so it's all good.

9 years ago

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Barida

Barida

Just like me. I work 6 days in a week and combine that with my freelancing duties, so it's not any way easier for me, but having that mind to prosper and not give up yet has been the driving force behind my work as a freelance writer.

9 years ago

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Barida

Barida

I think it is all about time management and understanding how things work. I've been there type that always work 9-5 everyday for 6 days out of 7 so working with my smartphone on the go has really helped me to keep up with things that I do on a daily basis. It has not been easy, but I've grown to master it unlike when I began newly.

9 years ago

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Judas2018

Judas2018

It also helps when you work a job in the tech field like I do. So you can always hit up your freelancer thing while on the job since you're at a PC all day. Not too often or for too long but breeze through real quick to check messages and stuff.

9 years ago

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mildredtabitha

mildredtabitha

I give my online work two hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening especially on weekdays. I give it 8 hours on weekends or days when I am free. If I have more work or more forums to visit, then I will spend more time online than the usual hours I spend on other days.

9 years ago

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potentialwriter

potentialwriter

Freelancing had been my best hobby ever since I got started with it. I don't usually draw any routine for freelancing at all since I know I can't do without doing it daily, even at any convenient time. I am even planning to quit my 9 - 5 job now, never to go back into it. Anyone can go into freelancing and it's something you can enjoy doing. It's something you are going to catch fun doing.

9 years ago

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coolavender

coolavender

I'm a work/cash machine and each waking hour is important to me. I'm used to multi-tasking because I've been doing that for years while working full time at the office. I've since replaced commuting in the early morning with preparing my son and taking him to the school in our subdivision and this was just more fulfilling. After that, I go full blast on my online work until about 11:30 by which time I have to prepare for an offline part time job which last from 1 to 5 pm. My working day doesn't end with that. I help my son with his assignments in the early evening and tuck him into his bed. Afterwards, I'm free to work online again. Mondays to Fridays are such hectic days for me but I usually lighten my workload on weekends.

9 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

It looks like you are talented in balancing because you could do your house chores while doing your freelancing. Before I became a freelancer, I feel like I had lots of free time because when I come home from work, I had nothing to do since my husband is handling the kitchen work. But now that I am freelancing, I feel like I am overloaded with work that sometimes I forget to do my part in house chores.

8 years ago

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edencaga

edencaga

I'm not only doing stuffs such as writing forums or writing a content but also I am a freelance artist. I usually do vector portraits and digital portrait. Sometimes I do traditional drawing such oil and acrylic painting. On weekends, my duty is in production as an assistant prosthetic/make up artist.

8 years ago

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