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Routine? Hmm. . .
posted by Anna on 28 Aug 2008
Hey there -- it's Not-Often-Heard-From-Anna. It seems to me that whenever I make my presence known in the form of a Snowblog post, it's always because I have something to complain about. But not this time!
See, a friend of mine recently became unemployed freelance, and he was having a difficult time giving structure to his days. Knowing that I work from home, he asked me about my daily routine. I blinked a few times and then tried this new word out for myself. 'Routine?'
It turns out that some people are suited for working from home and some just aren't. And despite my utter lack of routine, I am definitely a work-from-home sort of person...
It's a bit cheaty to say that I have NO daily routine -- but the scheduled events in my life don't have much to do with publishing (they have everything to do with food, in case you were wondering). I explained my work-from-home philosophy to my friend thusly: Everything I do is work.
In any given day, I have to run errands, take care of the garden, cook meals, tidy the house, make books, etc, etc. Only one of those actually brings in money, but they all have to get done. It makes no difference to the outside world if I decide to do one before the other, as long as all my tasks are completed when they need to be. Sometimes I can sit at the computer for hours, working on a cover design, but other times I only manage to proofread ten pages of text before I flit outside to see if there are beans to pick for dinner.
The sort of work I do really lends itself to my approach. There are deadlines to meet, and as long as I'm meeting them, everything runs smoothly. I think my friend was a bit thanks-for-nothing after my explanation, since he was trying to come up with stories to pitch for radio -- something which takes much more 'push' than what I do. I imagine he would have done much better chatting with Em, who's driven in ways I might never understand.
So I wonder about other people. If you work in an office, are you one of those people who says, 'Ooh, I could NEVER work from home!' or do you think you would thrive on the lack of official structure? I certainly find that writing is best done on some sort of schedule, but are there authors out there who sit down and write whenever the urge strikes?
As for me, I'm on a big proofreading binge right now, so I suppose I should scuttle back to that. . . maybe after I check for ripe tomatoes.
Comments: 10
but are there authors out there who sit down and write whenever the urge strikes?
That would be my style. If I try to make myself write when it hasn't started writing itself in head well enough, whatever I toss at the blank page is crap—or at least, I always think it is.
Of course, if I'm at work and in the middle of a haircut, I have to hold it in my head for later. =)
Posted by: S.Roit | August 28, 2008 07:08 PM
My writing ideas arrive at random times, especially when it's tricky to write them down ;) but my novel-writing ALWAYS needs a schedule - otherwise I'd find much more important things to do, like straightening the rugs.
I agree with your description of everything as (a good kind of) work, Anna, but I think we might be in the minority. I do feel very lucky to be able to make choices and follow my internal rhythms.
Hope you found a tomato or two - I have a huge punnet of ripe cherry ones in the fridge, must make sauce... Good to see you here!
Posted by: fiona robyn | August 28, 2008 09:26 PM
my 'routine' is a lot like yours - though I have to admit to not getting much housework done. I definitely agree that some people suit working at/from home better than others. I know freelancers who have rigid routines - and other things I dream of like weekends and nights off.
Posted by: dougalfish | August 28, 2008 10:52 PM
I work very successfully from home - just as long as I have the place to myself. An empty house is essential for me to follow my own rhythyms and work hard and get things achieved. How often do I have this luxury?
In present circumstances - never! Aarghh!
Posted by: sue hepworth | August 29, 2008 07:16 AM
I gave up housework when my second baby was born, which freed up some writing time. That was in 2003. We are all covered in dust now, but I have written loads! As to routine, well, once I'd abandoned any notions of home schooling my children it fell into nap times and now school time. And I never answer the phone.
Posted by: Paula | August 29, 2008 09:39 AM
Yay! Anna Post! Yay!
As you know, I'm very disorganised and lazy. I'd say it was my downfall except novels seem to get extensively planned and then written - sometimes on schedule. I never seem to get anything done and yet sometimes there's output - and at least to me the quality seems acceptable. Who knows how that happens?
Posted by: Rob | August 29, 2008 10:15 AM
There are two unbeatable things about working at home - real coffee and watching all five days of a test match while everyone who would prefer Big Brother or Newsnight is working somewhere else.
Posted by: Sarah Bower | August 29, 2008 10:45 AM
I've recently moved from working at home to working in an office and although I'm doing the same work I was less tired and stressed when I worked from home. Also our house was much more organised - I think because I'm a good multi-tasker and like you, Anna, I can fit in putting a load of washing on or waving the hoover around the sitting room in between tasks without it seeming to impinge on my day too much.
I'd quite like to go back to working from home...
Posted by: Vanessa | August 29, 2008 12:56 PM
I work 40 hours a week in an office. I would kill to work from home. Even in my office work I don't have much a routine - I do work as it occurs to me, or as I'm assigned it if it's urgent. But if I'm writing, I have to concentrate utterly on it, many hours per day, which is why I've been such a failure at writing in between my other life and such a success at writing when I have massive chunks of time to do so. (In the three-month break after I graduated from college I wrote three 25,000-word novellas.)
Posted by: KatharineC | August 29, 2008 04:24 PM
The only downside that I've ever been able to see in working from home is that I don't have to cycle to work, resulting in a surfeit of fatness, or at least a need to make sure one of the daily tasks on my list is to 'do some exercise, fatty'. Apart from that, I find it about the most efficient way of working I've ever enjoyed.
Posted by: Em | August 29, 2008 04:45 PM