Self-employment is proving to be more of a challenge than I had anticipated, and I don’t mean in terms of contracted work. Rather, with both physical and temporal boundaries between home and work smudged, I’ve been thinking of time as a continuum. Bad idea. Without a sense of beginnings or ends, I hit the bed feeling frustrated and unproductive.

Being deadline driven, I have no problem completing paid work on time. It’s managing the other pieces that had me stumped. I felt overcommitted and overwhelmed. This wasn’t what I’d signed up for when I walked away from my job. In fact, it was largely the reason why I walked away.

My “duh” moment came when I realized that a variation of what worked in the office, works at home: efficient time management. Told you it was a no-brainer. But, it’s taken me 10 weeks to begin adjusting to my new reality and find my rhythm. Here’s what helped:

1. Make a weekly to-do list: I get tremendous satisfaction from marking through a completed item. I look at my week – Monday through Sunday – and make my to-do list for each day. As commitments comes in for that or future weeks, I slot them or say no (yes, saying no is an option). Sometimes, I move things around, depending on their importance (see below), but only items I’m committed to doing go on the list.
2. Prioritize: This is pretty self-evident. Some items end up taking longer than expected. That means the to-dos on the bottom of the list either get bumped to the next day (where they gain a higher priority) or I work later to complete them.
3. Limit email: Email is a giant time suck that can blow up the best-planned day. I check email two or three times, spaced evenly during the day. I have separate emails for work and personal correspondence, and check work email only between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. I also check personal email once in the evening. I delete junk email, dash off a response to those that can be handled quickly, and flag ones that need a more complex answer to address later. Checking email on my smart phone is quick and decreases the urge to respond to everything immediately.
4. Bundle like items: I block time to handle all those items that are necessary, but don’t need to be addressed immediately. This keeps me from stopping and starting multiple times throughout the day. I go back to the flagged emails, group the volunteer-related to-dos, and deal with other miscellaneous commitments.
5. Remember what’s important: I don’t know if I’ll have another 40 years or 40 hours, but I want that time to count. Whatever else is on my to-do list, I have made being with family and friends, getting exercise, making a difference, having some fun and writing my top priorities – every week.