Thoughts on WFH.
How I keep myself from aimlessly scrolling the internet.
This past week, three subscribers randomly shared how they enjoy taking a peek behind the curtain in my entrepreneurial journey.
First, I want to say thank you for even being part of this journey. Second, I thought it was time to talk about what it’s been like transitioning to a (mostly) work-from-home life and how I’ve failed miserably and eventually learned a good rhythm.
If you’re more interested in stories about embarrassing turkey trots, feel free to pass over this post. Today, I’m digging into what my day-to-day looks like and how I’ve figured out what works for me in hopes that it might help you, too.
I’m nosy.
I love podcast episodes detailing people’s work weeks. I’m always curious about how freelance artists, business owners, and remote workers spend their days. Do you do laundry during the day? Take an actual lunch break? Habit Stack? Time block?
There are so many hacks for working from home productively, and if there’s anything I’ve learned over this past year, it’s that everyone is different, and there is no “one size fits all” for WFH.
But first, before I tell you how I manage my schedule, let me talk about how I failed.
For 16 years, my life looked like the above picture. I taught six classes a day of 30-50 kids at a time with a prep and a lunch break. Classes were 45 minutes long, and bells dictated my every move. There was no downtime. Bathroom breaks were strategic. Planning was purposeful. Every second was orchestrated.
When I started working from home last year, I felt a strong urge to keep that sense of schedule and urgency. Every day, I wrote down how I would spend each hour of the day, cramming my week with some important (and non-essential) tasks. A friend once asked how I managed to stay focused as my own boss and not spend the day surfing the internet. His question made me realize how rigid I was with myself. I was not a very nice boss!! I didn’t even give myself a proper lunch break.
Looking back, I think there was a part of me that felt guilt over not being in the classroom. Since my former colleagues were still on that 45-minute grind, it only felt fair if I kept doing the same…right?
This year, I’ve given myself permission to embrace a different way of working and honor a new rhythm. Here is how I plan my time and the resources that have helped me balance deep work, creative play, and “CEO time,” or big picture time.
Before, I share my main takeaways, I want to provide some context. Despite being a full-time business owner, I do have other roles and responsibilities that I need to plan for during my week. Here is a breakdown of my general “work” roles (not including family, activities, etc.) and how much of my time they take up on average:
F-flat Books (65%): Running the business from an operational standpoint, connecting with community, leading our team members, writing, curating content, etc. etc.
West Chester University (20%) : Teaching courses (I currently have a six credit load), meeting with students, and grading
Songwriting For Music Educators (5%) : Building out content and meeting with Kat to plan each week
Liberti (5%) : Planning music and organizing volunteers for our church
Consulting (5%) : Other music education-related activities that are separate but connected to the above businesses
With those roles in mind, this is how I’m making WFH work for me:
I build flexible weekly schedules. The biggest change I made this year is not to plan out every hour of my week on Sunday. Typically, I’ll sit down with my planner each Sunday and write down the most essential tasks for that week. Then, I’ll pop in my standing obligations (teaching courses at the University, team meetings, etc.). I’ll plug in time-sensitive specific tasks (like writing this newsletter!) to the appropriate day and leave the rest open. I try to make the beginning of the week more meeting-heavy and leave lots of open space on Thursdays and Fridays. Then, every morning I pick three of my weekly tasks to focus on based on the time that I have that day. I love love love this planner and use it religiously every day.
I plan downtime each month. This book transformed my thoughts about working and building schedules as a woman. We naturally cycle through hormonal changes that affect our creativity, energy, and ability to work on mentally consuming tasks. If you are a woman and you have some control over your schedule, I can’t recommend this enough. Work with your natural rhythms to find times when you will be most creative, and when you will need breaks from a more intense pace. Obviously, most things are out of our control, but it is something I have been extra mindful of when I have a busy work week coming up, or when I need some extra space to create and ruminate over business problems that do not have quick solutions.
I schedule movement and music. Last year, I felt like I didn’t deserve to take a circus class during the day or spend an hour playing piano unless I had put in a full workday. I no longer feel that misplaced guilt. I now see that movement and creativity are essential to my thriving in every aspect of life, and I put them on the schedule!
I think seasonally. One of the things I love about my planner is being able to think about quarterly tasks and long-term goals. At the beginning of the year, I can take inventory of what I want each season to hold and my goals for each specific part of the year. Planning this way makes it easy to see when things are too chaotic (Back-to-school will always be busy in my business) and when I can plan in space (does our team really need to work between Christmas and New Years? Probably not.). Instead of letting the business run me, I can decide when we have seasons to push and seasons to pull.
I time things. I’m a timer girly. I don’t know what that says about me on a deeper level, but I love setting a timer. Last year, I took on too many projects and didn’t have a strong sense of how long tasks would take me. Now, I know exactly how long standard weekly tasks will take. For example, I know I will need exactly 30 minutes to write my F-flat newsletter each week and 40 minutes to write my Substack post. I know how many words I can type in an hour, and how long it will take me to upload a book to KDP. While there may be variations, I’ve realized how important it is to actually understand how much I can do based on how long things typically take me to do. This has been a game-changer. I also use timers to help me get into deep flow states and remind me to move my body. This series convinced me to stand up and move every 25 minutes. (I guess I’m still wired to move when I hear a bell ring. You can take the girl out of the school, but you can’t fully take the school out of the girl.)
I’m happy to say that for the next two weeks, I’m taking things sloowwww. I’m intentionally leaving space to do some bigger picture business stuff, and lean into family time. We’re putting up “out of office” email replies and prioritizing business sustaining activities- like getting rest and having a renewed vision for 2025.
If you work from home or run your own business- I’d love to hear from you! How do you balance productivity with rest? How do you schedule your time, and what has been the most helpful?
Inspiration
🎧 I’m accompanying the choir at my old school on Thursday, and this song gets me every time.
🎧 I’m co-directing a middle school play that is happening next week!! There is nothing more inspiring than seeing a kid really take to a character- to find their space and their voice. It never gets old.
Creative
🌟 I’m headed to the studio on Monday (yet another perk of a flexible schedule and winter break for the University!). I’ll be recording the first of five tracks with some friends and collaborators- all centered on tree themes. The first single is called The Pines, and I’m really excited to see how it turns out.
🌟 We’re churning on novel edits. My goal is to have the large edits finished by next Friday. Eep! I’ve been waking up extra early for an hour before the kids come downstairs and trying to see the quiet moments by the Christmas tree as a gift.
Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you find time for work and play this week.
Connect with my work elsewhere:
🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn
💻 Order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!
📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.
🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.
Love this! Very inspiring in fun and different ways per usual! 🥰