See why every second counts - any how to make the most of them

-154

I feel like every second counts both at (employed) work and at home currently. Having taken on full-time work at the same time as my freelance work has started to take off is a bit of a challenge. A "normal" day is-

• Up at 5.45am
• Update my website
• Leave the house at 7am
• Write a blog post on the bus
• Start work at 7.30am
• Lunch hour at 11.30am
• Write another blog post
• Finish work at 4pm
• Write a blog post on the way home
• Home at 4.30pm
• Get half an hour of promotion work done
• Dinner at 5pm
• A couple of hours with the kids
• Start writing, promoting, tweeting and investigating at 8pm
• Finish and go to bed around 11pm

It all adds to quite a tiring day, and I'm at work tomorrow, pretty much the same routine but I'll leave the 8pm activity, and catch any of that up on Sunday.

I'm really enjoying it all, work is a promotion as well as a change to full-time so I'm managing a team, coaching and training. These are things I'm good at and well practised in. The frustration is the amount of new team members and the fact that business is heavy at this time of year in retail. It doesn't give me a lot of time to develop and train the team into the group of people I want them to be.

The freelance work is fitting in around all of the other bits that I'm doing. I've mentioned before that I sometimes write pieces on my iPhone on the Park and Ride bus on the way to and from work. I find that this gives me the opportunity to switch off from work, and I've also found time in my breaks to do the same. I can put together a large part of what I need and then re-read and edit it down when I get back onto a PC at home.

It's really good to be busy all the time and the fact that most mystery shopping companies stop the amount of mystery shops available in December (see here) means that this is a good time to be doing more at my employed, paid work.

Watch this space!

My organisation steps up a gear to ensure I'm productive

203

I've got a diary and things are slotting into place!

From sitting in front of the PC or a blank piece of paper and having so many hundreds of things to do, and achieving none of them - I've got a diary, I've identified spare time and I've given specific tasks to these times to ensure that I'm better organised and I'm actually getting things done.

And, do you know what? It feels like a massive burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I'm still using spare time like this, sat on the park and ride bus, to write blogs and respond to emails. But I'm happier in the knowledge that I have other things in some sort of controlled order and this time can be spent on things like this.

Each time slot has been given it's own specific tasks, linked to my start of the week list of items I must get done. This week is-

*risk assessments for my photography course and the new business

*move photographs from memory cards to disk and format cards

*get completely up to date with all pending surveys and cash in where I can for Christmas presents

*fully research and contact small business/new business grants providers in my area

*hair cut (I know it's trivial but it's been far too long)

These and a few other things have made it to my "to do list" and I intend to keep using it to ensure I hand a plan, and I can sleep at night.