If you missed Part One of “Setting a Schedule and Sticking to It” please check it out here. Otherwise, read on!
Once you have a rough idea of how many hours you need to work, and what days of the week you are going to put those hours in, you can get down to the nitty-gritty. Here are some ideas of questions you need to ask yourself when setting up a daily schedule:
Are you an early bird? Or a night owl? I have fought against my natural body instincts enough to tell you that it’s a losing battle. I hate getting up before 7:30 in the morning. I can usually do 7:00 okay, but anything before that is extremely difficult for me. I naturally wake up each morning at 7:30. If your body wakes up every morning at 5:00, don’t make up a schedule that has you working until midnight each night. You’ll slowly go crazy.
If you have children, what is your schedule with them? A lot of parents have to get their kids off the bus every afternoon. Is every Saturday afternoon soccer practice with your child? That leaves Saturday morning–do you want to work then?
If you are married, when does your spouse work? Many couples with children have worked out a system where one spouse works out of the home during the day, then they trade off taking care of the kids with the other spouse, so the second spouse can work in the evenings at home. If you have no children though, you will probably want to work at the same time as your spouse, so you can spend your free time with him/her.
How long can you sit still and concentrate at a time? I found that I really couldn’t make it any farther than about 45 minutes before hitting a brick wall. I don’t know why, but my body would not let me sit in my chair and fully concentrate after that. It’s nice to schedule on paper that you will work for 3 hours straight without taking a break, but in reality, it doesn’t work like that. Although many people work in an office for 4 hours straight (and then head out for lunch of course,) in an office there are natural breaks that come up in the day: Coworkers talking to you, the phone is always ringing, you are moving around to make copies, send faxes, etc. If you are working a straight production job at home (like transcribing) you don’t get these natural breaks (I discuss this idea more fully in this blog.) So you must schedule the breaks in.
I hope these ideas gave you a better understanding of how to set up a true schedule for yourself. I have tried living without a reasonable schedule, and I can testify: It doesn’t work! As always, feel free to leave any comments below!