Full Time, All the Time
with Britt Reints
Forget the 9 to 5; Full Time, All the Time is a blog about the mobile working life - when you have the freedom to work from anywhere and the responsibility of always having your smartphone turned on. Britt Reints works as a freelance writer while traveling fulltime in an RV with her husband and two kids. She explores balancing real-life bills with an unconventional work life, and finding time to maintain relationships with family and friends.
You can also find Britt at InPursuitOfHappiness.net.
File this under: Advice I Hope To Take In The Future.
I had a busy weekend this past.. er… weekend. (My writing! It is awesome!) I had a guest in from out of town and a big Halloween party that we attended. As usual, that means I have had an extraordinary amount of work to get caught up on since Monday, and almost no energy or focus with which to do it. This happens every single time I have a three day weekend. It also happens every single time I have guests in from out of town, or a holiday falls over the weekend, or I take a weekend trip.
If my weekend is busy, my Monday workload starts to bleed into Tuesday. And then Wednesday. And by about Thursday I’m just barely starting to feel like I’ve caught up.
It occurred to me on Monday that perhaps what I should have done was anticipated that I was going to be particularly run down and planned ahead a little better. Or a lot better.
What I have done in the past (and what I did last week) was focus all of my energy on getting caught up on work and prepared for my guests. I assume that’s what most people do. (For example, how many of you plan your vacation right up until the day or night before you have to go back to work?)
What I wish I would have done is gotten caught up on work, prepared for my guests, and gotten a head start on the next week’s list of things to do. I should have made sure I had groceries to last me a few days past when my guests would leave. I should have completed a few assignments that were due the first part of this week.
I should have given myself a buffer, rather than just tying up loose ends.
With the holidays coming up, I’ll have ample opportunities to test out this new planning philosophy. My goal is to anticipate that I’ll need a little recovery time and may not be ready to hit the ground running immediately after vacations and festivities have come to an end.
Next time, my friends. Next time.
This time… well, this time I’m stuck with playing catch up all week.
Photo credit: Sara Nel
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As often as possible, I schedule my time off in-between issues when I have downtime. When that’s not possible, I get as much done beforehand as I can manage.
It’s not that difficult for me because I’m on regular schedule as far as workload. It doesn’t fluctuate much.
Finn | October 28th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Buffer, plan B, and pre-planning. That’s how I get through darned near EVERY weekend, be it three days or two. That, and putting my foot down that we are at home, with no visitors, come 5:00 pm on Sunday evenings. (I do not want to be away from home visiting nor entertaining visitors at my house at 9 or later, which is what used to happen every single Sunday since our baby was born. 4 a.m. Monday arrives far too quickly.)
CV | October 29th, 2009 at 8:08 am