Working Schedule of a (hustling) Freelancer

Freelancing and entrepreneurship is all about working your ass off to make your passion your career.

It’s also about time management, and that could be one of the toughest things for a work-at-home freelancer.  It’s often hard to tell when to stop working, when to start, when to wake up, when to take a break, etc.

In case you haven’t noticed that second logo down there in the sidebar, that’s my second business, ThemeJam.  It’s a WordPress Themes shop (yes, another one).  ThemeJam is still a work in progress, and currently has a temporary site up.  I’m hoping to launch it in early 2010… read the full details about ThemeJam here.

Since moving into my new apartment and work space back in November, I have changed my working schedule somewhat.  Before the move, my working schedule was quite similar to most people.  Wake up early, take lunch around noon, and work until the early evening before calling it quits for the night.

But now that I’m involved in this work-intensive side project (ThemeJam), I have to divide my time more carefully.  Here’s my new (approximate) working schedule:

• 10:00am – 11:00am: Wake up, breakfast, nytimes.com / Google Reader / Twitter
• 11:00am – 1:00pm: Emails, client work
• 1:00pm – 1:30pm: Lunch / more blog/Twitter reading
• 1:30pm – 4:00pm: Client work
• 4:00pm – 5:00pm: Gym (or continue client work)
• 5:00pm – 7:00pm: Email, finish up client work
• 7:00pm – 12:00am: Dinner, chillax, Daily show / Colbert
• 12:00am – 3:00am: Work on personal projects (mostly ThemeJam)
• sleep and repeat

Yup, I’m now a late-night worker and I’m kind of enjoying it.  It’s so peaceful and quiet late at night (I live on a noisy street in New York City) and I’m getting lots of personal work done during these late-night sessions.

After I get through the ThemeJam launch, I may go back to a more normal working schedule, but for now I’m enjoying taking advantage of the freelance lifestyle : )

Separation of work and… work

I’m finding that it’s very important to separate client work from personal project work.  I’m very excited about working on WordPress themes and building out the ThemeJam store, but I can’t let it interfere with my current business of serving web design clients.  That’s why I’m focusing on client work during the day-time work hours and then dedicating late-nights (and parts of weekends) to sinking my teeth into this new venture.