Often when people leave their jobs to work on their own thing you can have too much freedom. Without an unrealisic amount of self discipline and drive, you have too much unstructured time and it’s hard to decide what to fill it with.
Me, like many founders, did not enjoy my time being accounted for while working for a full time job. When you go from employment to working for yourself, creating a schedule on your own terms can be very beneficial.
This is different for everyone, but I've actually found a flexible 9-5 Monday to Friday work schedule, has been successful.
Having clear weekly deadlines also helps. For me this looks like:
- Every Wednesday - Indie Bites and my client podcast published at 6am
- Every Thursday - Make Lemonade at 4pm
- Every Friday - a handful of other client deadlines
This means within that 9-5 schedule I can have as much flexibility as I want, as long as I hit those deadlines. It’s easier to stick to the 9-5 daily, but when I want a Monday afternoon off (sometimes necessary) I know that I’ll have to sacrifice a Tuesday evening, or wake up a few hours earlier to hit my deadlines.
Part of solving this was planning my week. Specific days where I record and edit, with the amount of time it takes for each piece of work accounted for. Adding in structure. But the key thing - scheduling in breathing room. There is no point packing my schedule with work and deadlines when one little slip makes me out of sync. So making my Thursday and Fridays more open gives me the breathing room I need.
Those Thursday and Fridays, if I’m feeling good, also help me build up a buffer to avoid scrambling for deadlines. It’s something I’m yet to nail, but building up a backlog of podcast episodes to publish or wallets to ship is the goal here.
Other founders, have you found a schedule that works for you? Or if you have a side hustle, how do you make time for it? I'm keen to continue this conversation on Twitter.