My Day as a Freelance Designer

My Day as a Freelance Designer | Native State Design Co.

I’m fascinated by the daily routines of other people. I’ve been drawn in to countless buzzfeed, click-baited articles promising to enlighten me on the morning routines of successful people. I realized that many people, including my own friends and family, probably don’t know what I (or other entrepreneurs) do in a normal day, or how I manage to balance work with kids. So here’s a diary of my typical workday.

 

6:30 am

I wake up, dress and hopefully have coffee going before my kids wake up.

7:00 am

I dress, feed, and pack up the kids for a morning at childcare.

9:00 am

I drop the last kid and settle in for three glorious, uninterrupted hours of focused work at a coffee shop near the pre-school. This is when I do the heavy lifting on my to-do list. I try to stay off the internet as along as possible and stay far away from my phone, Facebook, and Pinterest during this time. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you eliminate distractions.

12 noon

I pick up the kids, head home and eat lunch with them. I love this break in my work day which forces me to take a mental break from my daily tasks and focus on eating a good lunch and hearing all about what happened at school that morning.

1:00 pm

The kids (usually) are napping or resting quietly in their rooms. I use these to hours to wrap up anything from the morning I didn’t finish, respond to emails, etc.

3:00 pm

This is usually when Daniel gets home if he was working outside the house and when the kids wake up. We spend these few hours before dinner chatting about our days, cleaning up the house, and starting dinner prep. If I’m on a tight deadline, Daniel will take over the kids and I’ll hide out and work until dinner.

5:30 pm

Family dinner! And yes! 5:30! We try to make a point to do dinner together with no electronic devices every night. With an almost 2-year-old in the house, that means eating early. It’s a special time that I have come to cherish.

6:30 pm

The baby goes to bed and the big kid hangs out and helps us clean the kitchen (he absolutely loves washing dishes). More time to chat about our days while our hands are busy.

7:30 pm

The big kid goes to bed and then Daniel and I spend time together, or if one of us has an activity that night we head out. I do a lot of my illustrations and lettering during these hours while I watch the telly and have a glass of wine. It’s a nice way to wind down the day while checking off to-do list items.

And that’s a typical day! If we are working on a huge project with a tight deadline, I will work late into the night sometimes, but for the most part I am able to knock out the big stuff during my focused morning work. Some days I put in a lot of hours, and it never stops at 5pm sharp, but having set breaks in my day keeps life balanced as a business owner. This schedule is about to change completely as my five-year-old begins Kindergarten this fall, so I’ll be coming up with a new schedule and routine to keep myself productive. Wish me luck!

How does a typical day look for you? Are you a business owners? Do you have a side-hustle? How do you maintain balance in your life? Moms, how have you found ways to effectively juggle work and time with your kids?

Sarah

My Day as a Freelance Designer