It is almost the start of May and for work at home ghost writers who have children this means only one thing, school holidays. School holidays affect all parents but for those of us who work from home it means total disruption. Your work schedule really does go out the window and now is the time to start planning.
There are two main options:
1. Schedule your ghost writing work for early in the morning
2. Schedule your ghost writing work for late at night
I have two children aged 3 and 6. My daughter Emma is in school 5 days a week until 2pm. My son Conor on the other hand only attends Montessori three mornings a week from 9.30am to 12.30pm. My work schedule revolves around school. I have three mornings that are dedicated to client work. This gives me 2 hours of full on work every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Once the end of June hits I won’t have this dedicated time and this is why I need to start planning my new work schedule now.
These 6 dedicated work hours have to be rescheduled into my day or I have to cut back on client work. I normally tend to work for an hour in the evening when my children have gone to bed so increasing this to 2 hours each evening will allow me to keep on top of things throughout the summer months.
With the change in work schedule it will also mean less time for myself in the evenings and of course less time to spend with my husband. The other alternative that I have is to get up a couple of hours earlier in the morning. I can tell you straight off that I know this won’t happen. I am not an early bird and if I do get up early I tend to focus on household chores more so than client work.
If you are one of the ghost writers who work for 4 or 5 hours on a daily basis you will probably find it more difficult to devise a summer work schedule and that is why it is important to start looking at it now.
What ideas or plans do you have for your summer work schedule? Have you even thought about it yet? I made the mistake about two years ago of not being prepared and it took me a couple of weeks to get organised. I found myself sitting at my computer until the early hours of the morning trying to catch up on work and I promised myself I wouldn’t do it again.
Being a work from home parent is a learning experience. You need to be prepared for every possible event and be able to revise your schedule to accommodate it. How prepared are you?
Until next time,
Keep Writing
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Amanda,
Ugh. I’m struggling with this right now. School ends on May 20th here and I’ve yet to get on a schedule. I better get it figured out – fast!
George
Thanks George,
You still have a couple of weeks left so plenty of time work something out.
Amanda
Amanda, I was caught unprepared last year. I had homeschooled my three older children (now 7 year old twins and 9 year old) a couple years ago and people used to ask me how I managed. I was much more organized back then because I had to be. Once I put them in school and summer vacation rolled around, I was completely unprepared. My income dropped considerably.
School is out this coming Friday and I’m trying to get my new work schedule in place. I’m not much of an early morning person either so I’ll be spending late nights working. Thanks for the reminder.