The Daily Grind
Wake. Dress. Brush teeth. Morning hugs to all five of them. A protein bar and a cup of coffee (two creams). Head upstairs to work. Check email. Read a few news sites.
Look at the day’s to-do list. (List is set up using Apple Mail To Do function.)
Open Tweetdeck. Chirp, chirp. Respond to those ambitious souls who are at work before 9 am and have already been twittering away.
Knock-out emergencies, reply to overnight emails, get jobs posted to FTP servers.
Revise, revise, revise.
Lunch. At desk while reading blogs/news/facebook.
Walk 300 yards to mailbox. Pray for check. Fret or rejoice.
Check to see if anyone has sent me a new project. Fret or rejoice.
Start work on new projects. Image research, thumbnails, brainstorming lists.
Getty, Veer, Corbis. iStock, Photocase, Getty. Sigh.
Tweet.
About 3 pm I realize how little I’ve gotten done so far. Panic.
More image research. Diet Coke.
Begin first comp. Remember that I should really purge my font library.
Look at email one last time to see if a new project has been sent. Fret or rejoice.
If check arrived head to bank to make deposit. If not, remember how many jobs haven’t been invoiced.
Call it a day.
(Return to work—if necessary—after the rest of the family is asleep.)
1 or 2 am: To bed. Give thanks for family/job/life. Fall asleep listening to music/talk on iPhone.
Zzzzzzz.
You?
Image courtesy of Flickr.
5 Responses
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When I had an office a few months back, I woke up before everyone, sneaked out as quietly as i could and rode my bike to the bus stop where i waited and then treked to work and was there by 9am. Usually greeted by my 2 work partners who were already banging away with coffee in hand.
Now, working from home it’s not much different than you chris. I wake up, make some food for everyone, walk the dog while I touch bases with my work partners and then shove something in my gut and head to my humble basement office. I do my morning tweets, little image research, email check—and then I’m off on half a dozen covers and changes and interiors for book on everything from historical fiction novels, YA fiction, self help, business, etc etc…
I confess here that I do kick the occasional smoke out side. Helps clear my head and fill my lungs. Other than that I barely break for lunch and work till about 6 and then resume work at 12pm if I need to. can’t really complain.
I would say my day is broken up into these percentages:
10% email and online surfing
75% Work (including image research and looking at for inspiration)
10% Family related duties (i.e. make food, dressing, bath, walk, dishes, laundry etc)
5% “free time” which is usually spent sketching and brainstorming anyway. -
One of the main reasons my husband and I bought a house was so we’d have separate offices. Our previous situation had me and him working in an open-concept space where I could swivel around to toast bread, watch television, or, um, work, depending on the chair angle.
I keep things pretty regimented so that there is some sort of work/life divide. At my desk by 9, emails and tweets and catching up for an hour, then onto real work. Lunch is for one hour – and always outside the house (I need the escape). Work ends anytime between 4 and 6pm, depending on deadlines.
In my first hour of work, I try to figure out what I want to work on first: more conceptual stuff or more maintenace stuff (corrections, typesetting, mechanical layout, etc.). I’ll divide up my day accordingly. Once a week I spend time on administrative duties. And like most freelancers, I keep an ear out for the post just in case a cheque arrived.
I do work some weekends. Not pretty, but necessary. If that happens, then I’ll try to find time later on to treat myself to a longer lunch (with friends), or an afternoon off. Otherwise it would be too easy for my home to become too much my office, and I’d never feel free.
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I think that in comparison to all the comments above, my day is rather light and lazy.
I also have a day job, so I usually try to get up when my husband does, but usually it’s more like 6:30. Out the door by 7, in the office by 7:30. Assess the number of emails/jobs I have and work on any urgent jobs first. If my workload is a little light (like today) I may check out my blogs to get inspiration before attempting any creative covers.
The course of the day really depends on the time of year. During rush season, it’s catalog layout and marketing pieces most of the day, squeezing in a book cover design when I can. During the slow season, I try to work on as many book covers as possible.
Leave by 4:30 (5 at latest), go home, eat dinner with husband, fill evening with personal art projects, books, tv, art classes, taewondo, depending on the day. Sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I want to eventually be a freelancer, but that is more for my interests in children’s illustration instead of book design.
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Good topic – nice to see how others are managing. Like you, I work from my home office. My partner leaves the house for her job at 7:45am so I’m on kid duty until I’ve dropped both at their respective day care and school. At my desk with a second cup of coffee in hand by 9:30am. Email, blogs, news, Twitter, podcasts, phone calls: 1 hour.
Then…
Having taken on book design full-time only this past year, I spend quite a bit of time looking for new work – researching publishers, building contact lists, sending out intro emails, staying in touch, and updating my portfolio. It also means familiarizing myself with who’s doing what in book design, figuring out the industry/community “rules”, and understanding where the opportunities are. Right now the work is just trickling in so, unless there’s a looming deadline, this is what I’m doing.
For sanity’s sake I do, three or four times a week, try to get in a head-clearing hike or ride on one of the forest trails near the house before I sit down to work. And regular coffee dates with friends help get me out of my own head for a while.
Finally, because my workdays are bookended by my kids’ relatively short days, evening/weekend work is unavoidable right now. I hope that building up a more regular, dependable workload will allow for better balance. Soon. But, hey, new career, new city and a couple of young kids… well, I just dunno.
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