How to Manage Your Time When Working from Home

My wife asked me the other day:

“Tapos mo na ba yung mga deadlines mo, hon?”

With a smug face I replied:

“Sus, kahapon pa.” I was proud and feeling mayabang for finishing my urgent tasks.

“Ay very good—-galing hon… Uhm, tutal di ka naman pala busy, ikaw na magpaligo kay Max, ok lang?”

The smirk on my face was wiped in an instant.

“Naisahan na naman ako. Why oh why, do I always fall for that trap?”, I mumbled.

As I was scrubbing my 4-yr old’s kili-kili with soap, I thought about my current work-from-home schedule.

I thought long and hard about what worked in the last few months of working as a freelance content writer.

As of the moment, I have 4 clients. Two are based abroad and the other two are local.

Doing a quick mental math in my head I realize that I now work an average of 15-20 hours per week. Considering I used to have a regular 9-hour graveyard shift job just over a year ago (a total of 45 hours a week, not including prep and travel time), my current setup is simply so much better.

And here’s the kicker: I earn significantly more than my last full-time job. Plus, I no longer have expenses like food and gas.

Related: 5 Important Questions to ask yourself before Freelancing

I’ve been lucky. I’m now working with clients who are in for the long term. If I’ll be honest, the only thing that will probably end my fruitful relationship with them is my reliability and output. And anyone working from home will tell you that discipline is key if you want to make this whole thing work.

The only problem is, I’m not a disciplined guy when it comes to work. Believe me, I’m not being modest. One day you’ll see me spending all my hours just reading, running errands, and taking care of my kids, the next day I panic and cram like a college student with a thesis deadline.

So what’s my secret?

Now that I think about it, I realize I only have two things going for me in terms of productivity:

First is my ability and willingness to adapt to my current situation or schedule, the other is my routine of waking up early (between 4 and 5AM, even on weekends).

Let’s take a look at why this worked for me.

A willingness to adapt to whatever schedule is handed over to you by fate (at any given time) lets you have a positive, “can-do” attitude. This, my friend, is uber-important.

At some point last year, I simply had no time in the day to work on my writing. My solution? Wake up extra early. For a few weeks, I rose at 2AM and worked until 6AM—or until I started to get hungry.

Instead of complaining and thinking, “Ang malas ko naman”, I looked at my dilemma as a challenge waiting to be won.

As Mark Manson explained it in his book, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”:

“Happiness comes from solving problems”.

Not from that new iPhone, not from your new car, your booked trip to South Korea, or whatever shiny new object that gives you that initial dopamine high.

Because, as Manson argues, the happiness from those moments are usually short lived. Once you get used to your new things, you’ll lose interest in them and look somewhere for that “new one”. It’s a never-ending loop de loop that have you running like a mouse in a wheel.

Remember the last time you really gave it your best to solve a really tough problem—whether at work or personal life—felt awesome, right?

Or that one time when you thought you were at the end of your ropes only to realize you had so much more left in your tank—like an aged boxing champ still lasting 12 rounds and winning. After the ordeal, you “leveled up”.

And that’s the beauty of adaptability—resilience if you will. Working from home may have its perks, but it comes with a lot of cons too.

As Spiderman’s oft-quoted Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

We work-from-home peeps have the power to control our working day. Literally. Unless you’re bound to your desk on a fixed sched (taking calls, for example), you can basically decide when you want to finish your work.

And while that sounds awesome, the trade-off is a bigger temptation to slack off. Instead of finishing this article, for example, I thought, “How about a quick episode of “You” first?”

Or a 30-minute sesh gaming in my PC? Wait, there’s a Celtics game right now, gonna watch it first.

I’m not saying that people who work from home always succumb to such temptations. To those who have nerves of steel to resist procrastination’s call, my hat’s off to you. Seriously.

And that’s probably why I developed these two time-management “systems/mindsets” in the first place. Since I know that I don’t always have the time to work during the day nor the willpower to fight procrastination consistently, I have to develop a game plan that will allow me to bypass these two roadblocks so I can hit my daily targets.

Time Management tip #1: Adaptability

System number 1 (adaptability) tells me to never be stuck thinking about my lack of time and instead always look for solutions.

Here’s a perfect example. A few weeks ago, our second son was born.

Today I woke up at 4AM, ready to make my cup of coffee and start working on my M.I.T (most important task). This has been my routine for the last couple of months.

But apparently our newborn likes getting up at around the same time—which I actually like because I get to play with him—but it also meant saying goodbye to my “prime working hours”.

Here’s what happened: After 45 minutes of daddy duties with the little man, I realized he was not slowing down. And, he was getting hungry. Not able to entertain him anymore, he burst into a classic “u-ha” with tears which woke up his mom. To cut the long story short, the baby got his milk, was sent to Lala land in 30 minutes (I volunteered for the “pa-burp” part) and I can now start working.

I checked the clock: It’s quarter to 6. Feeling unusually tired (even after drinking kapeng barako), I gave in and decided to hit the bed again. After almost an hour of dozing, I wake up and make a cup of tea.

“Eto na talaga masusulat na ko”.

And while I’m content adding 500 words to an article I’m finishing, it’s really not up to par in terms of quantity with my usual output.

So, what to do?

Well, time to adjust. It’s time to come up with a new game plan—an alternate schedule to accommodate the inevitable daddy duties that may or may not happen randomly throughout the day.

Am I worried? Not one bit.

I know that I’ll find a solution to my current situation. I’m ready to adapt. And no matter what time constraints I find myself in, I always tell myself I’m still in a much better position compared to when I had to work at night and sleep 4-5 hours during the day.

In the end, it’s really about making the most out of my situation. That’s what my system number 1 is all about. To not panic and remain calm amidst ever-changing routines and schedules. As James Cameron (director of Titanic and Avatar) once said:

“Hope is not a strategy. Luck is not a factor. Fear is not an option”.

Freelancers and work-from-home peeps always get this comment: “Wow, sarap buhay ka sa bahay ka lang nagwo-work!”

In reality though, we’re like ducks who appear to float effortlessly on water. Beneath the surface though, you’ll see we’re paddling our feet like crazy.

Time Management tip #2: Wake up early

This article by Benjamin Hardy echoes most of my reasons behind waking up early. But mainly, it’s about committing to working on my most important tasks (writing articles) on a daily basis so I won’t get swamped with work.

Do I hit my targets regularly? No, not really. But it’s enough to not get crushed with a mountain of work. It’s still a work in progress, I can say I’m at 60% of the productivity that I’m aiming for.

My ideal workday is to simply have an uninterrupted 4 hours of writing time. That’s it, that’s all I want. Writing, as anyone doing it will tell you, gets tiring after a few thousand words (my daily limit is 2,000) and you won’t get much mileage after reaching your limit. At least that’s how it is for me.

Waking up early guarantees me 2 hours of solid writing time. Which means that I only have to “look for” the other 2 hours at some other part of the day. Usually, it comes in the form of 10/15/30 minute chunks scattered across the hours before and after lunch. The hard part is to find the discipline to identify these small chunks of time and force myself to write.

Yes, I force myself to write. I have to. Any work-from-home parent will tell you that each minute of the day is precious, so you really have to make each one count. I can’t wait to get inspired. And while this may sound horrible for a writer, it actually isn’t. In content writing, it’s really all about having tons of data and resources to reference and pull ideas from. I have a simple process of getting data and outlining them before I do the actual writing. So the only real hard part is coming with some fresh angle and present it in an entertaining and engaging manner.

Most of the research and outlining happens in the morning. Once I have a decent outline (with lots of data), I then start plugging in words as my schedule permits. Sometimes, I even use my phone to write my articles. Google docs is an excellent app for syncing your writing across your devices.

Combining my 2-hour work session in the morning with random small pockets of writing time throughout the day is essentially my daily routine.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it works for me. At least for now. I still want that 4-hours of uninterrupted writing time, it would let me accomplish a lot more consistently. But only time can tell if fate will be kind enough to reward me with that working schedule. And with a new baby at home, it might take awhile before I get the luxury of such a schedule.

But hey, no complaints here. As I’ve said, I’m extremely thankful with my job right now. It’s hard to feel bad not having a more regimented schedule when you realize you won’t have to go through all the cons of having a regular 8-5 day job.

My last piece of advice to anyone working from home is this: You can make it work.

You just have to start with the right mindset and develop your own systems and routines that fits your situation well.

In time, you’ll appreciate a work-from-home setup despite all of its negatives, you just have to keep an open mind and have the discipline stick to your game plan—no matter what.