Allchorn Design

Managing my time is something I used to struggle with. Nowadays, I seem to have more spare time than a lot of people and even making a decent living. I don’t believe I’ve stumbled onto some secret, but rather through reading up a bit about it and actually acting on advice (some good, some bad), I’ve managed to find a happy medium where I don’t work like a slave for a pittance, but when things need to get done, they do.

My fiancee commented today that I’m actually quite diligent about my work time and although I don’t clock in at 8am and clock out at 5pm with a 30min lunch break from 1pm - 1:30pm, I do tend to work a full 8hr day and usually more.

Occasionally (more often than not), I start around 9am or just after and tend to get stuck into some recommended reading. Of course industry related stuff and I attend to most email enquiries and urgent IM discussions in the early part of the day.

The most of the rest of the daytime duties include emailing quotes, writing emails and general client communication and updates. Sometimes with a design comp. being worked on in Photoshop on the extra screen.

Come mid afternoon (around 3pm onwards) I reach my creative peak, and generally get stuck into something which requires a fully operational mind. This is my time spent on important quotes, writing scope documents, conceptualizing strategies, ploughing through design concepts and generally doing all the meat of my work.

This peak time can go well into the night with only necessary breaks being in the way of me working right through (eating, bathroom and the occasional clear-my-mind walk around the house). I generally don’t let it go past 11pm though, and if I start early, or there is some important “domestic” thing to do (grocery shopping etc.), I can usually pick up on things the following day.

If my time is not filled or I am waiting on someone to send something through before I can continue, I usually get stuck into improving my efficiancy by building templates for important documents, honing my skills by watching or reading tutorials, and working on new design concepts for my own personal projects which I may or may not ever use.

I believe that if you have a passion for what you do, you need to treat every moment you can as one that can be used to improve on what you know and how you do things. This has made me a bit of a forum junkie, and my online browsing experience is heavily modified and optimised to my interests using the Google Home Page.

There is heaps of advice online about time management, and my method won’t work for someone merely trying to make money. My day is structured around someone who is passionate about the internet, computing, design and running an effective, professional business.

I don’t wear a tie if I can avoid it, I prefer people not call me after hours (within reason) and I have the freedom to pick and choose when, where and how I work. As long as my clients and I (and my bank account) are happy… whose to argue with my lifestyle?

Last word: Creative productivity does not come from 8hrs of scheduled labour. Productivity in a creative field comes from passion, diligence, patience and hard work that doesn’t necessarily keep office hours.