So, ok that isn’t my actual laptop pictured. My little girl is at school now, so the toys she leaves about aren’t quite like those anymore, but nevertheless, she does leave toys about that I find in odd places throughout the day. It’s all part of the fun of working from home. Something I have been doing most days since I started my own business 10 years ago.
I thought you might like to read a bit about what happens behind the scenes here at Oyster Flame headquarters.
Pre-COVID I used to get up and get both myself and my daughter ready for the day and then head off on the school run. We didn’t used to see my husband in the mornings, as he’d already left for the office. But whilst my husband is working from home and now the schools are back open, he does the school run, giving me almost an extra hour to myself each weekday morning.
Most days now I’m working soon after 9am, once breakfast is cleared, and the house has had a little tidy up, and I’ve made myself another cup of tea to sit down with of course.
I have several clients currently, so prioritise and plan when I’ll be working for each ahead of the week, so I know what I’m doing on a daily basis when I login. I use sightly different technology for each client. But in the main broadly similar sorts of tools.
When I get started I make sure social media posts that were scheduled have gone live, engage with my clients followers, I check mailboxes and respond, provide support required, prepare newsletters, update databases, create Canva images, post client customer testimonials, create documents, all sorts, depending what needs doing. At some point during the morning, I will make my client calls over MS Teams, Zoom and sometimes Skype.
Sometimes I take a break for a 1-2-1 networking meeting over coffee or even lunch, then it’s back home for a little bit more work. But at 2:45pm I have to stop and head off on the school run. That is the beauty of working for myself, and being my own boss. I set the hours I work, and I don’t work at school pick up, so I can be in the school playground, to hear all about my daughters day.
My daughter does varying different after school clubs on different days of the week. So depending which club my daughter is at, the facilities available and how long the club runs for, will depend how I spend the time. I sometimes meet up with someone or work whilst the club is on. There are always bits I can do, and I plan ahead how I am going to spend these time slots each week, to get the most out of them.
During these time slots, I catch up on things like LinkedIn, create my own Canva images, update my Capsule CRM, respond to emails/messages, phonecalls and so much more. I just need to organise myself so I take the right devices and notebooks/paperwork with me to get the tasks done.
Once home, life is all about making and eating dinner, most nights of the week we share a family meal together, then it’s bath and bedtime. I love that time of the day, chatting about the day, practicing timetables and spellings, reading bedtime stories to each other, it’s what family life is all about to me.
Once my daughter is in bed, there’s normally just enough time to clear up before sitting down to watch an hour of TV with my husband at 9pm, either something that is on TV or something we’ve recorded or watching on catch up.
He’s an early riser, so likes to get to bed between 10:00-10:30pm. Me, on the other hand, I don’t tend to go to bed until 11:30pm. So I often use that time to catch up on admin, planning and maybe doing tasks like writing blogs, just like this one.
Most days are the same to an extent, although completely different, if you get my drift. Then Friday’s I try to find time for me, when I might go shopping, have a treatment, meet friends for coffee or lunch, even sometimes just catch-up on some TV I’ve missed.
Then the weekends are all about family time, until Sunday evening, which is when I set my goals for the week and schedule my social media for the week ahead. And that’s it, we are back to Monday when we do it all over again. School term time anyway.