Last week at my new job of working for myself was harder than I imagined. Working from home when you have a dayjob is totally different than working from home when you have no dayjob. It's still nice for sure but I definitely took longer lunches when I was working from home with a dayjob.

Tuesday I went to go work at my parents' house (I hope to work outside my house one day a week) and felt panicky. I had work that was due immediately, interviews to set up, work that was due soon, pitches to send and follow up on, stuff to research, people to contact, emails to reply to and also this blog and maybe my novel. And also I wanted to go for a run and go to the grocery store and take a shower before I got the kids. Where to start, what to focus on, how much time to spend on everything (and try to keep track of that time) was overwhelming. It was all stuff I wanted to do, too. I stayed up late that night and Wednesday night answering and organizing emails just so I could feel ahead of my work.

But each day I felt a little bit more like I had a handle on things. Walking Paul to and from preschool in the mornings and afternoons was a really nice way to feel like there was an official start and end to the day. I turned in two pieces, edited several, went to a meeting, did what felt like dozens of interviews and even worked on precisely four pages of my novel (per a friend's advice I'm typing it anew because it's what I need to do to remember what I was writing.) And I worked out every day too! (Actually I really needed that, just for the mental break.)

I don't mind the hustle aspect of full-time freelancing but I realized that I needed to start organizing and streamlining in order to prioritize my work. I started making a subfolder for every client so that I could get emails out of my face but be able to find them easily. And I think I might start designating days to write, send pitches, reach out to contacts because otherwise when I can't figure out where to start I begin to panic.

I'm writing this Friday night. While I'm exhausted, I've already done work I find so interesting and I feel tired in a way that's satisfying and I'm really happy on a Friday night to be already thinking about having to drive to work on Monday. So I'll give it another week.