Читать книгу The Freelance Mum: A flexible career guide for better work-life balance - Annie Ridout - Страница 25

I’ve always been happy spending time alone, so for me it works to set myself up on the end of my dining-room table and type away with a view of the garden. Also, I found this easier to fit around my children’s naps. That said, there were a few months when my son wanted to sleep at the exact same time I had to drop my daughter at nursery, so I’d find myself waving goodbye to her then reclining the buggy and doing some vigorous jiggling until he dropped off. I’d park up by a bench – anywhere – and work on my phone: emails, writing, editing. It wasn’t ideal – mostly because there was no toilet. Or coffee. But going into a cafe was going to wake him from his sleep, so in order to best utilise this time, a bench it was.

I now work from home or my local coffee shop, which has fast and free wifi, excellent coffee and nice cheese toasties for lunch. I rack up a bill of around £12, which isn’t much considering on my work days I might be there from 9.30 a.m. until 3 p.m. Others prefer to use the local library, a shared workspace – some even come with a crèche (there’s a list of these at the end of the book) – or you might be able to make use of the crèche at your gym – half an hour on the running machine, followed by an hour and a half of work.

Something I’ve recently started doing is borrowing a friend’s house to work in. She and her boyfriend are out during the day, Monday–Friday, and they have a cat who likes company. It means I don’t have to commando-crawl out of the kitchen when my son comes home from the Toy Library with his childminder – if he sees me, he doesn’t want to be parted again – but I also don’t have to pay for coffee. This exchange could work well if you have a friend whose dog needs walking. Or perhaps you could spend your last hour cooking dinner for their return? Worth it, for a free workspace.

Lucy Mangan – Stylist columnist, Guardian writer, author – says that her greatest challenge as a freelancer is feeling she’s doing neither work nor motherhood properly. ‘I’d prefer to be doing one thing, as well as I can,’ she says. So attempting to work from home while her seven-year-old son is there can create tension. ‘Multitasking is not my thing,’ she says, ‘especially when I’m doing creative writing. I need long, uninterrupted stretches of time. And a quiet space. But as your child gets older, they become more demanding. They want to spend time with you. Of course they do. But this means I can’t just shut myself in my study, so now I’m working more outside of the home; in the library. I’ve also joined a private member’s club. It’s so lovely to be looked after – people bring you food that you haven’t had to cook, and coffee. It’s tax deductible so I pay £600 a year for my membership.’

Having somewhere to work outside of the home also removes you from a domestic setting, which can be distracting (laundry to be hung out, packages being delivered, etc.). ‘As a freelancer, you need to be more selfish than you feel comfortable with,’ says Lucy. ‘If I’m in the house, I feel all the domestic duties coming at me. But if I leave the house, they can’t intrude on my mental space.’ Of course, working outside of the home means you have less control over your surroundings – including noise. ‘Always carry headphones and white noise to block out irritating sounds,’ she advises. ‘It’s incredibly frustrating when you plan to work on the train for four hours and end up next to someone playing music loudly on their mobile. But white noise will drown them out. Or you can just ask them to be quiet.’