My typical winter work day
My desk
I’ve been working almost 5 months as a freelancer, and although it gives me much greater freedom than I had when I was in my day job, I still have to put in a normal 8-hour (or so) work day. What I find hard is actually separating between work and private life, although I’m not sure if it is actually a problem, but it is still not easy to distinguish between “working” and “surfing for leisure”. It gets dark and cold in the winter in Norway, and personally I’d rather sit in front of my PC and do something productive than watch TV.
So here is what a typical day looks like for me in case you ever wondered what us freelancers do:
6.00 – Get woken up by girlfriend. Try to fall asleep again.
7.30 – Stumble out of bed, and get the coffee machine fired up.
8-9.30 – Check my email and answer or attend to any new e-mail. Log into WooThemes admin and check the e-mail to see if there are any problems, then answer all the new forum posts. Check how our sales are going (this is addictive so I usually do this 5-20 times a day).
9.30-10.00 – Check my stock to see how low it has dropped since I bought it. Check my Google Reader for the latest news around the interweb. This would be seen as slacking in my old job… now it is necessary 
10-11.00 – Usually have my daily skype chat with Adii and sometimes Mark if he manages to get out of bed. These chats are vital to running WooThemes and also really helpful at motivating me to get things done.
11-16.00 – Do some bug / feature coding on our themes. Working on implementing threaded comments at the moment. Otherwise I spend most my time on theme development or general admin work on WooThemes.
16-17.00 – Usually get bored of working if there isn’t a specific design I’m working on. Jam a bit on my guitar until my gf comes home and I need turn it down.
17-20.00 – Random checks on WooThemes e-mail/forum and Google Reader. Remember it’s dark outside so only thing I can do is go to the gym or go for a walk 
20-24.00 – Dedicated to laying on the couch watching TV and winding down from thinking on business stuff. I’ve noticed it is harder to get to sleep if I stay up late and design/program because I can’t stop thinking about it when I go to bed.
So is my typical day anything like yours?
Tags: Freelancing, winter, work
Jan 5, 2009
Not much different fromm mine except that I wake up at 9.30.
I spend most of the day browsing or doing something in Dreamweaver/Fireworks and then at 18.30 it’s time to go to the uni (18.30 – 24.00).
Studying at night leaves me with lots off free time.
Then when I get home and I just watch some tvseries (plus some extra browsing) before going to bed.
Jan 5, 2009
Wow Tiago… didn’t know you could do Uni at night! Wish somebody told me that and I would have moved to Portugal
Jan 5, 2009
Of course you can! Ok, you share the classes with the some middle age guys but it’s not that bad!
You’re still more than welcome to come
.
Jan 5, 2009
Hm, this inspires me to post a list like this myself. Nice one!
Husk at det går mot lysere tider!
Jan 5, 2009
Ah so that’s the desk for all the WooThemes IE bugs gets fixed…
Now I know as well… So glad I have a Mac and *can’t* fix IE bugs…
Jan 6, 2009
That looks like my Dell 24″ monitor. Good thing that works well with my Macboook Pro since I am finally PC Free (at least at home – just uloaded my last PC desktop yesterday). Love Mac!!
Jan 8, 2009
I’m so jealous. I would love to be on the net all day doing stuff for my websites.
But what a fun thing to do – share what you do during the day; like Mia, I think I may do this on my website (eventually).
Just a quick testimonial: I’ve watched Woo Themes develop from afar and hadn’t made a purchase until the 4 for 1 special in Dec. 2008. What a good deal!
I’ve used one of the freebies for a random personal blog and have used some of the other themes for projects of friend’s businesses around my town.
Thanks for the stellar service in the support forums. Now if only the banks, insurance cos, and hospitals could give such great service like you guys.
Feb 7, 2009
[...] in all honesty it’s Dean’s creative vision and good taste that made it look this good. Magnus Jepson, the theme designer and cofounder at WooThemes also deserves a big shout out. Let’s just say [...]