What Are Your Work Hours?
This week’s Weekend Forum is inspired by a post by Jimena Sanchez on her Spanish-language Illustration blog, Illustrando en Mexico.
In her post, she recounts a personal story about setting work hours as a freelance creative professional. An English translation of her thought-provoking and sometimes humorous article can be seen below.
Reading Jimena’s words made me wonder what other artists would have to say about this topic.
Do you set boundaries for your clients by determining work hours?
How do you balance this with the ability to accommodate your clients?
Please join the conversation and find out what your fellow artists have to say in the comments section of this post.
Here’s Jimena’s post in English:
Last Friday night I was at a party, when all of a sudden, one of my friends gor a call from a client. The whole room went silent when we realized that it was a client calling our friend at 11:30 pm on a Friday night to ask for some illustrations that needed to be done by Monday morning. This wasn’t the type of job where out of the blue the editor needs something done urgently (and pays accordingly), she was just an art director in desperate need of a clock.
Personaly, I was shocked and offended. It made me remember my childhood, when you call your friend’s house and a very unfriendly voice answers “why are you calling at this ungodly hour?!”.
I understand that you can’t generalize when it comes to the working ours of a freelance illustrator. To some, like me, illustration is a full time job. For others it’s a way to suplement their income, and have part time or full time jobs. There are also those who are still in school and are either talented or lucky enough to get a head start on their career. What I don’t understand is how a client can have the naive idea that we are some sort of robot, that only comes to life the moment he/she calls, and that we don’t need food, rest or human interaction.
Now, how do we set boundaries? I think it all starts by speaking up. Many clients are much more reasonable than they seem, and I think that explaining how you work and what you consider to be office hours should be enough in most cases. Of course, there will always be crazy people who do not undestand the meaning of time, and they may respond badly to an explanation (but I would love to aswer my phone some time and pretend to be a call center “you are calling the office of Jimena Sánchez, if you are calling me from China press one, if you have completely lost any reference of time and space please press two, if you think this is acceptable behavior please hang up!”)
Now it’s your turn!
What are your work hours? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
About Jimena Sanchez: Jimena Sanchez S. was born and raised in Mexico City. In 2005, she graduated from the National School of Arts, where she mayored in Visual Comunications. Jimena has been a full time freelance illustrator since 2006, and she has published her work in magazines and books in México and the US, as well as participated in group exhibitions. She is a collaborator for the web comic Ensalada de Moneros and the founder of the blog Ilustrando en México, where she shares her adventures trying to make it as a freelance illustrator. You can find her work at www.jimenasanchez.com.
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I’ve been freelancing for ten years now; full-time. I don’t just do illustration work but also design and programming. Here’s my typical day/week.
I wake up daily at 3:45am. Grab some coffee and read my email/rss feeds. That takes about 10 min. Then I start working. Why start around 4am? Because I won’t answer a client’s call until after 8am and that gives me four or five hours of uninterrupted focus time. Besides, I feel more creative early in the morning.
I’ll grab lunch at noon and take about a 30 min. nap to refresh. From there, I’ll work up until around 4 or 5pm. At that time the phone won’t get answered and emails wait until the following day.
Family time is from 5pm on. I’ll usually crash for the night around 9:30 to 10pm.
Another benefit to my schedule is that IF I have something I need/want to do outside of work, I won’t feel guilty quitting at noon. I have a full 8 hours in by then.
Call me insane. I know I am, but I’ve done this schedule for the last six or seven years and LOVE it. It was really great when my son was young and required much more attention. He’d be sleeping instead of competing for my attention.
Hi Greg,
Thanks for commenting. Like you, I generally get up somewhere between 4am and 6am for the same reasons. There’s a lot to be said for continued hours of uninterrupted time. I like what you’re saying about working at the hours that you’re most creative or productive. One of the best things about freelancing is the ability to dictate hours that work for you, rather than try to conform to someone else’s schedule. I’m glad you’ve found something that works well for you.
Thomas
I get up at 5:50am to get my son ready to drive him 11 miles to the bus stop. I get back around 7:15am. I then check my email, twitter, facebook and such. So, I get going around 7:45-8:00am and stop working between 4:30-5:00pm.
That generally gives me enough time to do what I need to do. If there’s a project that demands more time or if I’m really getting into it and want to keep working, then I’ll start up again around 7pm – 10pm.
I’m probably going to need to get a part time job soon because work is drying up for me right now, so it’ll get a whole lot different after that.
Thanks Mark. I like that you seem to set clear boundaries between work and home life. I’m getting better at that myself. It’s so important when it comes to setting aside time to get things done.
I’ve been freelancing for about 5 years now, but only recently full time (I just finished my MFA at Academy in SF) – I’m still trying to figure out my work schedule because as of late, I’ve been realizing I need to get out more (your podcasts, among others, make me feel less like Ted Kaczynski). But, my typical work day starts around 8am and I usually don’t go to sleep til about 2am. Sounds bad, but I make sure to have an hour lunch, a ‘siesta’, approx 40 mins run with the dogs, dinner time, some couch time with the wife … so all in all not too bad.
But, here’s to figuring my way around! Thanks again for your time/podcast/etc its very very helpful!
Hi Rich. Your day may sound long at first glance, but it sounds like you’ve worked in a lot of other activities. Congratulations for finding a balance. Definitely not always an easy task.
Thanks for sharing.
Thomas
Currently I’m just an amateur that has yet to take any actual illustration jobs. For me, I’m completely unorganized and any time usually between 2pm and 7am is fair game when I get smalls bouts of energy or inspiration.
In the past few years it was just a hobby every once in a while when my unfulfilling software job was sucking the life out of me. I realized fairly recently how much it actually meant to me and quit that job (with the help of some savings) to explore what avenue of the illustration field I want to pursue.
I’m very curious as to the schedules of others in situations where they are still learning the ropes, trying to get confidence in their own work, and keeping from slacking off.
Not knowing any other illustrators personally and having never taken any art classes in the past has really made me insecure and isolated feeling. Thank you for building a community to help out all levels and types of people in the field. Would love to get anyone else’s eyes on my work to get a better sense of where I’m going with it.
Great topic! Something I’ve wanted to ask fellow artists myself. Been delving into full time freelance illustration work in the last 2-3 months, and my schedule usually looks something like this:
- Get up between 8-9am
- breakfast, checking emails, and twitters 9-9:30
- Work! Or a warmpup, from 10am. This is usually only 2-3 hours work and this is when I like to roughs/concepts for projects, generally. Otherwise, I work on whatever project I have on.
- Lunch 12-1pm and a bit of exercise/fresh air
- Work from 1pm until dinnertime, which is sometime between 6 and 7pm, with a few little breaks inbetween.
- After dinner I’ll either relax with some games/reading/tv, or do some personal artwork.
- Sometimes I do a bit of work for a couple of hours before bed if I am in the mood.
- Bed at 10:30-11pm
I’ve heard that getting up very early works wonders for being creative. I wouldn’t mind trying getting up at 5am or something and getting in a few hours of uninterrupted work before 9. The day will have just started for most people, but I’d have several hours work done already!
When I started, I thought, ‘awesome, I can work whatever hours I want!’ and I started work in the afternoon. This ended up being disastrous because in the morning I couldn’t help feeling as though I was procrastinating, and couldn’t enjoy my free time.
I tend to keep the same hours as my fiancée with whom I live. She works full time as a designer. So we get up at the same time and do break fast together around 8-8:30am. Once she’s out the door I fire up the computer and start checking emails etc. I usually work on projects or promotion for the rest of the day with breaks for lunch and walking the dogs. Then when while my fiancée is on her way home I clean up and start dinner.
Basically, I Try to keep our schedule lined up so we can more of our leisure time together. When she’s working I’m working. When she’s home, I’m off duty.
Y’all are making me feel like a slacker for sleeping so late. I’m just starting out as a freelancer, so I rarely have enough freelance work to keep me busy all day – when I have any at all – so most of my day tends to be taken up by marketing, portfolio-building, research, or doing studies and the like to improve my skills. That said, I try to work from 11-7, Monday to Friday. I’ve tried in the past to get up earlier, but when it comes down to it, I’m just Not A Morning Person. I’d push it even later, if I could, but being awake by 10 means that if I do get any calls or emails from clients, I’m able to respond to them within a more reasonable timeframe than if I was sleeping ’til noon.
Of course, the other reason my hours are so late is that I’m often up late into the night – annoyingly, inspiration often strikes around midnight, or even 1 or 2 in the morning, and I can’t NOT draw when I’m suddenly in the zone. So I’m often up ’til the wee hours of the morning, whether that was my intention or not. I often get my best work done in the hours when I had long since intended to be asleep.
Finally, if I have something to get done that necessitates working on the weekend, then I’ve got no problem doing it. It just means I can finish earlier on Monday or something – a lot of my “non-work” hours are spent on art anyhow, so why not?
I wouldn’t feel bad, one of the pros of freelancing is working whenever you want, and if you’re just not one for working in the morning, then why would you if you know you work better at other hours? :) You get to choose whatever you feel works best.
As long as the work gets done, then it’s all good!
I am trying to keep myself as organized as I can, because its really easy to pass time with useless things, if you are working at home.
I wake up around 7:30-8am (I like to sleep haha) and doing all my legal emails / contacts after a quick shower and breakfast. I try to do this till 9:00, when I start to paint.
Usually I am working on one project till 12:00 with keeping a 10 mins break after every 50 mins. It helps me get away from what I am working on and also good ford for some stretching or just have a short walk.
From 12-2pm I am having lunch and working on my personal stuff. Doing my regular daily pencil sketches for my blog and painting or composition exercises just to work on my faults and weaknesses.
From 2-6pm I am going back to another illustration and to the first thing what I am started in the morning. I like to work on multiple things in the same time, as I feel it keeps my mind fresh.
Between 6-8pm I am having a longer break, having lunch, watching the news, be with my partner, etc.
After 8pm I am usually going `back to work`, but this is a more relaxed thing. This is the time, where I am doing most of my social networking then and checking out online galleries and web portfolios, watching painting and design tutorials, etc.
This is the time, when I am also collecting the references / textures / poses / or whatever I need for next day`s work.
I am working till about 10pm each day, but sometimes (especially before deadlines) I am going back to painting again around 9pm and working till 1-2am.
I try to keep my weekends `work free`, but it cant really work to be honest. :)
I do a lot of finishing work in advertising and animation, so I’m often the last guy delivering and therefore standing on a job. Sometimes I’ve worked through 2 or 3 weekends straight, eating dinners at my desk day and night and mainly working 12-15 hour days. Not all jobs are like this, but some are, and I’ll usually be working within a team so the unspoken peer pressure to stick around is enormous.
Alternatively I can then experience the joys of a week or so “off”, going to art galleries and drawing and hanging around in cafes, so its definitely swings and roundabouts.
Wether its the rise of the smartphone and instant communication or the credit crunch I’m not sure, but the expected response speed of response and time to turn in work seems to be getting shorter and shorter.
This christmas a producer i know did actually get an email and a phone call from a client in the states, on christmas day itself.
So work is generally On or Off for me, it can be hard to find the balance as a freelancer.
Sometimes 3 days a week and sometimes 13, I’ll be out by 6pm or 2am, totally dependent on the nature and stage a job may be at.
Definitely try to keep sundays free though.
I tend to work through it all. Hard to remember to take the food out of the fridge to thaw when I’m elbow deep in a project. But I’m figuring it out…slowly. My biggest problem is making myself work when I have nothing to work on. You know, keeping myself busy and not slipping into Distractionland.
I also find this subject really interesting! It’s so great to hear how others do it. As a student I always worked at night, but 10 years on from that I’ve become a real morning person. Like others here have said, that’s when I have the most energy & feel ready for anything.
I get up at about 7am and take an hour for breakfast and e-mails/Twitter. I then have a 45 minute walk (if I leave it later I become more & more reluctant to put my work down & go out). I then settle down and work until 12.30/1.oo when I usually have a super-fast lunch, then get back to work until 7.30 when I have a proper break for dinner. I only usually have one break in the afternoon, when I’ll have a coffee & a snack, and read more Twitter for 30 minutes… I prefer long uninterrupted hours of work rather than regular breaks. If I’m really busy I’ll carry on working in the evening until midnight or 1.00am if necessary.
Two evenings per week I work a 4-hour shift at my part-time job, so on those days I only have until 5.30pm to draw, but I can fit in eight hours before my shift so that’s OK. And I work all day on Saturdays. I leave Sunday-Monday free if possible for quality time with my partner… I’d rather put in crazy hours midweek to leave these days completely free.
I’ve never really been asked to work to deadlines that were too unrealistic, and if I have I’ve always been able to negotiate the deadline OK. I just accept that my style is time-consuming and that I’ll have to put in long hours on almost any job!
In my ‘day job’ I work as an Art Director for an advertising agency, that itself takes a lot of time. When I get home I usually have a break, spend some time with my wife, have some dinner and watch some TV. And then is time to put my illustrator hat on and work on whatever projects I have going. I usually have an idea of how much a project will take me to do, so I book that time for me at night (that can sometimes mean little sleep) I time it using Billings, if somehow I manage to finish it earlier then that’s brilliant, more time to relax.
Weekends are a different matter, unless we have something planned for the day it is like a full time job day for me. Gives me a chance to finish those jobs I couldn’t do during the week, catch up on my blogs and do a bit of the so-important marketing.
So in general my working hours depend of the clients unfortunately, and what I mean by that is that it depends on on if I have any work to do that day. If by some misfortune I don’t have any pay jobs I try to start some personal project, or learn a bit of Cinema 4D (really want to get into 3D illustrations).
So as a reference:
Weekday: – 3 to 5 hours (and loads of coffee)
Weekends – 6 to 8 hours (siesta not included)
Everyone has different times that they function best at so there is no reason for anyone to feel guilty if they are not capable of being an early bird. Circadian rhythms are a natural thing and not everyone is the same:
http://www.truestarhealth.com/members/cm_archives13ML3P1A22.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/04/on-early-birds-and-night-owls.ars
I am night owl and have been as long as I can remember. I am also very efficient with my work time, delivering work on or before deadline.
In my experience, most people who deal with outside vendors do not get around to dealing with them until about 10-11am, so this is the time I begin my work day. To start, I usually go over client and industry related email then deal with ongoing projects. I stop for lunch at around 2-3pm and usually only take about a half hour. If I have a slow day and have something important (personal) that needs to be dealt with, I handle it at this time (as midday is usually the best time as most people are working and I can have it taken care of quickly). I go back in the office to continue working and to check out new opportunities from various sources. I take a break again around 7pm for dinner, which I take an hour or so. In the early evening I read personal email and take some time to go to my personal social networking pages and interact with my friends (I don’t really watch TV other than an occasional PBS show… I do not and have nor have ever had cable so less distraction for me). After 9-10pm, I get back into my projects and usually plow through them at this time. I am extremely productive in the evening and I find that I have the least distractions then. I often end my work day between 2 and 4am.
My day may seem longer than most, but I balance my personal life with my work life and it works for me. My husband also works from home and is a night owl, so we keep each other company. I also try to do more personal things over the weekend, but I do take time during the week to go to social and networking events.
Regarding the article, I think the person who received the call is also responsible for the situation. They should have either let the call go to voicemail or take the call and discuss it privately in another area. I don’t see accepting the call as rude (in our industry work comes when it comes, especially advertising work) but to disrupt a party by dealing with the call in the middle of a bunch of people is a bit tactless.
Personally, I only accept business call during business hours and prefer dealing with clients via email. Email is much less invasive, is to the point and documents the conversation. I can also answer more thoroughly and in my own time, which is always in a timely manner. If someone is willing to pay top dollar for a rush/overnight job, I’ll be happy to work on it… otherwise they’ll just have to wait for a response and the work.
I’m a freelance designer so no day is typical. Also, I have two young children. I get one on the bus to school and then deal w/my 2 yr old son. I may let him have a movie during the morning so I can get one or two hours of work in. We’ll go do something to get out of the house and then he naps for a couple of hours. That gives me two more hours. After I put the kids to bed, I’m right on the computer until I go to bed. I’m not putting in a full 8 hours but this will be temporary until my youngest goes to pre-school. Then I’ll have more regular hours.
If I were at a party on Friday night and a client called me on my cell phone, I’d let it go to voice mail. Boundaries, people. Boundaries.
I’ve been freelancing all my life, but have been doing it full time for about 3 years now. When a project finishes, I’m always worried if there will be another job or if that’s it…. but, so far so good. Because I have a family, I try hard to stick to “regular” work hours: Up between 5:00 – 5:30 am (earlier if there are several projects happening at the same time) and my “coffee breaks” are used to do family stuff, but now that my kids are older they participate in doing things to help. (sort of….) My creativity is non-existant in the evening, so getting up before the sun is much better for me – I can almost always get myself out of a problem at that time of day…. a composition that won’t work or a sketch card set that is hard to do…. whatever, when the hour is rediculously early, the solution seems to crawl out of nowhere.
I do work weekends if deadlines are extremely tight…. I don’t like doing that but it does happen. I MUCH prefer to play-sketch on weekends and doodle and such.
Since my daughter was born 8 months ago my work hours have changed drastically – in the first few 3-4 months it was a case of grabbing time whenever I could. Now that she is 8 months old and we’re in a routine she goes to bed at a regular time each night (6.30 – 7pm) my work day starts then.
This means that I’m in the very fortunate position to be able to spend every day with her and my wife and then get a solid 5 hours in at night. I sometimes work until 1-2am if needs be.
I don’t know what I used to do with all the time I had before my daughter was born and somehow, having less time has made me much more productive (something that I know you can relate to Thomas).
Also being location independent and usually working in different timezones to my clients means that I can start my working day as they are going to bed and have work ready and waiting for them the following morning.