Organizational tips for people who spin plates while wearing many hats?

July 10, 2017 5:56 PM

I am looking for some organizational tips for people who have a few different jobs, especially in unrelated fields/industries.

I am used to having an office job with a set schedule and then doing extra jobs on the side (totally unrelated to the industry that the office job was set in). Now that I have more control over my schedule and working from home, I am finding it challenging organize myself and prioritize my work.

I am currently tutoring ESL online which I love - I can set my own schedule and work from anywhere with WiFi. The company I work with is great, but I am also looking for other options due to time zone limitations (all of their students are in China and I am on the east coast of the US).

I also do clothing design and I love doing custom project for clients. Ideally I would like to ramp that up to get more work, as well as sell some pieces online. I have lots of ideas but am struggling with managing my time and sitting down to "create" when I could be tutoring online that hour and making some guaranteed money.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thank you!

posted by Shadow Boxer to Work & Money (4 answers total)

Best answer: Can you set yourself a minimum number of hours you need to tutor every week/month to ensure you're making the amount you need to in order to cover your rent/bills/etc.? Then you know, ok, one way or another I need to be averaging, say, 30 hours/week in tutoring to make sure I can meet my budget, and once I do that I can choose to spend any additional time on the clothing design side of things.
posted by rainbowbrite at 6:21 PM on July 10, 2017

Best answer: I'm a big fan of schedule blocking whenever I can. Knowing that your ESL tutoring sessions will only be scheduled sometime between 2pm and 8pm Tuesday - Friday or whatever means that you know that your Mondays and mornings will always be free for clothing design or meeting with clients. It might seem arbitrary, but technically so are standard office hours. The difference is now YOU get to pick your arbitrary start and end times! :) Good luck!
posted by helloimjennsco at 11:46 AM on July 11, 2017

Best answer: Schedule blocking, yeah. I also use and love Workflowy to create infintely-exandable lists/outlines of projects with multiple steps or moving parts.
posted by Brittanie at 2:06 PM on July 11, 2017

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! Just following up after a couple of weeks to let you know that your suggestions were helpful...I've never had so much control over my schedule before so I was feeling pretty overwhelmed.

So I decided how much I need to make per month tutoring and making sure I schedule enough classes so I've got that down. Then I started blocking my schedule. I had been using both a paper planner and Google and I decided just to do everything on Google. This way I can move the blocks of non-time-sensitive things around as much as I want. It also makes it easier for me to visualize how I'm managing my time. Yeah, these are probably pretty basic but something you just need a fresh perspective.

Workflowy is an excellent suggestion, Brittanie. I'll have to check it out.
posted by Shadow Boxer at 1:27 PM on July 26, 2017 [2 favorites]