Catégorie : Writing Tips

Let’s get straight to the point.

Work-Family-Life may be hard to achieve.

It depends on our culture and traditions, our beliefs and where we live on this good old planet Earth.

This post is written by a 35 to 44 years old mama, now working retail, who grew up in Quebec, Canada, where Fall is so colourful it takes your breath away and winter is snowy cold.
I live with my awesome hubby-to-be, who works from home, and kiddo, who goes to school (already !!!).

Already, I have the upper hand. Balancing a day job, family and writing is easier when the schedule on one side (at least) is flexible.

Because, yes, to be able to establish a working dayjob-family-writing balance, the whole family needs to be on board.

Alone, we cannot do it. Work-family balance starts with the whole family.

So…

First thing to do is: get the family together and make a plan so everybody can enjoy both family time and alone time without being stress-to-no-end.

What should you guys talk about?

Let’s see!

What to Consider to Established a Balanced Work-Family Life

Here’s face A of the key to establishing a balanced work-family life.

The goal of finding a Work-Family life balance is:

• for every member of the family to have both together quality time and alone quality time.

It’s a challenge, to say the least.

But it can be done if everybody in the family gets on board.

Starting with your partner and your kids.

A study conducted by Pr. Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay’s team shows that women working full-time jobs are still taking care of merely everything concerning the kids and house chores.

Mamas are not the only soul in the house who can make lunch and take care of the chores.
If you work as a homemaker, the same goes!

Your partner and the kids live in the house, he/she/they are also responsible for taking care of it.
And I’m NOT talking about taking care of the lawn or the trash or merely putting plates on the kitchen counter.

I’m talking about sharing chores and delegating.

If your kids are old enough, they can help you and your partner with the meal prep on Sunday afternoons and put together their lunch during the week.
Your partner can be in charge of cleaning the kitchen after supper during the week and of cooking on the weekends.

Here’s face B of the key to establishing a balanced work-family life.

Flexible day job work hours. And/or working-from-home days.

If, like mine, your day job requires you to be on location, then flexible hours are great for finding the work-life balance you seek.

You may start at 11am instead of 9am once a week, so it gives you time with the kids, the hubby, or time for you.

But again, it depends on where you live.

Around here in the Quebec province, when this post is written anyway, there’s a real workforce shortage problem.
To attract people, employers of all kinds are offering a bunch of advantages, like more flexible hours and the possibility to work from home 2-3 times a week.

Our boss’s being on our side does facilitate finding a balance between the work-family-writing life.

Thing is, it’s far from being popular among business people.

Good thing is, it’s changing.
Bit by bit,
slowly but surely,
in some parts of the world,

the workplaces are changing.

It Takes Some Working at It, But…

Securing some time for ourselves, and ourselves only, is THE best way to keep the writing spirit up.

I hope, I wish you found some useful info there.

Until next time, take care of yourself, dear fellow writers!

Writing stories defines a very big part of who I am.

Every decision I made in my life went through the « how will it affect the writing routine » filter.

Yep, even when I met my future hubby-to-be, I thought about how seriously dating that wonderful man would affect my writing time.

I wouldn’t use the words « crazy writer lady » per say but, like I said: writing stories define a very big part of who I am.

When change comes knocking, I react rather emotionally.

Deciding to go back to working outside the house was the best decision for my family’s well-being, as well as my own.

I got a job interview today. And I want this job. And I know I can do it.

I should be more confident about this…. However…

!! I’m a nervous wreck !!

What’s a writer with a daily word count goal to do?!

How to Focus on Writing When You’re a Nervous Wreck!

As we say in my francophone bubble « J’ai appris sur le tas« .

Which means I learned as I went.

Hopefully, it will be a useful trick for the future early morning writing session.

Although, it did help that I woke up earlier than usual.

(And since now I’m getting up for the 5amwritersclub almost every weekday, it means I was up at an uncanny time of the night. )

At first, I went into my dawn writing routine: boiling the water for the tea, lighting a candle, finding the fuzzy warm blanket kiddo always manages to hide somewhere.

After a mere fifteen minutes of writing, my focus went bye-bye writing, hello job interview prep.

Two minutes later, half of my mind went back into the writing project while the other half was revising eventual interview questions and politics and as much as I can learn about the company I wish to work for.

In short, I was writing shiteridoureloutirelouquanquantirela.

And I started to get really mad at myself.

Self-Care VS Interview VS Writing Life

Here’s a brief insight into my 5:30am train of thoughts:

What !?

I’m not even hired yet and I can’t detached my mind from the day job!?!

What happened to all that pretty peace of mind

How on this good wonderful spectacular Earth would I be able to write if, at day minus Zero, I could not produce one decent sentence?!?

*yelling inside/virtually out*

By all means, nothing there to A: help my self-esteem and B: get back to writing in order to meet the daily writing goals.

I have to go back to my roots: get organized.

To that end, I took up some of my beloved morning writing time to go outside in the dark, breathe in, breathe out, and try to find some stars through the heavy clouds.

I saw only one bright one, full West. Beautiful really. So far from our everyday and everything.

Then, on with scheduling the writing time VS the prep for the interview time, and move on.

Sooo, I did the interview go?

I didn’t make my daily writing goal today, but the interview went very well.

In fact, I got the job!

I still can hardly believe it. My new boss said the stars were aligned.

I had a thought for the morning star half hiding behind the heavy cloud I saw that very morning.

Yeah, the stars were aligned.

I’ll sleep on that.

Take care of yourself, dear fellow writers. May all your written words bring you joy!

It wasn’t planned at all.

Maybe it was in the air for a while and I ignored it.

In the middle of a pretty happy morning, I left my laptop on the kitchen table, where I find myself working these days, and went straight to hubby-to-be’s office.

There I declared I was done working freelance. He said ok.

I think he knew before I did.

Why Quitting the Work-from-Home Dream?

See.

Years of trying.

Trying, again and again.

Only to fail, again and again.

At some point, you have to be gracious enough toward yourself to simply wrap it up…

… and move on.

Done fighting with guilty feelings. I’m done. Time to put an end to the devouring financial stress.

Maybe I didn’t plan well enough. Maybe my timing was just wrong. Maybe I’m not a businesswoman.

(Oh wait, I know I’m NOT a business gal!)

Anyway. There. Done.

Is it just me or is there more air in the world right now?

How to Keep Up?

New day job, new writing schedule. I know.

Indeed, I wrote a post about adjusting to a new writing schedule… hum, it was literally yesterday for me.

How fast our world can change. In my case, as fast as it takes to lock eyes with yet another « sorry but we’ve decided to go in another direction » email.

My main concern soon became how I would keep up with my writing goals since I planned my writing time around my working freelance schedule.

Turns out, once I calmed down a bit, I realized I could have even more time to write.

As long as I choose the day job accordingly.

It means a near-stress-free day job.

No crazy deadlines – just the sound of those words makes me wanna dance!

In fact, no craziness whatsoever – what the heck, let’s crank up ABBA (don’t judge me).

Because, for me anyway, to keep up with those ambitious writing goals of mine, that’s what I have to do.

To keep up with my writing while working, I have to look for a day job that :

• gives me more peace of mind regarding the monthly payments
• is in a field I’m genuinely interested in,
• doesn’t consume my every waking (or sleeping) hour,
• keeps my energy level up
• is fun, easy going and motivating

I am willing to go on that path also because my main goal is not to make a 6 figures salary. It never was.

Don’t get me wrong, it would be great to have enough money so I could write and read all day, take care of the garden and go for very long hikes in the woods with my family.

However, I rather get an easy-going day job and earn less than many successful bloggers out there.

And have time to write, be with my family, to volunteer at my kiddo school.

At the end of the day, I will rather be happy than rich.

Peaceful Heart & Soul

To describe to you, fellow writer… the incredible feeling of peace, of calm that overcame my little heart and soul after the decision was made.

It felt like taking off a very heavy scuba.

I swear my whole body felt lighter.

With this newly acquired peace of mind of mine came an incredible feeling of freedom.

The freedom to write my stories, in my words, without worrying about the algorithms.

I really really like sharing writing tips and hacks and funny writing adventures with you, fellow writers.

Thanks for being here, thanks for reading. Until next time!