changing my work habits

I started a little business, working from home of an evening and weekend, when I was still an employee over ten years ago.

In many ways, it's been marvellous - it's given me a lot of flexibility to move between being an employee (full-time and part-time), maternity leave for longer than I could otherwise have afforded, and for the past six years full self-employment.

However, because it started off as an after-business hours and weekend arrangement, and I've kept a number of clients from the early days, there has been a certain expectation that I would be available almost 24/7. All very well, but I can't do that any more. The children need more attention, there are other demands on my time, and I need a break occasionally.

So I've gradually been weaning the clients away from that expectation, and most of them have been pretty good about it. Except one. He works long hours in his office, and rings me at dinner time and on weekends. He wants work done in unreasonable time frames (and no, if you ring me on Saturday afternoon you cannot have a finished job on Sunday morning. Or Monday morning. I will work towards Tuesday if you're not expecting a miracle.). I've been practising saying 'no' to him, assertively, and telling him he needs to get out of the office more (I've known him over ten years, so I can get away with it, and I also know it's very unlikely that he will change his work habits).

It's another thing I've been talking about for well over a year - confining work to certain hours and days - and one I'm finally making headway on. I haven't worked on a weekend for a couple of months (well - maybe just a teensy bit one Sunday night when I had a deadline, but it's the exception to the rule, and that's okay). Oddly enough, I started off feeling guilty about it, but now it's fabulous and freeing to be able to say I have nothing that must be done on the weekend, and instead to be able to read and play with the kids and make plans with the husband.

It's a change I really need to keep.