I like to think of myself as a creative free spirit but in reality that’s probably far from the truth. I do have a very overactive brain, and am easily distracted though.

My head likes a bit of structure, and I genuinely think some level of enforced daily structure is good for the creative mind, especially in our line of work because clients and deadlines are involved.

What works for me won’t necessarily work for you, but here’s my own personal daily structure and routine for most days between weddings.

Before midday – me time
Free to do whatever I like. That’s right, the morning belongs to me. I can lie in bed and watch movies (this is most days), I can meet friends (rare), I can go to the gym (extremely rare), I can play some video games or do house jobs or general life admin. The mornings are mine to do whatever I want. I can also work if I’m in the mood, but since covid this has been the best thing I’ve done for my productivity – to basically tell myself I don’t need to ‘go to work’ until noon.

Midday to 3pm – strict office time
I tell myself I have to be in my office by 12. Showered, dressed, respectable. The fact I’ve had the morning to myself means I’m usually nicely rested and very ready to do some work at this point, so it’s easy to motivate myself.

3pm to 6pm – school pickup and father son time
I pick my 14 year old up from school every day, and then we go for a drive for up to an hour, when we listen to whatever music he wants to listen to, chat if he wants to chat, and just spend some time together. This is his choice by the way, if he wanted to go straight home from school we would, but he rarely does. Then I get home, spend some time with my other son who is 10, either kicking a football or a game or two of Fortnite Duos, then we have a family ‘tea’ as we call it in the North, more commonly known as dinner!

6pm to 9pm – semi-strict office time
I always go straight back into my office after we’ve eaten, and I will work until one of two things happens – either my youngest son is in bed and ready for his bedtime chat, or a football match I want to watch is kicking off. But usually I’m in my office, at my computer until 9pm. This is the only time I will book in zoom calls for as well.

It’s rare that I go back into my office after my two kids have had their bedtime chats with me. It’s usually 10pm by this time. The only time I go back to my computer is if I really want to get something finished, but it’s rare.

So you can see I’m only really working up to 6ish hours a day, during the week. But because of the structure around it I reckon I get a lot more done than if I didn’t have those fairly strict set blocks of working time.

My routine includes quite a bit of non-working time either by choice (mornings) or necessity (school pickup) and that is a huge productivity tip I read a few years ago. Actively giving yourself very regular time off to rest and reset is important.

Again, it won’t work for everyone but it’s worth a try huh?

I genuinely hope you’re doing ok… I know some people are truly feeling the strain of a massive editing pile and my advice to you is to do what I’ve said here and introduce a bit of routine and structure where you can. Apart from that you can only do the work when you can do it, so as long as you’re keeping your clients in the picture about estimated delivery dates etc then just tell yourself you can only get through it as quick as you can get through it. And you’ll get through it.

Thanks for reading!

Adam

PS – I do procrastinate a lot (I have a Nintendo Switch in my office) and a potential antidote to procrastination is to practice monotasking – actively working on one thing at a time only. I have a podcast episode on that here if you fancy a listen: https://thepositivecreatives.com/episode/monotasking-in-creativity/