Pace Yourself

SEASON 6, EPISODE 4:

Today we have a new episode for you, which is about pacing your workdays.

This episode was inspired by a tweet Jenni sent out about a month ago, asking about how people shape their days. In this episode, we dig into why pacing can change throughout seasons of your career, and we talk about ways to investigate if your pacing is working for you right now. We also talk about “fast” and “slow” work and whether either really says anything at all about quality.

Full Transcript Below:

Jenni Gritters- Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Writers' Co-op,

Wudan Yan- We are your co-hosts. I'm Wudan Yan

Jenni Gritters- And I'm Jenni Gritters.

Wudan Yan- If you're just discovering us now, this is a podcast about business building for freelance creatives.

Jenni Gritters- Over the past five seasons, we have talked about money, mindset, negotiation, and so many other things.

Wudan Yan- We're now officially in the middle of season six somehow, and this season doesn't yet have an organizing theme. But we'll be delving into your questions and things that are interesting to us.

Jenni Gritters- Yep, that's right. So Wudan, what are we talking about today?

Wudan Yan- Today, we're gonna dig into pacing and productivity. And this episode was actually inspired by something you had tweeted, Jenni.

Jenni Gritters- A few months back, I did tweet asking people about how they set up their freelance workdays to accommodate small breaks between tasks. So essentially, a question about pacing. I got a lot of interesting responses, and then it also prompted a text conversation between you and I, Wudan, about pacing

Wudan Yan- It did! We have a lot to say about it still, hence, this episode.

Jenni Gritters- Yep. So this is what I wrote—this is what the tweet said— I said: “Y'all, I usually work at literally breakneck speed. (I think this is a symptom of becoming a parent during COVID and basically having no child care for like...two years. But I am trying to slow down. Give me your best daily pacing tips! Do you take breaks? Set reminders?”

Wudan Yan- Give us the backstory of that tweet.

Jenni Gritters- I have been back at work for I guess like a full month now after four months of maternity leave. And when you step away from your work for that long, you see patterns. So one pattern that I noticed in myself is that I basically work balls to the wall every time I get a chunk of time to work. And while that's not inherently problematic in and of itself, I've also noticed that once I jump into that pace after being away for a while, it feels really terrible physically and mentally. Like, I would sort of wake up after two hours of working like that and realize my heart was racing, kind of like I was sprinting, basically, because...I was sprinting. Or I would get in the car after a work day, for example, to pick up my kid from school, and I would find it nearly impossible to slow down enough to stay really patient with him and all of his toddler meltdown antics. So in other words, my anxiety was really high after working like this, and I realized that pacing is a part of that equation. I have been talking with my therapist for the past month or so about how to exist in the in-between. So my go-to is really to go full blast and sprint or then fully chill. And this definitely is a pattern in my life. I'm either social, or I'm alone, right? I'm like working out really aggressively and going on long hikes, or I'm laying around. Again, nothing's wrong with this, per se. I just think it's not necessarily serving me anymore during this phase of my life, because I have two small children, and I need to be super, super regulated or else they tend to explode. So I have been working on asking myself: What is the moderate option, in-between option? And I tweeted, because I wanted to know what moderation looks like for people. Because, hilariously, I cannot imagine it for myself.

Wudan Yan- This is really interesting. And I think it's part of why we've worked on the podcast well together. Because both of us work at hyperspeed. And then we take a lot of time off. Jenni, have you always been this way?

Jenni Gritters- At my first media job, which I think I've talked about on the podcast before, I would pull these like really long 12 hour days. And then I would burn out so hard that then I would need two full weeks off. It's very feast or famine, sprint or rest. I think that just became my default mode of work. And then when I started freelancing, it actually served me, because I could make a lot of money. Like, I was working two people's jobs. I get paid for those two jobs. I got a lot done. And when I had my son during the pandemic—I came back from maternity leave right in March 2020—same thing, I didn't have a lot of time, but I could get a lot done in that short amount of time, because I worked really fast. So again, it worked for me. Frankly, I think the pace isn't working for me anymore, though, so something's got to change. But enough about me, why don't you tell me how you characterize your pace or workstyle, Wudan?

Wudan Yan- Our Patreon members actually got a peep into my workday. During October, we started doing these 'Day in the Life' newsletters that show how we, as freelancers, shape our days. And if you would like to subscribe and get a peep into more of your colleagues' days, join us on Patreon. But so I published mine, and I would describe my work style as intense and focused and pretty well-metered (in terms of how much I take on in any given day). There are really big boundaries timewise for what gets done in a day, but also everything gets done for me, which is why I say it feels intense. And also, I work four days a week, which means I take a full workweek and condense it into four days. This conversation about pacing is important, because pacing that doesn't work for you can lead to burnout. And that's what happened to me around the time we started this podcast and the beginning of the pandemic. And the fact that I was writing about COVID, basically, you know, back-to-back-to-back. And I learned a lot from that experience and from the therapy I had to get because I was so burnt out. And what I've learned about my own pace and work preferences have changed quite a bit since then too. The burnout was a wake-up call.

Jenni Gritters- We will link to our Patreon in the show notes, like Wudan said. Sign up if you want to read some of those newsletters about people's days. You can see Wudan's 'Day in the Life.’ I do think you are really intentional, Wudan, and it shows in the way that you shape your days, and basically what you prioritize.

Wudan Yan- Yeah, and one thing while we were texting, we were talking about whether it's good or not to be "fast" as a worker. And I think like you said before, Jenni, it's probably not one or the other. But there's something interesting societally about fast often meaning lower quality.

Jenni Gritters- It's like the idea that fast food basically means crappy food, right?

Wudan Yan- Correct—and this is an aside and a plug, and I'm not paid to say this—But if you ever find yourself in Seattle, there's this really good barbecue place called Wood Shop BBQ. Whenever I'm in the south end of town, I go and make time for it. And what I noticed recently is that when I go there and sit down for a meal, the food comes out so fast after you order—I mean, probably two minutes. My question here is: Is that 'fast' food, like just because it came out fast? But of course, like behind the scenes, they've been slow cooking and roasting everything for an entire day. And it is delicious. So again, I gain literally nothing from mentioning them, but I wanted to share this because it's such a counterexample to the belief—maybe a limiting belief!— that fast equals bad. And in this case, the food comes out fast just because it's been marinating for so long. And it's delicious.

Jenni Gritters- Applied to a work setting, I think this is basically that idea of fast equals bad also applies here. Because if you bill a client hourly and you spend longer on a project, you benefit financially. And then you and I work fast. If we charge hourly, we actually make less. So if we charge by the project instead, we're gonna get paid a set amount no matter how long it takes, and then our hourly rate is higher. Basically, what I mean by saying this is just that hourly rates don't necessarily reflect expertise, just like that food coming out fast doesn't reflect how much time went into it. So of course, expertise doesn't always mean working fast. But I think it often means that, because you know what you're doing, so you can work faster. And I think this is why we're always talking about project pricing over hourly pricing, because the bottom line is that it feels like it upends the belief that more time equals a better outcome.

In my coaching practice, I find a lot of my clients feel ashamed to admit that they work fast. Like suddenly, if their client finds out, they might feel like they're overpaying the person. But I would argue that often, especially for experienced freelancers, the outcome of a project, and the quality of that thing, has literally very little to do with the time spent. At least that's true, I think, for both of us.

Jenni Gritters- My best stuff so often is the stuff I can do most quickly, honestly. In terms of pacing, Wudan, I think I want to get into some of the nitty gritty details about how people might be more intentional about pacing in their businesses, especially because this is something I'm working on personally right now. So I looked it up, and the word 'pace' just means 'to move at a steady or consistent speed.' Like, it's just a measurement of movement. And I think we can agree that different seasons and constraints probably push us into the desire for different paces at different times in our businesses.

Yeah, and I think that's an important caveat, especially when I think about you being so sick while you were pregnant. And I wouldn't expect your work pace to be the same then as it is now or before you had your two kids. Also, 'steady' and 'consistent' mean different things to different people. And I want to put a pin in that because that means pacing your workday, or your work, or anything in your life is so deeply personal.

Jenni Gritters- We can look at “steady,” I think, in quotes, as meaning the same work every day. Or I think we can look at the word steady as how much gets accomplished over a week or a month. Like for a lot of people, it isn't just about having the same day every day. I have had a few clients with long COVID recently, and we've been talking a lot about how it's okay to move a little slower for a season or two because steady might look different right now compared to what it would look like pre-COVID. So, Wudan, what are some ways that people can start to think about pacing in their own businesses?

Wudan Yan- To me the first question is: Is your pace working for you, or is it a default mode?

Jenni Gritters- This feels like the self-awareness piece—which I think we have talked a lot about in past episodes—probably best explored with a coach or a therapist. We live in America, where productivity is king. And we may have ingested this belief that we need to be faster, or we need to be more organized, or whatever—that productivity says something about our value. There's a lot of noise out there about how you should shape your day. Or you should get these things done, or you know, should have a certain morning routine, you should sit in your chair in a certain way, you should take breaks a certain way. It is definitely all noise if you don't start with what actually works for you. Wudan, how do you know if a pace works for you and your business?

Wudan Yan- Like I said, and I'm very happy to admit this—because you know, self-awareness—I finished my work days feeling like I've run a marathon, and that the day was a blur. I know the pace works for me if I have the smallest bit of buffer time between tasks during the day, like 20 minutes between meetings. And more importantly, I want to know—is my work getting done during the work hours, the limited work hours that I have set? Am I invoicing enough for these periods of work? It's a math equation, but it's also a gut feeling when I'm in it. How would you answer that, Jenni?

Jenni Gritters- Like I said, I think this information actually exists mostly in my body. Like if my pace is too fast, I'll notice that my heart is racing, my jaw is sore, because I've been clenching my teeth. Those are signs that I'm basically not stopping to take a breath, right? Like you said, having those spaces to breathe is important, those buffer room. I actually had a really bad panic attack a couple weeks ago, because I think I've been pushing myself past that point of sustainable pace. I'm juggling a lot of things with two young kids. You cannot sprint forever, but my instinct would be to try. So on the flip side, I think that when my days are too empty or slow, like there's not enough in them, I do feel this general sense of unsettledness too. Like, that's maybe a sign that I need to add more to my plate, that I'm sort of under on pace. I definitely thrive somewhere in that gray zone between not enough and bored and too much and panicked.

Wudan Yan- We did a whole episode on overbooking that I think would be useful here because it's all about asking why you're overly busy, and what part of the time or money equation is costing you. So it basically looks at whether your work pace is reactionary to some circumstances in your life or intentional. So once you assess where you're at now, in terms of pace, I would say the next question would be about where you want to go from there. If this current version of pacing your day isn't working.

Jenni Gritters- It's basically like asking what is your ideal? Typically, I think this takes some research and thinking. I would tell a coaching client maybe to look back at their years spent running a freelance business, and I would ask: Were there times when you felt really good or really balanced, really stable, really well paced? What was going on during those times? And how could you maybe replicate that now?

Wudan Yan- To me, right now, pacing feels like all those little micro-moves you make during the day. Like, when do you want to start work? When you want it to end? How much break time do you need between things? I don't think there's a need to adhere to the “shoulds” when it comes to your routine. The question is, what would really work well for you?

Jenni Gritters- Jenni Gritters- What's that answer for you, Wudan?

Wudan Yan- Somebody else asked me about this recently, and one thing that I'm experimenting with myself is trying to become a little less regimented about my work hours. So I began this coaching program for climbing and fitness recently, and for the first time since like high school varsity sports, I've had real accountability over my workouts. I track them in an app, and that's where my trainer sees them. So even though most days I get to the gym after work, some days, I need to be flexible and go first thing in the morning, which means that instead of starting my workday at 8:30, which I normally do if I'm home, I'll start at 10, or 10:30. Because once I'm back, I have to walk the dog before I'm able to get any meaningful type of work done. So I basically went from believing that I need to stick by my work hours to just putting in my five to six hours a day of work and then I'm good. Sometimes I just don't get that routine. Some days, I go into a coworking space, which opens at 9. So I again have to start a bit later. I also have to wake up a little earlier and drive. So I'm almost always clocking out five or six hours in. And in the past, I think I've talked about Calendly to schedule my meetings, which has been amazing, because it saves me so many emails. And when I first started using it, people would just pick back-to-back times, and that murdered me. It's an overstatement, of course, but it was a lot. I did learn in Calendly, you can make sure you have 15 minutes or however much buffer time between meetings, which is incredibly helpful. Like, I used to have back-to-back coaching calls on some days, and I would get so tired, fast. But those built in breaks help. So that's me. What about you, Jenni? What works for you?

Jenni Gritters- I think for me, ideal looks like working from about 10 to 3 most days, although I am admittedly really shuffling things around right now, with having a second kid. Definitely no more than two calls per day, if I can help it, especially if I'm coaching. I agree with you, that it is really just about getting in those five hours overall most days, because that really shifts depending on what I have going on. Especially, we've been dealing with kids getting sick all the time. So, you know, oftentimes, those final three hours are at night, but they're still happening. So usually, I would choose to work in a social space, if I can, at least a couple of days a week, meaning a coworking space or coffee shop. I really like to exercise mid to late afternoon to before I pick my son up from daycare. And then I like to have a day a week to work on writing stuff without any meetings at all. I've learned that being interrupted all day with calls makes it really hard for me to finish my projects. So that is an important thing to kind of plan ahead for when I'm scheduling my weeks. And then I like to have a day a week spent with my baby, probably out hiking. So again, I'm kind of looking at that four day workweek. And I don't work on the weekends. But all of this is kind of shifting again for me in this season, so I think it's a testament to the fact that being flexible is good as your life changes. I also really love having a week off every quarter. I think that matters in here, too. So to zoom out a little bit on this, I think step one: Figure out what's working for you in terms of pace. Step two: Do some investigation of what has worked in the past. Figure out what you like, and especially if your current setup isn't working, apply that. And then I want to say here that there's this whole 'should' aspect that we talk about, about an ideal day. I think it can be really, really tempting to create a schedule that feels ideal, but isn't actually doable. Like, this is me most days: 'Oh, yes, I will get 25 things done in six hours.' No. I'm working, again, on moderation. And I think that's important, like setting yourself up for success with the schedule that you are trying to implement.

Wudan Yan- Yeah, the shoulds are interesting here, because I think we've said before, should is good, but loaded with shame. And American work culture has absolutely conditioned us that we 'should' all be working 40 hour work weeks. But in my experience, especially as a freelancer, that's not necessary. So I've talked about this before in an episode of a previous season: I finally do not feel overbooked in a day. I use a work matrix to list out all my clients and projects in grid format, and the first thing I do is fill in my deadlines and things that need to get done that week and kind of work out a time estimate of how much time in that day that's going to take me to wrap up. And then there's always incremental stuff that needs to get done on other projects. And I intersperse it throughout the week , so I don't have like 40 things to do in a day, which can happen to me too. And for some reason, if I've done everything, let's say on a Tuesday, and I still have some capacity or time to work, I'll look ahead to Wednesday and see what easy things I can check off. And the easy part is key to me. Because otherwise, like my brain is already spent from a full, presumably, workday. Another thing I want to talk about is task switching, which feels like it's part of pacing. And if you're a Patreon All-Access member and read my 'Day in the Life,' you'll notice that I'm not switching between tasks too often. I usually spend a few hours on one thing or another before moving on.

Jenni Gritters- Have you always done that?

Wudan Yan- Sort of. So back when I was writing more, my mornings were reporting, research, or writing time. I would always have meetings concentrated between 11am and 3pm. And if my meeting times were not filled up, I'd plug in fact-checking and research work in then. And now that I'm doing far less writing, I kind of separate out my time blocks into separate clients. And I'm basically only responding to emails twice a day. I hate email. People who correspond with me by email know that all my emails are really short and to the point and say a lot without using many words. That's what I mean when I say I hate email. I'm very good at managing my inbox, but again, I want to communicate as much as possible in as few words as possible.

Jenni Gritters- This batching thing I think is something I could learn from. I'm always flying between different tasks and emails. And the seasons of my life when I haven't done that have been much calmer. It feels just like a frenetic pace, right? A few ways that I've handled this in the past that have worked would be scheduling a few times throughout the day to check email rather than just checking it constantly as the emails come in.

Wudan Yan- I star important emails—the starred function on Gmail is what I'm talking about—and then I come back to them, which works really well for me. Because, to be very honest, I'm monitoring my inbox throughout the day. But most things don't require an immediate response, which means it gets flagged, and either I'll get it to the person by the end of the day, or first thing in the morning.

Jenni Gritters- Gmail also has a nifty feature that allows you to pause your inbox for a while so you can't even see incoming emails. Some of my coaching clients have found that useful. For example, if you need like two hours to focus on a writing project, you just kind of like shut up your email. So you can't even see that emails are coming in. I have also learned over time, just kind of big picture, to stop using my email as a prioritization tool. I used to do that at my first job. The emails would come in, and I would kind of use them as my to-do list, but then it's other people's to-do list, not mine. I used to tackle my day based on what was in there, like bottom to the top of the list. But now I usually take time in the morning to decide what I need to do that day before my workday really starts. So I have a list of priorities. And maybe the emails aligned with that, but usually they don't. Wudan do you like take walks or lunch breaks during your day?

Wudan Yan- Yeah. Hopefully nobody heard my annoying dog paw at my recording closet, but you might have. Anyway, I take two 30-minute breaks during the day to walk her. She gets her first walk around anytime between 10am or 11am. And right after that, we get home, I have lunch. That's just how it works. And then, you know, that's me taking a break for about 45 minutes to an hour in the middle of the day. And it's a good punctuation point for my day, usually,

Jenni Gritters- Again, I think I could learn from this. Part of this is childcare stuff. Because for a while, I did take a 30-minute walk around lunchtime, especially if I'm at home, I'll walk my dog. It was nice in some ways, but I think it also can cause me a lot of stress, because I have such a limited time to work. Like often I'll have only three or four hours. And so giving up a half an hour of that feels like a lot. For example, I have childcare right now for my daughter six hours a week. And so stepping away from work makes me feel like I might have to tackle that project at night or something, when I'm super exhausted. So it feels like a tough one for me to implement. It's one of the things I've been trying to figure out how to do, is to get little breaks throughout the day, even if I have limited time to work.

Wudan Yan- Usually I recommend people to start small, right? Like it's really hard to go from a mode of existing that is nowhere close to where you want to be. So you know, the question is like, what small thing can you do? Maybe not an hour break. But what's a smaller increment of that, that feels a little more manageable?

Jenni Gritters- Yeah. I love how this is like coaching for me. But you're right. I think it's basically like five minute breaks, right, to start instead of carving out a long one. I was talking with a client the other day about how you can't really jump from step one of the ladder to step ten. That's not really reasonable. So oftentimes, we're like trying to get from a one to a two. What would that look like? Usually that's so much easier to implement. Even having those five minute breaks would probably help a little bit, just from breathing room perspective. What else do you use to help you maintain pace, Wudan? I imagine it's sort of like running a marathon, right? Where you're aware of keeping yourself slightly below your top pace so you can make it to the end. It's like sustainability over, you know, taking the lead in the race right away.

Wudan Yan- I love that metaphor because it reminds me of my mindset on the Pacific Crest Trail this summer. I think when it comes to pacing, is really leaning into your strengths. Like we said before, fast doesn't mean bad, or low quality, especially if you're working on something where you have expertise. So I'd really encourage people to think about what they can do well and quickly to maximize their work time—which can open up more time for non-work activities, which is a guiding principle of life for me at this point of my life.

Jenni Gritters- Yeah, we both very, very much believe that work is, of course, only one aspect of your life. And that can get clouded sometimes by the limiting belief that successful freelancers work all the time around the clock.

Wudan Yan- On the contrary, I would say many of the successful freelancers I know are just incredibly intentional about the work they do so they can make enough money and then have time for other hobbies

Jenni Gritters- Like knitting!

Wudan Yan- Yeah, feeling pretty called out about this. I'm not NOT knitting during the work day...or, you know, hiking or climbing or anything else that I spend a lot of time and resources on.

Jenni Gritters- I do find that I am a lot more efficient and calm when I don't just throw myself in to the day as well. Do you have a morning routine, Wudan?

Wudan Yan- No. My alarm goes off, I press snooze anywhere from two to ten times. Ten is aggressive. Every snooze is nine minutes. I wake up and make breakfast and make sure I have as few morning calls as possible. I find this funny because I'm not NOT a morning person. I'm using a lot of double negatives here. I'll rally for days when I'm going out hiking, or I need to make it to the gym early, or I have a call at 9 am that I have to make. My brain is still at its creative best early in the day. But I do like a nice snooze.

Jenni Gritters- I once wrote a column for about six months about people's routines, and a lot of it involved their morning routines. It was wild. Some people had these elaborate morning routines with lemon water and meditation and a walk at dawn. And then other people were totally frank that their morning routine was washing their face and brushing their teeth. I definitely intend to be the former but I am 100% the latter. Mornings with two small children are crazy. And just like feeding us all and getting our clothes on and getting out the door on time is a hurdle. So there's no—there's no lemon water in my life right now.

Wudan Yan- A walk at dawn. Yeah, kids are chaos muppets. So you're doing your best.

Jenni Gritters- Yep. Absolute truth. Okay, what else do we want to say about pacing, if anything?

Wudan Yan- I feel like it's the same message that applies to what we've said about boundaries, and services, and most everything else in running a freelance business, right? Your needs change based on the life you want to live, which means the pace of work you want may also need to shift.

Jenni Gritters- I am definitely in the middle of one of those shifts right now. And it just takes a lot of experimentation and reflection, I think. I and we need to try new things and see what works for us, probably pretty often. And then the work we have to do is reflecting on whether that thing actually was helpful. Like, I'm gonna try these little five minute breaks. We'll see what happens. Even if it doesn't work, I always tell my coaching clients it is good information to have. Any thing you try can give you information about either how to adapt or how to implement that thing.

Wudan Yan- It's true. We love a good experiment

Jenni Gritters- We really do.

Wudan Yan- I think that's it for today. So for folks who are listening, stay tuned for our new 'Day in a Life' newsletter series, which will give you an inside look at the many, many ways freelancers pace their own businesses. We know people who work for two months then take a whole month off. We know people who work nine to five every day. We know people who choose four day workweeks. We know people who do their best writing at 2am. It goes on.

Jenni Gritters- Yeah, a true benefit of freelancing is getting to pick your own pace and your own daily habits. You are not locked into a structure. But of course, the freedom to pick your own pace can also be overwhelming. On that note, we are going to send you all a worksheet, if you are a $9 and up All-Access member on Patreon. It will help you dream up your ideal day and then see how the tasks that you need to get done can fit into that ideal structure.

Wudan Yan- The freedom of freelancing is probably a big part of why we keep doing this to ourselves. And that exercise can be really useful for combining the dreamy with the practical.

Jenni Gritters- Hard agree.

Wudan Yan- Alright, well you all know where to find us. Patreon. Twitter. Instagram. Our inbox.

Jenni Gritters- All of that info, as per usual, will be in the show notes and you can also leave us a voicemail this season. We'll leave the phone number in the show notes. You can ask us questions. We are planning our upcoming Q&A episode, so we would love to hear from you. Anything about running a freelance business we would love to talk about. And if you do send in a voicemail, you will be featured on a future episode. Your voice, live, so give us a call. Send us a voicemail.

All right, sounds great. I will talk to you soon, Jenni.

Jenni Gritters- Bye Wudan!

Wudan Yan- *dog bark* June, I swear to God. No.

Jenni Gritters- Thanks so much for listening to the Writers Co-op. This season is hosted by me, Jenni Gritters and Wudan Yan. It was produced by Jen Monnier and edited by Susan Valot.