Not Now.

One of the downsides to being self-employed is it can be hard to make a distinction between when you’re working and when you’re not, and have other people understand that just because your day-to-day life may not be as obviously structured as someone with a nine-to-five job, that doesn’t mean you still don’t have to spend a large portion of your day doing what needs to be done, uninterrupted.

In recent years, I’ve made more of a concerted effort to have a clear stage in the day when I essentially clock off, mainly to alleviate stress and to give myself some downtime. I’ve got better at it, but only to a point. Today, I haven’t been successful, what with chasing stuff for Edinburgh on-and-off all day, trying to finalise the few remaining Spring Mostly Comedy line-ups (which included a phone conversation with an agent past 6:00pm to confirm a big act for one of our St Albans dates, and then submitting the event to go on sale literally a few minutes ago) and responding some comedy club-related email enquiries. It’s now gone 11:00pm and I’m still at it; writing this only minutes after editing the Mostly Comedy website; something I’ve been tinkering with all day.

I could do with reining things in again before they get stupid, but I’m always more inclined to do tasks now rather than leaving them until later, in the misplaced belief that this will give me more free time in the future, which it never does. On top of this, it’s not as if I have the benefit of an uninterrupted day, as if I don’t respond to messages in daylight hours, they start to clog my mind like furred arteries (though that may be hyperbolic).

The trick is to give yourself boundaries, which is where I often fail. Right now, I’d like to be reading before bed, but instead, I’m trying to justify myself in this blog; trying to write something well that expresses my feelings succinctly, while also filling a page. I really don’t want to do this if it’s counterproductive, which is why I’m now signing off: call it progress, if you like.