How to Use Flexible Work Hours to Reach Your Writing Goals
Flexible work hours are now becoming increasingly widespread, and your writing can reap the benefits. Many employers introduced this pattern of working in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s stuck around as employees and employers alike recognize the benefits that it can bring. Better work-life balance means happier employees, and in turn, happier employees are better able to help customers.
Whether writing is your day job, or you’re looking to fit writing time around your other work commitments, here’s why flexible hours can help you reach your writing goals.
1. Work When It Suits You
It may sound obvious, but this really is a potential game-changer for your writing. Rather than being forced to fit your life around a rigid 9-5 work schedule, with flexible hours you can theoretically work whenever you want. If the mornings are the best time for your writing, then you can do it then. Or if you work best in the evenings instead, flexible hours allow for that too.
We’ve probably all had the experience of hitting a wall with our writing, and needing a break to get the creative juices flowing again. The beauty of flexible working is that you don’t need to work for a solid eight hour chunk, with only a lunch break in the middle. Instead, you can split the hours up throughout the day to maximise the moments when you are at your most productive.
For those who need to fit their writing time around their day job, flexible hours can be revelatory. Rather than trying to squeeze all their writing time into the evening after work, when the motivation and energy may have already faded, they can fit writing hours into the traditional working day instead.
2. Boost Your Wellbeing
Work stress is a serious problem for many, and this can lead to mental health problems. A flexible working pattern does not solve this completely, of course, but it does help to improve your work-life balance. As touched upon above, flexible hours allow you to take longer and more frequent breaks throughout the day.
Taking breaks from work is beneficial, both for our mental health and our productivity. By reducing your levels of stress, and enhancing your work-life balance, you will be more positive and productive. You’ll be able to take a step away from the computer (or notebook), and return feeling more creative and refreshed. Even short walks can be inspirational – as well as being more widely beneficial for your health, of course.
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3. Work From Different Locations
Flexible working can release you from the office and open up a world of other locations. Sometimes, a change of scene can be all you need to kickstart a few hours of productive writing. You can choose to work in a coffee shop, for example, and take inspiration from the characters you see around you. Or you could work in a library, if rows of quiet bookshelves and hushed whispers are more your style. But it doesn’t have to stop there: other locations such as museums could be worth considering too.
Sometimes home comforts are the best, of course – but you can pick and mix. You can choose to work in whatever location really unleashes your best writing.
The writing life can be challenging, especially with so much else going on in our lives at the same time and the need to balance competing commitments. Luckily for writers, however, flexible work hours are becoming more widespread than ever before. If we take advantage of the opportunities this new way of working brings, we’ll be able to bring our writing goals one step closer to reality.
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Meet The Writer!
Anne works in marketing alongside fitting in her own fiction writing. She is currently working on a collection of short stories!
