Nicola Balkind

Community Leader

How I Start

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Getting Started

Last week I published a post on my big sticking point: Getting Started.

It wasn’t until afterwards that I realised that I hadn’t explained how I get over it.

Probably because I started without a plan.

So, here are some ways you can help yourself to get started.
 

1. Define Your To-Dos

If I sit down to work without an idea of what needs done, it’s a wasted day. So I always write my to-do list for the coming week on a Friday afternoon or – if time gets away from me – on Sunday evening.

Defining your weekly overview before the new week begins clears away the clutter of the week past, gives you a solid starting point, and can always be revised over time as things pop up and change.

For me, this means having a weekly to-do list. At the end of each day I write down my to-dos for the next day. If something moves, no worries, it gets copied and pasted to the next available time slot.

Knowing what needs done and when also gives me a deadline – even if it’s just to finish this blog post before my yoga class this afternoon.

Set yourself parameters and keep your priorities front-of-mind.

 

2. Remove Distractions

Close the YouTube tab. Close your inbox. Turn on the Do Not Disturb notifications feature. They’ll still be there when you’re done.

Sometimes if the dishes are looming, the best way to get them off your mind is to give yourself time to get them out of the way. It can be easy to get into a procrastination cycle here, but you know how you have the best ideas in the bath, or on the bus? Doing something productive and meditative can ease you into the right thinking patterns.

For me, it’s often something like watching one video, or doing the dishes.

This also relates to…

 

3. Set a Starting Point

Don’t let a stream of bits and bobs steamroller your day.

Committing yourself to a task that’s a little down the line, and takes place right after a certainty. It can makes a big difference.

So tell yourself: see once those dishes are done? Once I finished this cup of tea? When the postman comes? Then it’s time to start.

 

4. Start a Timer

Some people swear by the Pomodoro technique or variations on it. Setting a timer for 10-20 minutes and challenging yourself to start work can be really useful. But I also find that as the timer gives me a reason to get going, the buzzer goes off as I hit my stride.

My technique is to use Toggl (more on how I use Toggl here). You start a timer, define the task, then get going. Keep yourself beholden to the task at hand, and to the timer’s tick. You’ll soon realise how little time you spend actually focused on a task and how long it takes. No time feels more wasted than time deleted from a Toggl tab.

 

Your Turn

What are your tips for getting started? What’s your sticking point?

Here are some responses I got from last week’s blog (See? You’re not alone!):

What are your tips for getting started?

Getting Started

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Getting Started

Everyone has an Achilles’ heel when it comes to work.

Some of us are great planners and terrible at following through. Others of us love jumping in and setting to work, but run into hurdles two-thirds of the way through a project.

Me? I’m a terrible starter.

To give you an example, I’ve been sitting here for 2 hours staring at the prompts and topics I had planned for the month, feeling utterly uninspired by the lot of them.

It’s not a procrastination problem, you understand. There’s no staying up overnight til an hour before the deadline. That stress is not for me. I just have a tough time getting started. It’s the way I work, and it’s partly motivated by fear. It’s also motivated by a fact of writing: sometimes you don’t know what you have to say until you actually start saying it.

Once I get going, once the momentum builds, I’m set. It’s revving the motor I have trouble with.

So how do I deal with it? When I was on the Cultural Enterprise Office’s Flourish programme earlier this year, I had a mentor, Sophie Kyle (hire her here). She told me to find a starter, and it has worked beautifully.

Sometimes it’s been intentional, like kickstarting a podcast called Bookish Blether with my brilliant friend Holly. Other times it’s been pure luck, like being invited by the folks at Skriva to run a Finding Your Voice Online Workshop.

Having a starter isn’t always possible. Here, today, writing the September blog posts for this website, the only starter I have is myself. Sometimes I have to call upon others to hold me accountable, and other times I seek them out.

Here’s someone who’s been (unironically, promise) helping me out lately:

So… where do you get stuck in work? How do you get out of it?

 

Making Time for Personal Projects

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projects

I was planning to write about “Giving it Away for Free” – “it” being your expertise – but since it’s still the end-of-summer slowdown for me, I had a better, but related, idea.

Let’s talk about how to make time for your personal projects.

For me, one of the biggest challenges in freelancing / running my own business is dealing with downtime. There are reasons to embrace the uncertainty: it means that when you work hard, you earn more, and that when things are quiet, you have time to do your own thing. The tricky part is keeping your own momentum going when it’s most important.

All this to say that I haven’t mastered it yet. But I have written a book, kept my personal blog, weekly newsletter, and YouTube channel going, and sustained a podcast to 15 consecutive episodes during the past 2 years of running my own business.

Here’s my advice for making time for your passion projects, whether you’re a small business owner, a freelancer, or working on a side hustle.
 

Plan to 80% capacity

In fact, you probably want to plan below 80% – but it’s a start.

Planning to 80% capacity means scheduling in client work (or your equivalent) for 4 out of 5 days of the week.

For one thing, there’s plenty else for you to be doing with unbillable tasks: marketing, book-keeping, invoicing, even tidying up your office.

For another, you need to give yourself some of that good thinkin’ time – when you’re ALERT! – to devote to your own projects.

Give yourself a little leeway to ensure you’re not overworking and burning yourself out.
 

Prioritise your passions

Sounds obvious, right? If you want to make something for yourself, you have to make it a priority. But it’s also probably the easiest project to brush off. It’s easy to make excuses – time, money, circumstances – but you really have to give your projects that time and effort if you want to make progress.

Treat your project like a client: schedule it into your calendar and stick to it. Generally, Thursday afternoons are my work “me” time: I go to a café, put my headphones on, turn email off and get to work. If you have a way to signal this to yourself – for me it used to be a Thursday lunchtime yoga class – all the better.

It’s also wise to have a go-to project waiting in the wings for when you have some downtime. Client call delayed? Meeting cancelled? Quieter time of year? Make your personal project the first thing you reach for – rather than a book or the TV remote.
 

DON’T make Friday your projects day

I’ve got a feeling that folk won’t like this one… but Fridays just don’t work for me.

On one hand, Fridays are generally less demanding in terms of emails, calls and meetings. And this is all part of using your self-discipline. But personally, by Friday I’m burnt out, tired, lazy, and would rather go read a book than start writing.

As I mentioned above, Thursday afternoon tends to be my sweet-spot: it’s a good time to aim to finish up client projects, but gives me Friday mornings to finish things out for the week, rather than ending up taking a 3-day weekend. I look forward to it, I’m still alert, and it’s a great way to unwind from all the other stresses of the week.
 

Go all out: do it daily

Better still – and this is my strategy during these quiet summer months – give yourself a little time each day.

This could mean waking up early and devoting the first hour of each day to your task, or it might mean using your downtime as I suggested above. Think about the times when you work best, and what you can do to move the project forward during those envelopes of time.

If you can do 90 minutes before you get down to work on your paid projects, all the better. Robin Sharma calls this the 90-90-1 rule: for 90 days, devoting the first 90 minutes of your work day to the one project you want to finish most.

I’ve not quite committed to this one yet myself, but you know what? When I find time for my personal projects during the work day, I feel happier and more productive.
 

More tips & strategies

Smoe more ways of working you can try are:

One Thing Today: Michael Nobbs promotes the habit of doing one thing, every day, for 20 minutes, to move your creative life forward. | Sustainably Creative

The 90-90-1 Rule, in full. | Robin Sharma

You could emulate The Daily Routines of Great Writers. | Brainpickings

And finally, apply these tips on How To Do Like a Boss to all your works in progress. | Being Boss Podcast
 

Your turn!

How do you go about fitting your passion projects into your workday? What does the side-hustle look like for you?

I’d love to hear your answers in the comments, or you can shoot me an email and we’ll chat there.

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