My friend Alison is great at presents and this was no exception: thoughtful, beautiful and so ME. But I felt a kind of guilty dismay. It was the 2nd January. Normally I love getting a present late, but this was a DIARY. A very special suffragette diary. I adore diaries and very year I keep two – one, my proper appointment diary with everything in it, and then a daily journal, the latter usually a Christmas present from Auntie Iris.
 |
| un embarras de journaux |
The big diary is always well under way from October as that’s when bookings start to come in, and I had started Auntie Iris's the day before. It would feel like bad luck to start the year again in a different diary. What could I do? Whatever I did, I ran the risk of upsetting one diary (I’m a ridiculous anthropomorphosiser of inanimate objects), and besides that, how wasteful!
 |
| the beautiful diary |
The beautiful suffragette diary sat rebuking me on my desk for a few days. As it happens, I had a really busy January, creatively: day after day of just writing and editing, with very few other commitments. My ‘real’ diary was empty and yet I was spending hours every day at my desk.
That’s when I had my brainwave – my suffragette diary could be a record of my work – not the workshops, the events, the school visits, the train times and the flight references and the mileage, but what I think of as my ‘real’ work – writing. I’ve always kept a word count when I’m writing, but this is a bit different. As well as word count, I note down (very briefly) when I’ve spent the morning in admin or preparation. I’ve found this invaluable – it shows me very clearly what I actually do all day and helps me not feel guilty when writing progress isn’t what I’d like it to be. It's also a good excuse to bring out the highlighters!
 |
 |
As freelancers, we often struggle with boundaries. I know I have written before about the danger of overworking. This new way of keeping a third diary (and it takes seconds every day) is, for me, a valuable record of what I do all day. Sometimes every day. It encourages a sense of achievement. And when I come to count up my days worked at home for my accountant next year, there it all is in one easy place.
Not for everyone, but I love it. And I wouldn’t have started it if I hadn’t felt guilty about receiving a third diary, and such a lovely one! And now I can confess to Alison…
5 comments:
Interesting post. I think I'll try this.
What a brilliant idea, Sheena! I love diaries too, and use several for different things - and how could you not use one so perfect for you for such a valuable reason? Well done your friend Alison for knowing you so well!
Order Medicine Online
I've kept work record diaries of that kind for well over 20 years. My system is very small - a Filofax - but I interleave the date pages with plain pages for plans and reminders, and tear these out at the end of the week. And I still tot up my hours at the end of each day, although I no longer bother to work out annually how much I've earned per hour! A useful addition to this is my list of emails, letters and phone calls - it's SO much quicker than trawling for an email online. My other 'diary' is a pretty notebook which I use from time to time but not regularly, for writing down ideas, thoughts, poems, memories - anything that comes to me.
That's such a brilliant idea.
Post a Comment