It’s tricky trying to prioritise requests for an instant response when you’re freelance and have many masters. And that’s before you bring in the lifemin and personal correspondence. Giving one person your attention means ignoring someone else.
As I’ve mentioned before, re-priotising work requests in a full-time job can be easier* because all your various masters know each other, so you can answer a request from Boss-X with: “I can’t do that right now because I’m doing this for Boss-Y.” And then leave them to fight it out between themselves.
(*I say ‘can be easier’ but if you’re a people-pleaser like me, you probably try to fix everyone’s problems, all at the same time. There is no helping us…)
And then there’s the non-work stuff: lifemin, family, friends. We all need things from people - favours, help, professional advice, call it what you like. Putting these people to the back of the queue is sometimes easier but always feels worse.
I am reminded of the four burners theory: life has four gas rings - work, heath, family, friends - and for things to go well in one area, you have to switch off another ring. Two rings if you want to be really successful. I’ve not done a survey but I bet most people switch off health first. And I’m not just saying that because I had to go back to the dental surgeon for a second root canal this week - clearly necessary but, of course, I didn’t find time to go until I was at the stage where a trip to A&E was looking like a real possibility because my head had gone weird.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject, look at this ceramic nick-nack that was in the loo at the dental surgery. I mean, how is this helpful?
Anyhoo, back to the four burners theory. Let’s find out which ring you’re all turning off first, shall we?
The thing is, I don’t think this gas burner theory goes far enough - I think we all constantly switch off gas rings just to get by. Not to “succeed”, just to cope. And, because we need to pay the bills, work only gets turned down in an absolute crisis in one of the other areas.
Also, I think there’s a ring missing: the afore-mentioned lifemin. This is something that particularly affects anyone in Freelance Land, what with all the invoicing, tax and other financial whatnot. But we’ve all got issues at home - repair jobs to do, bills to sort out, even housework. The list is endless and very, very dull.
But maybe there is a way forward - besides those suggested by Atomic Habits author James Clear. How about making a separate set of gas rings for work? A spin-off hob, if you like. This builds on Clear’s second solution of establishing limitations: instead of trying to divert more gas to one burner, you get the most out of the existing supply.
I have five jobs at the moment, so you’re going to have to imagine one of those fancy five-ring stoves that people who live in big houses have. When, for example, I’m delivering a lecture to a class of students, all the other rings are switched to zero. I have set a clear boundary - and it doesn’t matter how many messages anyone else sends me. My laptop is shut, my phone is on silent. Surprisingly, it is possible to ignore things, to be unavailable - even for a people-pleaser, like me.
Setting boundaries definitely feels like it’s part of the solution. And how do we set boundaries in work? With an out-of-office settings or an ‘unavailable’ status. This says to colleagues that they can send what they like, but you’re not going to see their message for some time. They should prepare to be ignored.
Before such things existed, I remember a tenacious colleague trying to buttonhole me at my desk while I was on a press deadline. When his request turned out to be trivial and non-time-sensitive, I asked him to go away as politely as I could.
“I’ll phone you,” he said, as he walked away.
“I won’t pick up,” I called after him.
“I’ll email you then,” came his reply.
“If you like. I won’t read it though.”
What a waste of both of our time. The ‘unavailable’ status may seem a bit pass-ag but it’s a lot more efficient.
But there’s also the unspoken ‘unavailable’ status. Namely just not answering messages. It occurs to me that my old, full-time-job inbox always had thousands of unread/unresolved emails in it, and I never lost any sleep over that. Why? Because ignored requests were either re-sent or (in the best case scenario) resolved themselves without me.
So can I take that approach with everything else? Can I just have a “please take a ticket and wait for your number to be called” approach to everything? Well, no, obviously not - especially when we’re bringing family and friends into the mix. That seems a bit cold. But if the ‘work’ gas ring isn’t constantly depleting the others, life must surely get less exhausting.
NB: this theory - which seems to be ‘set an unavailable status or simply ignore things until you’re ready’ - is completely untested. Still, got to be worth a go, eh?
Friday dance break
No link but I felt it was important to bring this barrel organ bossa nova to your attention. Look at them there, living their best lives. (I particularly enjoy how much your man gets into it around the 1m30sec mark - you go, fella!) Aren’t humans great when we make joyful things just for the hell of it?