7 am (approx!)

Tuesday starts like any other, with a two year old sneezing in my face. Breakfast is taken over email, and then the difficult commute begins. I  negotiate around my wife who wants me to put the bins out, peel my son off my leg, and step over MakkaPakka, once I break free it’s a clean run up the stairs, and into the office.

8-9 am 

I see what jobs were posted overnight and get in first on anything that looks interesting. A glance to my left shows me my schedule for the day, I’ve got a meeting in Camden at 11.30am. I always make my meetings for 11 or 12, this is for two reasons; firstly I can get in and out of London and save on the Peak-Rate ticket, and furthermore, I’m not going to get embroiled in an expensive client lunch where I spend the whole time getting stomach cramps worrying if it’s protocol for me to pay.

Two jobs need doing today, logo development for a flooring company, and a Social Media proposal for a Pomegranate juice brand, so head down and into Illustrator I get cracking with the first job, which before you laugh, it’s more interesting than you might imagine, I mean who can honestly say they don’t like, or use floors?

10 -11 am

I begin to worry if my wife has remembered to make my “milky coffee”, sometimes she forgets, and it can throw me out for the rest of the day, thank goodness today is not one of those days.

With the logos done and over to the client, I make my way to the station and onto the train, and I use this time to put some ideas together for the Social Media proposal. Only I would, if the bloke opposite me didn’t breath like he had a flute crammed up his nose. In the end it’s too distracting, I put my iPad away press my head against the window so the vibrations drown out his deathly wheezing.

11.25 ish – 1pm (approx)

In the past I’ve worked up a real sweat carrying my laptop, and a leather-bound printed portfolio to my meetings, but these days it’s all on my iPad. My portfolio is in a presentation app called ‘Slideshow’ and I take all my notes in ‘AwesomeNote’ (terrible name) which syncs to Evernote. I worried that it looked a bit flash, but one client told me that they’d rather see a designer who’s invested in their business, and presentation to look professional, rather than someone turning up with a post-it note and pencil.

The meeting goes well, some deadlines are put in place, and more importantly lunch wasn’t mentioned. I head back on a thankfully empty train to the office to write up and email the notes from the meeting, thank the client for their time and assign actions and milestones for us both to agree on. I always aim to get quotes back to my clients within 24 hours, this shows a good indication that you’re organised and dedicated from the start.

2-5pm 

For the rest of the afternoon I redress the balance and make a cup of tea for me and my wife, write my proposal, write a blog about App Branding and add some new work to my site. Then I plan the rest of the week on the chalkboard, jobs in white, meetings in yellow, please don’t judge me, it’s really important for me to be this organised being as utterly stupid as I am.

An email from the Flooring Company drops into my inbox, and my heart flutters. Hearing back from a client when you’ve done work for them is always a tense moment, I click ‘read’ with one eye open, skim reading it, looking for capitals (shouting), but it looks good, they’re happy. Sweet relief.

Sadly, I’m not Peter Andre, 99% of my days are pretty average and actually miracle free, but that’s how it is for a freelancer, you live for those 1%’s when something really good pops up, and when it does, knowing that you made it happen is all the better.

However, if you’re like me, this joy lasts about 20 minutes before the panic of finding new work consumes you again.

 

6.30pm ‘ish’ (on a good day!)

As the evening draws in, it’s time for the big commute home, I really hope the stairs are clear tonight.

So how does your day pan out, more or less structure, longer hours and how long did you take the day off?

You can you know, you are the boss!

Share with us your day…we want to hear what you guys are up to. If you are interested in featuring in our series of  ’A day in a life of a Freelancer’ like Ben please get in touch with Dea-Marie, Community Manager at info@peopleperhour.com