8 Days a Week

The Gainfully Unemployed feelancer may find it easier to stay motivated and on task when under deadline.  A client is expecting your work.  Not only will you damage your professional reputation if you don’t turn it in on time, you may get less or no money.

But when in between projects, we’re on our own.  There’s no boss, manager or even fellow employee to tell us what to do or make sure we move forward.  Will we choose to spend our time self-marketing--contacting current, former or potential clients, updating our websites, taking a course to enhance our skills, or will we convince ourselves we deserve a reward--playing hooky via sleeping in, a spa day, shopping spree, vegging in front of the TV, or cruising the Internet for political commentary and/or pictures to post on Facebook?

These days, many people work more than 40 hours a week--maybe because there’s just that much work or they want to show their employers how devoted they are.  Actors often have to work every day...learning lines for upcoming gigs and performances, or working a day job and taking a class or doing a play, concert or comedy show at night.  So when do we get our weekends?  If we take the traditional two days off for downtime, socializing and/or errands or chores, when will we get the rest of our work done?  There are only seven days a week.

Many of us are tied to our smartphones.  If I choose to work, say, 8 to 4 on a given day, but an agent or client emails after 4 or 5, I still need to respond promptly if I want to get that audition, accept a job or move a project forward.

I’m not the only one wondering about how many hours to work:

Salon.com-Bring back the 40 hour work week

Inc.com-Why working more than 40 hours a week is useless

Libertymutual.com-Is the 40 hour work week back?  

Gobankingrates.com-History of the 40 hour work week