Title: Who chooses your part-time hours?

When I worked part-time in an actual job, I knew what hours I would need to be at work, and then I could squish my home life around that. My employer decided how many hours I would work, and when those hours would be. And I adapted. Badly.

That wasn’t fun and, alongside a few other factors, led to me being more burnt out than a crispy over-fried rasher of streaky bacon.

So when I set up my business I decided to make my home-life the priority and squish my work in around this.

I got to choose how many hours I worked, and when in the week those hours would be.

Except I didn’t really ever make that choice, and instead feel into a pattern of working as much as possible, any chance I got.

I was trapped in a cycle of feeling like I hadn’t worked enough during the week, then overdoing it, then getting ill, then feeling like I hadn’t done enough.

It felt impossible to juggle the demands of home-life, enjoy time with my family, rest, and run a business.

I home-educate Son#2 so we don’t have a predictable week-day routine, and (because of chronic migraine) I don’t know how I’m going to feel on any given day until I wake up that morning (and it often changes throughout the day).

I can’t schedule a perfect week, or use time-blocking.