I’ve had decades of trial and error, trying to figure out the ideal work environment and work load for me. I long-since figured out that working at home is usually best for me. But the type and format of work that I can do best has only become clear more recently.

While my eyes are bigger than my stomach for writing projects, and I have countless book ideas and partially written books, these have been harder for me to do while also being a homeschooling stay-at-home mom. The homeschooling has been done for a few years now, but even though my kids are adults, they’re still a significant portion of my day’s efforts. And that keeps me from being able to hold a lot of ideas and thoughts and plans in my head for very long, since I’m constantly task switching.

So shorter jobs that I can do in 1-2 hours have been the ideal for the past decade or so, and sometimes that’s the only paying (or even not-really-paying) work I can get done in a day. Sometimes one of those work chunks, sometimes two. Rarely more. So, blog posts, one-off assignments from my work-giver person, autism interviews, that kind of thing, are how I’ve tried to subsist.

But that doesn’t stop me from having loftier goals for longer projects. Those will come later, once both kids are out on their own.

I’ve also learned another thing about my needs for work. I also do better when I don’t have a lot of work hanging over me, like the kind I “should” be doing at any given point. If someone gives me one or two work assignments for the week, I can plan out my week accordingly. But if I have too many assignments on my plate, especially a lot of short ones that I “should” be able to fit “just one more” into my work day (often causing me to work into the evening), I have a harder time being done with work for the day, and it causes me a lot more stress.

I’m not making a single point with this post, but just sharing some thoughts about how I best work, in case it sparks something in anyone else.

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