A few weeks ago I posted a blog entry about what working day when I travel up to Manchester to teach my students. In contrast, half my week is spent working from home, and so I thought I’d describe to you what my very different home-based working days look like. The contrast is striking!
So here it goes: I find that I have to be strict with myself and stick to a fixed routine when I work from home, it would be so easy to get distracted by other things! Perhaps you find the same, that it takes real willpower to work from home on a regular basis.
7.15am get up, have a light breakfast listening to news on the radio.
7.45am trudge the long walk up the stairs to my office (a converted spare bedroom) and turn on the computer. Spend about half an hour answering emails, some work and some personal, and doing fun things like checking social networking sites.
8.15am Begin ‘work’ proper. This usually involves three main activities during term time: writing lectures, planning seminars and marking essays. I will write the lecture first as this takes up the longest time. I have researched the information for the lecture during my long train journeys to and from university, so when it comes to writing a fifty-minute lecture, I usually only need a couple of hours at the most.
10am take morning coffee (as much to keep warm this time of year as to have a caffeine hit, working in a desk-bound job where you don’t move around much can mean you get very cold!)
10.30am having finished the lecture I will put together a powerpoint presentation to accompany it and then move on to seminar preparation. I can teach up to three different seminars in one day, so I need to make sure I know what format the seminars will take, what questions I want the students to answer and whether I am going to give extra handouts or supporting material that needs preparing. This is quite a straightforward job if the course has changed little from previous years, but new sessions/courses take a lot longer to prepare.
midday: lunch, I only take 20 mins because I would rather finish earlier in the afternoon: it’s nice to be able to make that choice.
afternoon: I start by answering a few emails and then move on to marking; this is one of my favourite jobs but it is time consuming. I have days when 40 essays come in on the same day and this sort of quantity can take days to mark. Deciding the mark is quite simple once you become an experienced marker; it’s writing the constructive feedback that takes time.
c. 3.30pm finish set tasks for the day, then I can move on to doing some admin tasks if need be, such as preparing the agenda for a meeting I am chairing or planning a new course for next year or writing references for students. If these tasks are not too onerous I might even fit in an hour’s research at the end of the day, although this is rare during term time. My research might involve reading journal articles from an online database, sorting out materials from a latest library visit or working with an online primary document, taking notes ready for my next book.
5.30-6pm my working day finishes. I relax for the evening, going to the gym or watching a film and eating a meal. I turn the computer off and pack my work away so I am not tempted to start working again, having first updated my diary so I know what I have to do over the coming few days. I try not to go into my office at all during the evenings, otherwise I could easily see my working day stretching to 12 hours plus, and that’s just not healthy!
