It’s all very well being your own boss but if you’re also a parent and there’s homeschooling on the agenda again it’s also clear that there needs to be a public announcement of some kind. Something along the lines of: Not only am I my own boss, I’m also the boss of you.
Love my boys dearly but just like a good book in the making, they do need a bit of flat-planning in order for me to get anything done. Or rather I need to flat-plan my work around their shift-shaping lives.
For those not au fait with the way of the flat-plan, it’s basically a page-by-page schematic of a book or magazine that helps organise the content, consistency and flow. Much like a garden design or an architectural plan, it allows you see from the outset what works and what doesn’t while leaving space for additional inspiration and ideas. Thanks to the wonders of technology (namely Indesign) it’s also a moveable feast.
Taking stock of my output and the work-child juggle over the past few years and most especially during the on-off lockdown of Covid times (so far 170 days with kids, 40 days without; not that i’m counting, honest) I’d safely say the flat-plan has been my most trusted work friend and colleague. Not only do I flat-plan the book or article I’m working on, I also mentally flat-plan my life, my goals and my quest for peace.
Everyone has their personal situation; mine has been not having any childcare for for the past 4 years thus everything must be done within school hours, when the boys have gone to bed or not yet arisen (a moveable feast in itself), or when I’ve managed to divine an activity that keeps them occupied for longer than 5 minutes.
With the deadline for my last book (Collins Backyard Birdwatchers Bible) falling somewhere at the end of last April (lockdown massive) followed by a few months of editing and amends, the opportunity to write – an activity that does require a little peace and quiet and allowance for continuity – required getting up earlier and earlier until I was literally rising at the faintest sliver of dawn.
One the 1 April, for example, Astronomical Twilight (when the sun is between 12 and 18 degrees below the horizon and it still appears dark) is 4.37–5.20am; Nautical Twilight is 5.20–6.01am (when the sun is between 6 and 12 degrees below the horizon and when stars can still be seen with the naked eye); civil twilight (when the sun is less than 6 degrees below the horizon and artificial light may not be required to see) is 06.01–06.35 and actual daylight begins at 6.35. On 30 April, sunrise takes place between 3.06 and 5.34am. The early bird, as they say, catches the worm. The worm being the piecemeal accumulation of 40,000 words on birds plus ‘PE with Joe Wicks’, the point at which ‘homeschooling’ officially began. (No insult there by the way, earthworms, as I’ll go into on another day, are Joe-worthy heroes in their own right).
The flat-plan, during this time, moved up a gear from helpful device to absolutely necessary guiding light – my directional North Star and my word count torch. Hopefully I won’t have to keep such crepuscular hours this time round (the sun doesn’t even fully rise at this time of year until 8.05am so I’d actually technically be working through the night) but if I do, I’ll be ready with colour-coded, inspirationally labelled grids and my guides. If nothing else, I get to greet a new dawn at the same time. Roll on 5 Jan.