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I’ve had a few requests for this topic, so let’s address it! Readers have asked me for ideas on “getting it all done,” how to organize your day, calendaring techniques, and just (waves hand in air) “all of that” in general, so let’s take a look.

First, a few resources:

• Cal Newport’s recent episode of his podcast Deep Questions, How I’m organizing my life this fall. He’s a computer science professor (not what we do) and an expert on deep work and how to give yourself time to think about important topics (what we do), and I really liked this episode. 
• Amelia Hruby’s book, Your Attention is Sacred (Except on social media). I don’t want to quit social media, but I really like Amelia’s podcast, articles, and book, about reclaiming your time and attention from The Scroll. Her viewpoint reminds me of a quote from Cal Newport that I liked so much, I wrote it on a Post-It note above my desk: “If you aren’t intentional about how you spend your time, technology will do the choosing for you.” 
• Todoist, the to-do app that I use. I find the free version sufficient, and I love being able to pre-schedule things on a recurring schedule. Remind me to do X task every Monday, every weekday, the first day of every month, etc. etc. 
• Toggl, the time-tracking app that I’ve grudgingly started using, but gotten a lot of benefit from. 
• Pomofocus, a simple timer that prompts you to work in 25-minute blocks, then take a break. 

First, what does a typical day look like for you?

I know, there are no typical days as a freelancer. But I get asked this a lot, so here’s an overview. 

I usually go to bed around 10:30 or 11:00 PM and get up around 7:00. My husband works from home and I work at a co-working office (more on that below), so we usually have breakfast together, then I take the bus or ride my bike to my office and get there between 8:00 and 9:00. I typically work until around 4 or 4:30 PM, taking regular breaks throughout the day to move around (stretch, do a little strength workout in my office, take a 10-minute walk, etc.).

After work I often go to a yoga class, have dinner between 7 and 8 PM and then lift weights and/or practice one of my musical instruments. That’s a typical day, but of course there are variations: picking up and dropping off our foster cats, having dinner with my parents who live near us, getting together with a friend for a walk or dinner, etc. etc. 

One thing you’ll notice: at this point in my life, I have close to zero caregiving responsibilities. For years and years (18 years, in fact!) my daughter’s schedule was the main driver of my schedule, and I nearly always stopped working around 2 PM, then picked back up for a few hours after dinner. If you have a massive factor like this in your life: aging parents, kids, someone else who needs you, your own health/energy level issues, give yourself grace and wiggle room when scheduling your work.

Here’s the first question: how many external demands/scheduled appointments do you typically have in a day, because I think that may dictate whether you’re more of a time-blocker or more of a checklist person. I’m more of a checklist person, because I tend to have a lot of scheduled appointments during the day. Here’s a look at this week: 

Monday
8-10 AM remote court interpreting assignment 
1-2 PM meet with ATA mentee
3-3:30 PM consultation with graphic designer about my new website 
3:45 leave work to meet a friend for early dinner 

Tuesday
8-10 AM remote court interpreting assignment 
11-11:30 online coffee chat with someone from my advanced freelancers’ group
2:45-3:45 get my hair cut 

Wednesday
10-11 T4T alumni question and answer session 
12:30-2:00 remote court interpreting assignment 
2-3 attend a webinar on SEO
4:30 leave work to pick up new foster cats 

Thursday
8-8:30 meeting with a consulting client 
10-11:30 T4T ghostwriting class
1:30-3:30 remote court interpreting assignment 

Friday
10-12 remote court interpreting assignment 
1:30-2:00 weekly meeting with a client 

It’s actually pretty rare that I have a day with no scheduled appointments or meetings. Writing this prompted me to look at my calendar, and the next day when I have absolutely nothing scheduled is October 13, almost a month in the future. Thus, I’m scheduling “everything else” (translation and writing work, all things Training for Translators, my own marketing and administrative work) around these pre-scheduled appointments. 

Time-blocking, or task-oriented planning?

When you’re thinking about how to organize your time, I think this is question #1: should you use time-blocking (single-tasking for a designated part of your day or week), or what Cal Newport calls “A, B, C time management,” where A is what you have to get done, B is what you’d like to get done, and C is what you do if you have time after you’ve completed all the A and B tasks. 

Personally, I like the idea of time blocking, but I just don’t have enough time for it to work (insert gales of laughter at that bad joke!). It’s just so rare that I have a whole day as a blank slate, and honestly I like it that way. I’m impatient and easily bored, and I’m an Upholder, so I love a list of things to check off, I’m pretty disciplined even about things I hate doing (Upholders gonna uphold, right?) and if something has to get done, I get it done. Time-blocking is promoted as “stop constantly switching from one task to another,” and just between you and me, I love switching from one task to another. The checklist productivity method works for me! 

I also incorporate the Pomodoro method. I recently, grudgingly, started time tracking in Toggl and I admit that it’s really helpful. First off, I’ve learned that I work a lot less than I think I do. But that’s a topic for another time! The topic here: I watch the Toggl timer, and when I’ve worked for about 25 minutes on one task, I take a break, so I use Toggle as a de facto Pomodoro timer and I find that helpful as well.

But maybe you’re the opposite: your days are completely yours to organize, you’re not an interpreter, you don’t have many meetings. Then maybe think about time-blocking. You could do this in a few ways:

• Divide the day into Pomodoros (25-minute periods of focused work). Aim for a certain number of Pomodoros in total, or a certain number where you do a certain thing, i.e. at least one marketing Pomodoro per day. 
• Create a one to two-hour Deep Work block at your most productive time of day, especially if you can do that at a time of day when you don’t have to regularly check e-mail (before or after your clients are in the office, depending on time zone). 
• Learn from other people. Here’s a freelancer who calls himself Captain Time, who has a really good video on time blocking with Google Calendar. And here’s an article by Austin Church (who runs the advanced freelancers’ community I’m in) on his time management method, which is much more time-block than task-oriented. 

Other factors 

Here’s a list of questions I find helpful, along with my answers in case they can help you:

• What time of day are you most productive? What’s your worst nightmare of a time of day to be working? Me: I maintain that I’m neither a morning person nor a night person, I just love to sleep. But I really, really dislike working at night and try to avoid it. 
• Where (physical location) are you the most productive? Me: Not at home. The rest of the world dreams of working from home; I end up with really clean closets and that’s about it. I moved to a co-working office in 2012 and (with the exception of six highly unproductive months at the start of COVID) have never worked at home since then. 
• Are you more of a time-block person or more of a checklist person? Me: Checklist all the way. 
• Scale of 1-10, how avoidant are you about tasks that you hate? Me: Probably a 6, but I’ve found that if I force myself to do the unpleasant stuff first thing in the day, the feeling of satisfaction is so great that it outweighs the avoidance. For example right now I’d like to find a new content marketing client, so I do the outreach for that before I even answer my e-mail. 
• How chaotic is your work life? How often are you missing deadlines, finishing projects at the last minute, pulling an all-nighter, logging on after an interpreting assignment has begun, etc. etc. I ask this because if these things are happening, I think you need to look at the bigger picture, not just time management. Do you dislike your work? Do you have neuropsychological factors at play (ADHD, depression)? Do you feel overwhelmed in life in general? Did you last take a day off in 2018 and you’re just totally burned out? Me: I’m OK on these, but I know they are issues for a lot of people and I have a lot of empathy for that. I feel fortunate to have the time and money to take regular vacations and days off so that I don’t burn out, and I know that’s not the reality for everyone. 

I hope these tips are helpful if you’re trying to organize your time this Fall! Talk to you next week!

In episode 29 of the Training for Translators podcast, I talk about three ways to take a vacation, when you’re a freelancer with no paid vacation! Plus an option if your budget is close to zero.

The episode is based on this blog post if you’d rather read than listen, which you can do on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or right here!

True confessions: I love vacation 

I really enjoy my job, but I love traveling so much that I even love the things most people hate about travel:

• The people-watching 
• The tiny snacks
• The animals people bring along on their trips 

Case in point: day one of my recent Europe trip was a “positioning” trip from Denver (my home airport) to New York that involved landing at LaGuardia and getting to a JFK airport hotel for the next morning’s flight.

I was by myself with minimal luggage, so I thought, let’s spin the adventure wheel and take public transportation instead of an Uber. This involved the airport bus to the subway, a subway ride, a 20-minute walk, a wait for a bus that never came, and a wait for a bus that did come. Basically most people’s idea of hell, and to be honest, I loved it. 

It’s hard to describe the array of humans that ride public transportation in New York, what they wear, what they talk about, what you see from the bus window. Such as: a restaurant advertising “Trinidad-style Chinese food.” So many questions: how did these two cuisines fuse, what do they serve, who eats there (people from Trinidad, people from China, people who just like this kind of food?).  An Uber would have been $65 plus tip, this cost me $6.50, and honestly it was better than a movie! And the trip just got better from there. Every day was literally perfect. 

But how do we take a vacation, without paid vacation? 

When we pair the words “freelancer” and “vacation,” there’s good news and there’s bad news.

• No boss to ask for permission (yay!)
• No paid vacation (whoops!) 

The real consequence: in the U.S. at least, most freelancers just don’t take vacation. Pre-COVID, the accounting platform HoneyBook did a survey showing that 92% of freelancers felt that they could never take vacation, or worked during what they called a vacation.

As someone who really believes in the benefits of vacation, I find this sad. To me, vacation isn’t just fun; it’s a mental and physical break that gives me renewed energy for my business, and new ideas. I find that when I’m not working, my mind can think about the bigger picture of freelancing: what do I want more of and less of in my work life? Where do I see myself in three years? What’s working and what’s not working? 

Three options to try

If you want a vacation but you’re struggling with how to do it, here are three possible models I’ve tried all of them, so I’ll give you my perspective on each one. I’ve also got an option if your vacation budget is close to zero. 

Option 1: Just unplug 
As I often remind people, you’re a freelancer. You can honestly do whatever you want with your business. “Can’t take vacation” is something you’re telling yourself, not something someone else is telling you. If you can afford it (in terms of money and client retention), just put on your auto-responder and go. 

Pluses: You get a complete break from work, and I think a lot of freelancers never really get that.
Minuses: It’s expensive and risky. To do this, you really need a paid vacation fund (so that your bank account isn’t at zero when you get back), and you need to either have a workflow that lends itself to this kind of thing (i.e. your work slows down a lot at a certain time of year and you take vacation then), or you need to accept that you may lose work because you’re neither available for work nor responding to e-mail. 

Option 2: Don’t work, but keep up with e-mail
This is what I did on my recent two-week Europe trip. Sadly, it’s fairly uncommon in U.S. business culture to take two consecutive weeks off, but I really needed a break, and because I was moving around a lot during this trip, I wanted to take only a carryon backpack and not haul my work computer with me. I did not put on my auto-responder, and I relentlessly answered e-mail (came home to 12 messages in my Inbox, less than an average weekday morning). 

Pluses: Clients may not even know you’re gone, and you have less FOMO about what might be happening in your Inbox, yet you’re not really working. I did no paid work during my two-week trip, and I took only my phone, no computer. It was liberating!
Minuses: You’re not truly on or truly off. You’re not earning money, but you’re not totally unplugged from work. However I will say that of the three options I’m suggesting here, I liked this one. I despise coming home to 975 unread e-mails, and I really didn’t mind spending around 30 minutes a day on e-mail. 

Option 3: Workcation
Although I think we all need true breaks from work, I’ve become a big fan of the workcation (I wrote about it in this blog post in 2024). Workcation is what it sounds like: you go to a new location, but you work from there. I’ve done this for as long as a month, and it went well, but I think you need to be strategic about time zones and other logistical factors. My husband and I have now done three workcations in British Columbia in the summer, and it’s honestly a huge advantage that it’s light until almost 10 PM: we usually work until around 4 PM, then go mountain biking or hiking for a few hours, and it’s still broad daylight! Likewise, you could go from the U.S. to Europe, have most of your day free, and start working in the afternoon when your U.S. clients get into the office. 

Pluses: You’re getting at least sort of a vacation without losing income. When I’ve done workcations, I felt that they were totally worthwhile even though I was still working.
Minuses: You’re, well, still working on vacation! Zero unplugging! Time zone can be a big factor, as can reliable internet if you’re an interpreter or if you do online meetings. For example, I will not interpret over wi-fi, only in a location where I can bring my own ethernet cable and plug it into the router (I ask the lodging host about this before I book). 

An option that’s close to free

Maybe you’re thinking, “Nice idea, but I can’t afford any of this. I can’t take time off, I can’t spend any extra money, I can’t even go on a workcation because I’d still have to pay for a place to stay.” If you’re not a traveler and you’re fine staying home, do that. I’m not here to shame you into taking a vacation if you’re a homebody.

But if I wanted to travel and couldn’t really afford to spend much/any extra money, I think I’d take a workcation while housesitting in a situation where I either got paid, or at least didn’t pay anything. A couple of ways to do that:

• Join a platform like Trusted Housesitters (mostly involves pet care; you don’t get paid) or HomeExchange (house exchange, but it doesn’t have to be 1:1; you accrue points that you can use anywhere)
• Find a group of like-minded people; oddly enough I’m in a Facebook group for cat-lover translators, and people commonly exchange live-in cat sitting 
• Travel somewhere that people pay a lot for house/pet sitting. Where we live (fairly high-cost and dog-obsessed area of Colorado), people on our neighborhood e-mail list will offer up to $1,000 a week for live-in dog sitters if you’re willing to spend most of your time with the animals 

Some people take this to the extreme: here’s an interesting article by an American remote worker who went more than eight months with no permanent place to live while housesitting full-time through Trusted Housesitters. I was honestly tempted! 

I hope these tips are helpful if you’re planning a vacation! I like to have something on the calendar before I come back from a trip so that there’s always something to look forward to. And if you went on an adventure this summer, I hope it was great!

The Training for Translators school year kicks off on September 17, 2026 when guest instructor Ashley Cisneros Mejia teaches Breaking into the corporate ghostwriting market. Registration is $75 and includes the recording.

Many of us are familiar with book-length ghostwriting. In this class, Ashley will focus on all the shorter pieces that corporate executives have to write, but don’t have the time, headspace, or necessarily the writing skills to create. This class applies to any language!

In episode 28 of the Training for Translators podcast, I read and comment on a blog post I wrote in July, about what happens when you lose a big client with little to no warning.

If you’re in this situation, know that there are only two types of freelancers: those who’ve already lost a major client with no warning, and those who will at some point in the future lose a major client with no warning.

Learn how to prepare for this kind of situation, and how to decide what to do next if/when you lose a client that represents a large percentage of your income.