【Freelance Journalist Journey】EP2 — There’s no more 9 to 5, but …
When I first started, a lot of friends said they envy me because I no longer need to work 9–5, and I don’t need to work during the weekday. There’s so much freedom as a freelancer.
I thought that was the case too.
But after a few months, the reality is, I not only need to work 8 hours a day, but I also lose my weekend. Note that it’s not a bad thing, just an interesting fact.
In this article, I will share my weekly routine as a freelance journalist with you.
Monday — Article Writing Day
Usually, Monday is the busiest day for office type of work. But for me, it’s not.
A typical Monday routine in the morning would be writing the article I am going to post on Tuesday. And in the afternoon, I would watch 1 to 3 chapters of an online course.
Sometimes if I hit a roadblock of writing a new article, I would extend the duration to the afternoon, and study at night instead.
Tuesday — Article Publishing Day
This is the day where I publish the weekly article.
From morning to afternoon, I would reread and edit the article I wrote yesterday, then create an infographic for that article for social media posts.
The evening is a busy time because I need to publish the article on at least 3 platforms — Facebook, Instagram, and my personal website. All at the same time, 6 pm.
You may think that’s it, but no, it’s just the beginning.
After publishing the article, I would need to promote it in several ways, such as sharing it with multiple Facebook groups, my Instagram and Facebook stories etc.
Some Facebook groups have restrictions such as no sharing through Page. In that case, I need to manual copy and paste my content there, which takes quite some time and can cause human errors.
After the promotion, I would also need to stay online to wait for comments, because if you reply fast, your post gets more distributions and interactions.
Wednesday — Recording Day
Before the current lockdown, I would go out and record videos on Wednesdays.
Depending on the situation, sometimes I had to spend some time inspecting the site, sometimes I had to go back again the next day because of bad lighting (you can’t control sunlight).
After recording the video, I would sort the footage and organise other resources I need for that video.
Thursday — Editing Day 1
If things go well on Wednesday, Thursday will be the main editing day. But editing is a tedious task, so I would break it with online learning, usually 3–5 chapters.
Friday — Editing Day 2
Editing a video is not easy, it takes more than one day. So, Friday is the second editing day, usually, I finish the 90% on Friday night, then make a trailer post on Facebook to tell everyone what the video is about, what time it will be released, and the platforms it will be shared to.
Saturday — THE BUSIEST DAY
Saturday is supposed to be the weekend, the relaxing day (or even starting from Friday night). But it’s the busiest day of the week for me.
I would put on video subtitles in the morning, make the video thumbnail, create the video title, then publish it on 4 different platforms.
Which part takes the longest time? you may ask.
It’s thinking a good title, which can take 1 hour or even longer sometimes. There’s a WeChat tool that scores titles for articles, I would usually produce 5–10 titles then continue modifying them until one of the “passes” the AI title scorer, which to me the pass mark is 70.
After publishing the video, again I would promote it in different ways and stay online for comments. This entire process goes from morning to night.
Sunday — The Reflection Day
Sunday is the only day I don’t need to do anything, for work.
But it’s the day I think and reflect. For example, this article you are reading now is the one I wrote on Sunday.
I would also look at the data behind this week’s video and article to see how they perform, and think about the reason why they do well, or the opposite.
So that’s my weekly routine in short.
In the next episode, I will share my first Public Relation Crisis that happened a month ago.
