Waiting Room Productivity: How to Maximize Your Time As a Freelancer

Few things frustrate me more than having to wait on someone if I’ve set up a meeting, interview, or appointment for a specific time. Worse, if I never get a courtesy call letting me know they’re running behind schedule.

So I was pretty torqued today when I left work early so that I could get to a doctor’s appointment on time (to allow for bad road conditions). And then after all my troubles, I arrived only to find out that the doctor was running an hour and a half behind. Of course, the office staff never bothered to call and tell me the doctor was running so far behind. Most offices don’t. But I could have worked for the bulk of the afternoon at the office and then gone to the appointment at the end of the day.

I was amused when the nurse who took my vitals commented on my elevated pulse. “Are you upset about anything?” I paused for a moment and then decided to get honest. This is not an exact quote, but my part of the conversation went something like this: “Yes, as a matter of fact. I am upset. My appointment was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. and I was on time. Early in fact. It’s now 4 p.m. and I still haven’t seen the doctor. And I left work early today to get here on time. Yes, I’m very upset. Particularly since no one on your staff bothered to call and tell me the doctor was running so far behind. So half of my workday is POOF! Gone!”

I didn’t ask what my blood pressure reading was, but I’m guessing that was elevated too. It also didn’t help that one of my meetings was sidelined earlier in the day. Or that the guy next to me on the treadmill at the gym insisted on having a loud phone conversation with one of his buddies while I was trying to focus on my running and empty my mind.

So lack of courtesy all the way around wasted a lot of my time today. And the cellphone bozo on the treadmill next to me at the gym was the reason I didn’t run that last mile tonight. I couldn’t hear myself think—even with my headphones on.

It was just one of those days. And everybody has one once in awhile. I guess it was my turn today.

But in retrospect, I actually did get a few things accomplished while I was growing moss in the waiting room today.

The point I’m trying to make here is this: If you’re a freelancer, you can always make good use of your time in a waiting room.

Here’s what I did:

1) Started drafting this blog post. Hey, I had to do something with my frustrating experience, right? At least on paper, writing helps turn bad experiences into something good. That’s one thing I love about it. So the next time you’re in a waiting room, do some writing. Or if you need story ideas or some dialogue for that fiction project, eavesdrop. You’re stuck there anyway. What else are you going to do? Read 10-year-old magazines?

2) Caught up on some work-related reading. Any time I go to meet someone or I have an appointment, I always anticipate that the other person is going to be late. So I try to maximize this time by catching up on my reading. That way, I’m not generally angry about having to wait. I look forward to those times (except for today), because I do manage to get caught up on some of my reading. I never go anywhere in my car without carting some reading material with me. Today, I was able to plow through several articles in some work-related trade journals. And that reading spawned more story ideas and questions, which I wrote down for future reference.

3) Closed my eyes. I like children. Really, I do. But not when they’re screaming in closed spaces next to me. So when the child in the waiting room started renting too much space in my head with all his wailing, I closed my eyes and tried to mentally drift off somewhere else for a while. Some people might consider this meditating. And I did manage to clear my mind for a couple of minutes and replace thoughts of irritation with something more pleasant. And then the nurse called me into the back room and I was finally rescued from the noise-saturated waiting room.

4) Took notes. I’m working on several writing projects right now. And even when I’m not working on them per se, my mind is still percolating and rolling ideas around. So as some of those thoughts bubbled up to the surface today, I wrote them down. And as it turned out, some of the reading I was doing serendipitously tied in with a couple of my work projects. The idea factory was running at full throttle today. And that’s always a good thing.

So looking back on my day today, I realize now that I actually did get a lot done. Just not in the way I originally intended. And some days (like today), the disruption in my planned schedule helps me more than if everyone would have adhered to my schedule and everything would have gone my way.

It’s a good reminder that sometimes the unexpected and the unplanned thing turns out to be exactly what you need. Today, I needed more patience. And I got a lot of practice.

So how do you maximize your time as a freelancer? What do you do or work on when you’re sitting in a waiting room? Drop me a line—I’d love to hear about it!

Photo credit: Piez (Flickr)