The Freelance Mum: A flexible career guide for better work-life balance. Annie Ridout

years in, The Early Hour reaches 100,000+ parents a month. I’ve learned how to monetise my online platform and build a career for myself around it – including writing freelance articles for the Guardian, Red Magazine, Stylist and Metro. I’ve appeared on BBC radio and TV, and I spoke at Stylist Live alongside celebrity chef Jasmine Hemsley and the founder of Propercorn, Cassandra Stavrou. The Early Hour has acted as a springboard for me; leading to lucrative consultancy work, well-paid copywriting gigs and being made a partner at women’s app, Clementine. This has been my way of sticking two fingers up to the company who employed me as a copywriter but thought I’d become useless as soon as I gave birth. It was my way of saying, ‘you can take away my job but you can’t take away my power’.

      That’s not to say it’s been easy. It hasn’t. I’ve had to learn everything from scratch: accounting, building a website, SEO (getting my website to the top of Google searches), how to do PR – after working out what PR actually is – networking, making contacts, social media, how to monetise my website … Basically, everything that running a small business entails. And all while looking after my two children, who are now aged four and one. But I quickly discovered that motherhood can give women the incredible tool of productivity; you find ways to squeeze work into tiny pockets of time you didn’t even know existed before kids came along.

      The thought of leaving behind a salaried job, shared office and daily briefs might feel scary, but if you’re keen to spend more time at home than at work, this is probably the path for you. You might have clients or colleagues you collaborate with in some way, but ultimately, you are the boss. You decide your dress code, what hours you’ll allocate for work and how much time you’ll spend with your kids – or doing yoga, or going for a run. There will be no one checking whether you’re back from your lunchbreak on time. If you want to spend all day with your kids then work in the evenings once they’re asleep, that’s totally viable.

      Ultimately, there is no easy option when it comes to balancing motherhood and a career. Leaving your child at nursery when you go off to work isn’t easy. Parenting full-time certainly isn’t easy. But freelancing, as a mum, might just be as close as you can get to finding a comfortable, guilt-free, work–life balance.

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       Getting started as a freelance mum

       What should my freelance job be?

      You’ve decided to take the plunge and go freelance. Perhaps you’ve left behind a salaried job and want to find work to fit around your kids. Maybe your contract ended when you gave birth, as it did for me. Either way, well done for making this decision. It won’t be easy but it will be fun, as long as you’re working in a field that excites you. So, how to decide on your freelance path?

      An exercise I like to do every New Year’s Eve is to envisage the coming year. What would I like to achieve? I think about my career, my family, my social life, my hobbies – everything. And I spend an hour drawing and writing up a detailed plan of my dreams. At the end of 2016, this list included having a second baby, writing articles for the Guardian and Stylist and continuing to spend lots of time with my daughter. All those things happened. As 2017 came to a close, I created a visual representation of my dreams for 2018, which included earning £100,000 and writing a book.

      This exercise could help you to decide what you’d like your freelance life to look like. So ask yourself the questions below, then write a list, draw a picture, cut photos out of magazines and create a collage or write a story – whatever feels most natural to you. Committing your intentions to paper makes them much more likely to come to fruition. It’s about having a clear focus and knowing what you’re working towards.

       In a dream world:

       How many days a week are you working?

       What are you doing?

       How much are you earning?

       Are you alone, or surrounded by people – a team, perhaps?

       Where are you working from: your kitchen, a shared workspace, a snazzy office?

       How much holiday will you take?

       Where will you go?

       What will your weekends look like?

      Remember, this exercise is about everything you’d like to happen. A common barrier for mothers in terms of establishing a new career path is confidence. Many of us find ourselves questioning our identity after giving birth. You look and feel different; people might suddenly treat you as if you’re less capable in the workplace. But you’re not. You have skills and experience, and now you’re going to put them to good use. So, envisage the lifestyle you’d like to lead, think about your skillset and start planning your dream freelance career.

      Francesca McConchie (@cakeofdreams) was working as a PA before having her first baby but she wasn’t happy in her job, wanted to be around more for her children and was fed up with paying extortionate childcare fees. She’d been a passionate baker for years, and had always been complimented on the cakes she’d made for her kids’ birthday parties, so when she started getting enquiries from people who had attended the parties, she decided to start making cakes alongside working as a PA. Once she’d realised how little she was making from her desk job after childcare costs, she decided it wasn’t such a terrifying leap to give cakes a go full-time, so she quit the day job and launched Cake of Dreams – her one-woman baking business. She works while her kids are at school – admin and emails on Mondays, then baking the sponges and making different aspects of the cakes towards the end of the week, usually for collection Friday to Sunday. ‘I do have to get up early on Saturday (and sometimes Sunday) mornings nine times out of ten to decorate them, which kind of sucks,’ she says. ‘But it’s easier now the kids are a bit older and hanging off my legs less!’

      Lauren Davies (@thisisheka) trained as a designer at the prestigious Royal College of Art and worked part-time in studios before becoming pregnant with her son, Max. When he was three months old, she had her work exhibited but realised that the pressure of producing original designs while looking after a young child was too much. Instead, she began using her hard-earned knowledge on sustainable design and started to offer this out as a consultant. She was picked up by a forward-thinking agency and began to work two days a week from home – managing with a mixture of paid-for childcare and utilising Max’s nap times. With a high day-rate, this two-day working week enables her to lead a financially comfortable life, while being very much involved in her son’s early years.

      Anna Jones – bestselling author, cook and columnist for the Guardian and The Pool – wanted a freelance career that would fit well around motherhood, but also offer variety. ‘I’ve spent my whole life trying to avoid routine,’ she says, ‘which has been a challenge since entering motherhood, as babies like routine. But I can get bored quite easily. I don’t like doing the same thing again and again, so I designed my career so that every day is different. I thrive on that. I’m quite good at being present, which is a good trait for someone who freelances – I’m not worried about where the money’s coming from or what I’m doing each month, I’m just living in the moment.’

      For Dr Pragya Agarwal – designer, entrepreneur, journalist and TEDx speaker – it was a different set of circumstances that led to her embarking on her multi-skilled