I start work at 11am. Sue me.

Let’s cut straight to it: I’ve never been good at the whole 9-5 thing.

The alarms, the desk lunches, the passive-aggressive "per my last email" energy. None of it has ever worked for me.

It used to make me think I was lazy.

Too slow in the morning. Too foggy mid-afternoon. Too alive at the “wrong” times.

But it turns out I wasn’t broken. I was just operating on someone else’s rhythm.

And spoiler: that someone was capitalism. If in doubt, blame capitalism (the fucker).

We were not designed to wake up, hammer at keyboards for 8 hours straight, and pretend a 15-minute lunch break is self-care. And yet, somehow, we’ve normalised it. We’ve been sold this one-size-fits-all rhythm like it’s gospel. But it’s not. And it’s definitely not working (for me, anyway, and maybe you, too).

So lately, I’ve been paying attention to my actual rhythm.

Here’s what I’ve discovered:

I naturally wake up around 7:30. I take a cup of tea back to bed and do a slow morning scroll (don’t come for me - I have a stupidly expensive, unbreakable app blocker on for social media until midday everyday so when I say scroll, I mean the weather app, horoscopes and happy-clappy-Substack-notes), then I walk Margot around 9-9:30, come back, faff a bit, and eventually open my laptop around 10:30-11. I work until about 12:30ish. Then I have a proper lunch. The kind where you make something instead of inhaling hummus over your keyboard.

Afternoons are a bit of a mystery.

Sometimes I work. Sometimes I don't.

Sometimes I flirt with the idea of working but end up horizontal instead.

Sometimes I work in the evening, after dinner. My brain often perks up at 8pm for no apparent reason, and we go with it.

It’s fluid. It’s imperfect.

And crucially: it’s mine, designed around me, not some outdated factory schedule from the Industrial Revolution.

I get that being self-employed gives me a privilege - the freedom to design my days... but isn’t that the point? We talk a lot about the risks of working for yourself, but not nearly enough about the rewards.

Freedom of time is one of the biggest flexes of being self-employed.

So why do so many of us still treat our calendars like they’re run by Karen from HR?

If you’re self-employed and still working 9-5 out of habit, this is your loving nudge to check in with yourself. Is it actually working for you? You're not proving anything by recreating a system you chose to leave.

Because let’s not forget:

We have more tech than ever. Tools that automate, schedule, assist, generate.

We were meant to be working less by now. That was the bloody dream.

Instead, we’re doing more. Hustling harder. Logging on earlier. Logging off... never?

The machines were meant to free us, not replace our sleep cycles and hijack our nervous systems.

It’s a scam, babe. An absolute capitalist fever dream.

We deserve better.

Better rhythms. Better boundaries. Better bloody lives.

Your rhythm might be early mornings. It might be evenings. It might be beautifully chaotic. It might change season to season.

The point is there is no one right way.

Your job is to find out what works for your body, your brain, your life.

And then design around that - not what your Year 10 work experience boss said was “professional.”

A little homework (but the nice kind):

If you're self-employed: ask yourself honestly, is 9-5 actually serving you?

If you’re employed: what boundaries can you set? What part of your rhythm can you reclaim?

Start small:

Move a morning meeting.
Block out a silent hour.
Protect your lunchtime.
Be a bit harder to reach.

This is your life. Not a corporate timesheet.

With love, rebellion, and long lunches,
Nat x