Role: Author
Company:
Track Record:
Role
Author of Protecting our Children in Cyberspace and founder of OurChildren. Today and OurFamilies.Today.
Track Record
Saintfield mum-of-two, Kerry-Ann Ferreira previously worked as a Candidate Attorney in South Africa and a Group Legal Counsel (Commercial) at Global Strategies Group in Dubai before moving to Northern Ireland with her family in 2008. After starting a business, Quantum Outsource, with her husband she then decided to branch out and write her first book, Protecting our Children in Cyberspace.
7am
The alarm is set for this time but I have a much-used snooze button, being a night owl rather than a morning person but by 7.20am I’m up having a quick shower.
7.45am
Wake the children up (we don’t do rushed mornings!) and head downstairs to prepare breakfast and make the packed lunches.
8am
Sit down for breakfast with the family and discuss what we all have planned for the day. We’ll talk about anything from what activities the children have that day to making up bizarre riddles (my daughter’s current favourite thing to do!)
8.30am
My husband has a hectic schedule so he likes to drop the children off at school. It gives him a chance to spend a little bit of quality time with them and it gives me the opportunity to sit down and spend about half an hour on my social networking sites and to check and respond to emails. Writing emails helps me get into the flow of writing… it doesn’t matter what
I write just as long as the words are coming and the creative juices are flowing. I try not to spend more than half an hour doing this: I have this thing about starting major projects/tasks on the hour so if I don’t start at 9am sharp I would have to wait until 10am!
9am
This is go time! I put on some background classical music (I’m enjoying Vivaldi at the moment) and adhere to the Pomodoro technique, meaning that I spend the next two hours (sometimes more!) writing or editing.
The Pomodoro technique is a time management system which breaks down work periods into 25-minute intervals with a five minute break between each.
This means I can stay focused in four sets of 25 minute ‘sprint’ writing sessions which was an extremely useful tool for me whilst researching and writing my first book, ‘Protecting our Children in Cyberspace’. Because I’m quite a visual person, I use a timer.
The ticking acts as a constant reminder that I need to stay on task otherwise procrastination can and will set in. And, because I’m quite easily distracted too, I set my phone to silent and turn off the wifi… no interruptions, no excuses During my five minute breaks I usually do something housework related.
This break is just long enough for me to stretch my legs and organise my thoughts before going into the next ‘sprint’.
11.30am
If I’ve spent the morning session writing, I will use this time before lunch to review and edit what I’ve written.
If I’ve spent the morning editing then I will spend this time researching statements, ideas and useful links, and liaising with printers and book cover designers.
1pm
Lunchtime! Although I close my laptop at this stage I always have a notebook handy. After an intense writing session my mind is still full of ideas and phrases and I like to write them down immediately. This gives me potential material to start with tomorrow which means I can get right into the writing ‘zone’… a bit of a jump start, so to speak.
2pm
I’ll spend the next half hour or so updating @KerryAnnFerreir — my Twitter account — and also my LinkedIn feeds, looking for interesting blogs to feature on Twitter, following new people and interacting with my book’s charity partner — ‘The Cybersmile Foundation’.
I joined forces with The Cybersmile Foundation to launch ‘Protecting our Children in Cyberspace’ and pledged to donate part of the proceeds from the book sales to the charity, who do a fabulous job of raising awareness of cyberbullying and offering support to those who have/are being bullied.
3pm
School run, afternoon activities and overseeing homework. While the children are doing homework, I will usually sit at the table with them and be reading some sort of guide book about blogging or how to increase my daily word count.
I like to highlight all the relevant bits so that I can work that into my schedule (either this week or the tasks can be added to next week’s to-do list).
5pm
We like to have our meals quite early because of the children’s swimming schedule. It’s also great in summer because it means we can spend more time outside if the weather is nice, perhaps even a little trip to the beach for a couple of hours.
6pm
Spending time with the family either playing football in the garden or table tennis in the garage. If the weather is miserable then all of the favourite board games come out.
9pm
After the children are in bed, I like to return to the laptop to answer emails and draft my list of tasks for tomorrow.
The school routine can be quite heavy and I have to ensure that I keep on top of all sporting events, school plays, music gradings and parties so that I can plan my writing around all of these events.
I love that I can do my writing anywhere.
For many years, I worked in a structured office environment so I fully appreciate the flexibility of my work, and how I’m able to spend time with my children and be at all their sports and other important events.
10pm
I like to watch BBC News at 10 to keep up to date with world events and I will watch it to the bitter end to catch the local news also. Then I head up to bed to sneak in a chapter or two of whatever book I’m reading (currently Luanshya Greer’s Reap the Whirlwind).
11pm
On an ideal night I will have the lights out by 11pm but, depending on how good the book is, this could stretch to 1 or 2am!