Gemma Hartley

Being fully in charge of your time as a freelancer is both freeing and daunting. It means you can cultivate a life that reflects your priorities, one that has tremendous flexibility and opportunity. It also means you could wind up wasting your time, falling short of your expectations, and have no one but yourself to blame.
So how do you build the type of fulfilling life you desire while chasing the career you want? How do you make every minute count, whether you’re hustling with your startup ...

narrative essay

A couple days after my article on emotional labor went viral, I spent the morning locked in my office writing. I generally make it a rule not to work on the weekend, but I had skipped a workday while my dad had surgery and deadlines were piling up. While I worked I found it hard to shake off my stress, not because I couldn’t handle the job, but because I had left my husband entirely in charge of our upcoming outing. We were planning a family trip to Apple Hill for the afternoon, and would hav...

For Mother's Day I asked for one thing: a house cleaning service. Bathrooms and floors specifically, windows if the extra expense was reasonable. The gift, for me, was not so much in the cleaning itself but the fact that for once I would not be in charge of the household office work. I would not have to make the calls, get multiple quotes, research and vet each service, arrange payment and schedule the appointment. The real gift I wanted was to be relieved of the emotional labor of a single t...

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