The brighter way to work

Apparently, I am a sunlighter. I discovered this recently, having been one for years, without ever having heard of the term, writes Anna Ross. 

Sunlighting is the name being given to a growing sector of the job market. While moonlighters double-job for reasons of financial necessity, sunlighters have chosen to add a second (or third, or even fourth) strand to their working lives because that's the way they like it.

In my case, I have worked a combination of writing and teaching for almost 20 years. The balance between these two has shifted over time - sometimes I did more teaching; sometimes more writing - but it has now settled into a pattern.

My first job - in the sense that I do it first each day, and that it is the base on which everything else rests - is writing: fiction (under the pen-name Orna Ross) and non-fiction (under the pen-name Anna Ross). My second is teaching: creative writing courses and also creative techniques that enable women to access more wealth. Recently, I have added a third strand, setting up and running the businesses that deliver these seminars and workshops.

Each strand of my work complements the other, and I know I do each of them better because I'm not focusing solely on one. Working like this makes me feel fully alive and I know I will never go back to doing just one thing.

It's a growing trend. The Irish Central Statistics Office does not keep these statistics but figures from the UK, including Northern Ireland, reveal that between 1984 and 2001, there was a 68 per cent increase in the number of people doing more than one job. A growing number are professionals actively seeking a second career, and sometimes taking a cut in their main salary to do so.

The research also indicates that sunlighters are overwhelmingly more likely to be female. Occupational psychologist Dr Sandi Mann believes this is because of women's different expectations around work.

"Women tend not to define themselves through a job title as much as men. They're also more inclined towards multi-tasking, and can easily and happily switch from role to role."

Working part-time after having a baby is often a catalyst to the sunlighting life, she says.

"Once you've tasted that freedom of working part-time or from home, it's hard to give up. So when children are older and women can return to their careers full-time, many don't. They start another, more fulfilling job instead, and combine it with the part-time work they're doing already." So why sunlight?

1 It offers you more autonomy. Sandra Farrell in Co Wexford is a painter who formed a property company with her two brothers eight year ago. "It was the soundest decision I ever made, or could have made, financially," she says. "But what I like most about it is that it leaves me free to paint what I want to paint, not paint to order or to the market."

2It fulfils different sides of you. As well as being mother to three children, Johanna Varghese (41) runs an architectural practice with her husband, specialising in sustainable architecture (www.urban-asylum.com). She also teaches yoga and runs children's workshops in movement and art and craft at Dublin's Chester Beatty Library, based around the Beatty collection.

"I was born in Malaysia to Indian parents and I have always had an interest in inter-culturalism. The children we teach are aged six to 12, and I love working with them. I also teach yoga, something that developed in a very organic way out of my own practice. My brand of yoga has a spirit of inquiry at its heart, and I also incorporate voice work.

"I sunlight because it fulfils all the different parts of me. I have always had leanings in more than one direction. That was what attracted me to architecture in the first place, because it incorporates both an artistic and scientific approach to life. Doing more than one thing is the only way I can live."

3 It can be a taster before making a big leap. Barbara Moore, of Kimmage in Dublin, worked in an accountant's office but had come to dislike the work. "I began to think that I'd like to work in counselling so I did a course and it went well. Once I got my qualification, I went to my boss and asked her if I could go part-time. Keeping my old job took the financial 'ouch' out of starting up as a counsellor and gave me a stability that I valued. I got to try out my dream and see if it was all that I thought it was without burning all my boats."

Barbara has now left the accounting work behind but the sunlighting bug has bitten. "I am now training in complementary health and would like to become a Reiki master, while continuing my counselling work," she says. "I don't think I'll ever limit myself to just one job again."

4 It allows for flexibility around family. Ingrid Doyle in Clontarf, Dublin, has been a sunlighter since her first child was born. For years she combined a home-based airline billing business with being a Weight Watchers leader in the evenings. The first allowed her to work from home by day; the second got her out of the house, working with people, when her husband came home in the evening.

"It was hugely important to me to be able to be home with my kids," she says. "So it was great to find something that engaged my brain that I was able to do from home. But after a while I found that although I was physically there in the house, the work was constantly taking my mind off elsewhere. So when the Weight Watchers work started to really take off, I gave up the airline billing and started to take in students instead.

"I find it's the perfect combination. I'm really a people person so I have that in both jobs. I take two students at a time and only when it suits us. While you get the occasional obnoxious person, the vast majority are a pleasure. We've made some great friends.

"Last year, for example, we were in Italy, visiting the family of one of our ex-students. Having foreign people in the house has been great for the children's conversational skills. They have to mix with people of different ages and nationalities. It makes life much more interesting in our house.

"What I love about Weight Watchers is the buzz I get from the success of anybody in the group. You see them blossom before you, as they succeed in their goal. And I love the close, one-to-one interaction with the students at home. For me, it's the best of both worlds.'

5 Doing more than one thing makes you better at each. A biochemist by training, Kay Scorah (51) in south Dublin runs a business, www.havemorefun.org, that organises creativity workshops for businesses such as Proctor & Gamble and Diagio, helping corporate workers develop their creative thinking and practice. Her business - which also engages in qualitative market research - takes her all over the world but back home she also teaches yoga.

"I started my working life doing what most people do, going to work every day. My field was advertising and market research, and I was very successful, eventually making the board of directors of two big ad agencies in London.

"But by the age of 33, I was burnt out. I found the business environment a bit stifling and I knew I wasn't using all of my talents. So I walked out, leaving my big salary, expense account and beautiful car behind.

"In all those years, my physical dimension had been neglected and I wanted that back, so I got furiously into yoga. Now I begin every day with yoga and teach classes at Yoga Ireland (www.yogaireland.ie).

"That sort of synthesis is what I encourage through my business too. A lot of the people I work with are leaving half of themselves behind. I teach them that if they recover that missing half, they have much more fun and become much more productive. It's how I live myself.

"Without a doubt, I'm a better yoga teacher because I run a business and a better businesswoman because I teach yoga."

Anna Ross is leading a series of Treasure Mapping Workshops for Women, exploring sunlighting and other issues in Dublin. To book or for further information, see www.wealthofwomen.com; info@wealthofwomen.com; or telephone 086-1675272