I’m a structured person with a fairly regimented routine.  However, lately I’m wondering if this routine is holding me back a little.  If I’m too dependent on it.  If it’s inefficient and unfocused.

I was converting a transcript into a workbook for a client the other day and read this suggestion from the interviewee - do everything you hate to do before 10:00am.  The reasoning behind the suggestion was that you would have the rest of the day to be productive.

Right now here’s how my day typically goes:

6:30-9:00am Respond to email, create task list for day and get girls off to school.

9:00-10:00 Recover from the craziness of the morning and prioritize task list

10:00-11:00 Start working on most pressing project

11:00-1:00 Continue working on most pressing project

1:00 - 3:00 Check and respond to email, manage project delivery and any administrative tasks. Write and schedule blogs.

3:00-6:00 Hang with children, drive them to their corresponding activities and get dinner together.

6:00-9:00 Continue any writing projects and respond to any email message I’ve been avoiding.

Pretty scattered, right?

I think, in order to be more productive and perhaps a bit more energetic I’m going to try the ‘things you hate before 10:00am thing’ which means my new schedule will look like this:

6-10 Email, get kids to school, delivery projects and admin tasks.  Workout.

10-3 Work on pressing writing projects

3-6 hang with family, clean, household and family errands/chores

6-9 Enjoy life and work on fiction work in progress.

This schedule still affords me the same amount of writing time while at the same time I’m able to focus all the admin related tasks into one segment each morning.

We’ll see how it goes.  The highlight of this new schedule is that I will have time each day/night to work on my fiction work in progress - particularly important since NaNoWriMo is coming up quickly.

For those of you who’ve been freelancing for quite some time you’ve likely gone through the stages - much like a teenager growing into adulthood.

Here they are as I see them:

Stage 1 - Elementary school - completely thrilled with any client that comes your way and willing to do whatever it takes to please them.

Stage 2 - Junior high - my clients are stupid, they don’t know what they’re talking about and while I still REALLY want to please them, I”m not going to be happy about it.

Stage 3 - High school - maybe I don’t need to please everyone.  Perhaps it’s better to please the clients whom I work well with and let the other ones find a more compatible service provider.  Though - I’m still likely to make some mistakes and work with clients who make me react like I’m in Junior High.

Stage 4 - Adulthood - You can’t please everyone every time and though I’m going to put 100% of myself into my work, I’m not going to let the difficult clients get to me.  I’m doing my very best, I’m professional and reasonable and ‘this too will pass.’

I’ve been at stage 4 for years and thought I was handling my business in a very ‘adult’ manner.  I have a wonderful client list and a fantastic support team.  However, I realized last night after a week of tremendous ups and downs that I’m tired of the seesaw.  The difficult projects still get to me though only for a few minutes however, the ups are just as exhausting.

Stage 5…In order to achieve a sense of inner calm and contentment in our daily lives, the good has to have the same limited effect on you as the bad.  You can’t stay on a high for three days becasue a client loves your  work just like you can’t stay on a down for any lenght of time becasue you missed the mark with a project.  The final stage in freelancing is - enlightenment.

It’s the stage where you’re happy to be working, loving what you do for a living and at the same time not letting the ups and downs that the freelancing life has to offer affect you or how you do your job.  It’s a tough stage, each day offers new challenges.  Each day presents opportunities to pat yourself on the back and each day offers the potential for a dissatisfied client.  The key to remember is that each day offers us the opportunity to control our reactions to both situations - to remain calm and to not let others affect our disposition, our level of contentment.

Of all the stages this one, I’m assuming it’s the final stage, offers the most challenge and the most reward.

What freelancing stage are you in?  How do you remain unaffected by both the ups and downs of not just freelancing but owning a business?

It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little - or not at all in some cases - should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time - or the tools - to write. Simple as that.

Stephen King

Three things I’m thankful for:

Editorial calendars - gotta get a bigger one with more space to write!

My new home office - puppy has a nice new place at my feet and I have a large sunny window to look out of.

My project manager - I have no idea what I would do without her.  Probably spend a lot of time crying and trying to ‘organize’ things!

What are you grateful for?

The pen is the tongue of the mind.

-Miguel de Cervantes

Last month was extremely busy so I didn’t have much time to read for pleasure.  I did however read 6 books for RomanticTimes Book Reviews - they were all pretty darn good so that was fun.  You can check out four of them if you pick up an issue - shameless plug:-)

Bird by Bird is another book that I had the pleasure of picking up at the bookstore.  I don’t typically read too many books on writing because, well, they take away from the actual time I could be spending on writing. However, I’d heard so much about this particular book by Anne Lamott that I had to pick it up and I’m enjoying every single word of it.  She’s poignant, practical and very funny.

I also picked up the 2009 Writer’s Market but that’s more like a giant database than a book to sit down and read.

Hoping to make next month more interesting! ( I have a list of books stored on my Blackberry and I’m waiting for them to come in at the Library - keep your fingers crossed for me.)

What are you reading?

Yesterday was the end of the month and in typical fashion it’s a harried day.  End of the month invoices to be sent (though this is much easier now that I have a bookkeeper for AllCustomContent.com)  It also means an abundance of content deliveries, also for All Custom Content clients who prefer to receive thier content at the end of the month each month.  And then there are my own personal writing projects which need to be wrapped up at the end of the month and the forecasting for next month and paying the contractors and posting blogs for the upcoming month and following up with clients before the next month gets too far underway and…and…and…

Typically the last day of the month is spent working tirelessly until around 9 or 10 at night.  Fortunately I’ve streamlined my systems and hired out a bit of work so I was actually able to wrap it up around 4:00.

Time for a little R & R!

To reward myself for a job well done (A habit I’m strongly in favor of) I like to:

Go through all of my juicy, frivolous magazines.  I LOVE magazines and have about 10 -15 subscriptions and there’s nothing quite like sitting down with a stack of them and flipping through all the pretty pictures.  I feel the need to also point out that I read and subscribe to Kiplinger’s and I read my husband’s Wired and Climbing too and I DON’T read tabloids or entertainment magazines.  My favorites are strictly design, fashion and home, and health and fitness.

Okay so down time reward #2.  Fiction writing!  I know it’s supposed to be downtime but there’s something about indulging in a few hours of creative writing, after a day of non-fiction, that is just plain fun.

Reward #3 - Um….HGTV.  I’m not sure what the appeal is here - I don’t really have any overwhelming need or desire to redecorate or remodel and yet I can watch people do this for hours.

What do you do to reward yourself for a job well done?  How do you unwind?

Many business owners struggle with the abundance of content required not only for SEO purposes but also to simply provide value to their readers.  Yes, some of that content can be outsourced but it’s also important to share your own personal voice with your target audience.  And that means writing your own content.

Read my blog post over at Internet Based Moms to find out how to write 10 articles in as little as 2 hours.

http://experts.internetbasedmoms.com/annette/overwhelmed-by-content-time-yourself

I got to thinking about the point in every freelancer’s life where he has to decide whether he wants to A, have a social life, and do art in his spare time, or B, do art, and have a social life in his spare time. It has always seemed to me that if you have any hope of making a living as an artist – writer, musician, whatever – you absolutely must learn to tell people to leave you alone, and to mean it, and to eject them from your life if they don’t respect that. This is necessary not because your job is more important than anyone else’s – it isn’t – but because a great many people will think of you as not having a job. ‘Oh, how wonderful – you can work whenever you want to!’ Well, yes, to a point, but generally ‘whenever you want to’ had better be most of the time, or else you won’t have a roof over your head.

Poppy Z. Brite

Lately it seems that my entire life evolves around getting work completed for clients.  It’s a good thing, it means business is at maximum capacity.  However at maximum capacity it leaves little time for actually planning and growing the business and it leaves little time for self improvement - and let’s face it, we could all use a little improvement!

I took some very bold steps, bold for me anyway, and hired a handful of new writers in anticipation of a heavier work load.  I took some steps to create a heavier work load too.  For me it took a leap of faith, it took letting go of a scarcity mindset - the what happens if there isn’t enough work to pay the bills - to having faith that the business is growing and the steps taken will help it continue to grow despite the current economic mindset.  (I’m actually very excited about the future it just took one of those leaps of faith)

Now as the business grows and the clients become more and more sophisticated, it’s important that my skills not only keep up but that they improve.  Therefore, I’ve committed to attending at least one seminar, workshop or conference a month.  Pretty hefty commitment, right?  Actually, many of the courses are offered online so it’s actually pretty easy to schedule.

My first workshop happens to be a fiction writing workshop through a RWA chapter called Passionate Ink - it’s an online chapter which focuses on erotic romance.  No, it’s not a class on how to write better sex scenes, though that might be fun, it’s actually a class on characterization and plot.  It’s taught by R.E. Matheson and I have to say after day one - I’m impressed.  I’m glad I’ve taken this class and that I’ve made the commitment to one workshop a month.

Believe it or not, this class will also apply to the non-fiction content writing because storytelling is a very important part of content.  I can’t wait to apply what I’ve learned to my next article project!

Here’s a list of great sites for writing workshops, seminars and conferences.  I’ve left out some of the obvious ones like Shaw Guides, Gotham, and Writers Digest because…they’re obvious:-)

• http://www.coffeehouseforwriters.com/courses.html
• http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb.html
• http://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/retail/courses.aspx?r=little-red-writing-workshop
• http://www.writingclasses.com/CourseDescriptionPages/GenrePages.php/ClassGenreCode/AR
• http://www.dcs.wisc.edu/lsa/online/writing/
• http://writingtrainers.com/index.html
• http://www.writers.com/classes.html
• http://www.absoluteclasses.com/Katz/short_stuff.htm

Happy Writing!