A New Routine

Once school has started again, there’s a different kind of routine, bounded by the limits of the school day, rather than whatever time you can carve out from parenting. At first, the time seems almost limitless, but it can ebb away if you don’t have an action plan. Knowing what you want to do when is half the battle in getting anything achieved.

Getting Organized

I’ve been doing a couple of things to improve my short term organisation and to help me reach my medium and long term goals. One key change is the way I handle email. I’ve been using a GTD (getting things done approach) and I’ll tell you more about that when I see if it makes a permanent difference to productivity.

Project Plans

Another project that I’m currently working on is using the nearly 500 blog posts I have here in a different way. You’ll be hearing about one way to do that some time in the next couple of weeks. I also plan to use some of the content to create ebooks. (I know I’ve said that before, but this time I plan to finish one of my own rather than simply writing for clients.) I am going to chase up recent clients for more testimonials about my writing and I’m also going to overhaul my rates.

Working For Clients

And those are just the tasks I’m handling for myself. I also have a couple of blogging and promotion gigs for clients which will lead to big things. What are your plans now that you have a bit more time?

(Photo: Gekreutzigt)

• I don’t have to dress up to go to work. I can work in my pyjamas, in shorts and T-shirt (my preferred garb) or in not much at all (OK, I don’t usually do this, but I could )
• My daughter can wander into my office to tell me about her day, give hugs and kisses or ask for help.
• My DH can wander into my office to tell me about his day, give hugs and kisses or ask for help.
• I can take a coffee break whenever I want, though I also have to crack my own whip.
• I have a great view from my office.
• I have time to go to the gym during the work day.
• I can finish work in time to pick my daughter up from school every day so I can find out how the day went.
• I am in charge of how much I earn and how many hours I work.
• I can cram two days’ work into one so that I can take the following day off (actually, I’m not sure if I love that, but it’s sometimes useful)
• The beach is five minutes away and it’s a great place to have lunch.
• I have lots of friends online who understand the life of a work at home writer.
• IM is not a waste of time taking me away from the tasks set by my boss, but an essential communication tool
• My horizons are limitless.

Of course, working at home doesn’t mean working less. On the contrary, I probably work even harder now that I am working for myself. Being in charge of your own income brings not only freedom, but also responsibility - and I love that responsibility.

As web content writers, we have other skills too. We can’t take years to germinate the perfect masterpiece. We have to produce it in hours, or sometimes even minutes. We know where to find information on almost anything, and find it quickly. We are good at speed reading research sources, extracting their essence, and making something better and more readable with our own personal flair. Our minds are buzzing with words and phrases that make any subject come to life. We know how to add the personal touch, addressing our readers directly and making them feel that they are the sole focus of our writing attention.

So the next time someone asks you what you do, or suggests that you can’t possibly have a real job working from home, or disparages your job because they haven’t heard of the places that you write for, tell them this: I am a talented writer with the same skill and creativity as other writers, and a wide range of subject knowledge. Or just say: I AM a real writer, and this IS a real job.

Tools For Success

Of course, that wasn’t all I had to take to make my trip a success (in work terms, at least). Although my laptop is my main computer, I use an external ergonomic keyboard and mouse to save my wrists. I don’t want to bring about a repeat of having to work one handed, so those had to go in the case.  Since I sometimes have to speak to clients abroad, I also needed a VOIP phone. To round out the package I added a USB flash drive (with a backup of my files just in case) and my paper diary. I was all set for a working holiday.

Working Holiday?

When I was employed, I never had a working holiday. I was either at work or I was on holiday. Now things are different. With enough notice, I can usually juggle my own deadlines so that I have light days and days off. However, since I also work with other writers, I need to check email, and sometimes check and forward work. It’s difficult to get away completely. Not that I’m complaining. I am far happier now than I ever was as a journalist or journalism teacher.

Who Needs To Know?

Many people wonder whether they should tell clients that they are going on holiday. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. If I am working with a client who is used to updates from me several times a day, then I say that I may be less available for a while. With occasional clients who are used to hearing from me intermittently, I say nothing. The same goes for the writers I work with. I tell those who are in the middle of jobs that I’ll be online less often; those who aren’t doing anything don’t really need to know.

Telling The World

I also make use of the vacation message. If you’ve ever emailed me in the middle of a site upgrade or hosting move, then you’ll know that I use that message for all kinds of things. Vacation messages aren’t just for vacations. They are an easy way to let everyone know that there’s an issue. I usually say what the issue is (e.g. I am working off site, temporarily unavailable or something similar), say when the situation will end and give alternatives for contacting me (if there are any). Using the vacation message means that clients and others know that their email has arrived and that they will get a response.

And here’s something I learned from another self employed person I know. Sometimes clients panic if they think that you won’t be available. If you are travelling on a Friday, you don’t need to enable your vacation message till the Monday. Most people don’t expect instant responses over the weekend. And you can remove the vacation message before you travel back, too.

Keeping On Track

So, what else do you need for a successful working holiday? The most difficult thing to find is discipline, especially if you are holidaying with others. When I visited Orlando last year, I took my WiFi enabled PDA with me so that I could check email for anything urgent before heading out for the day. I even managed to type a few responses, though it wasn’t ideal. On the way back from an outing, I would stop in at the computer room so I could do another check.

A little bit of forward planning means that you can keep your writing business on track and still have a great time. What works for you when planning a working holiday?

Technorati Tags: writing career,work at home,get paid to write,freelance writing,writing

• Will Content Kill the Web?

‘PLR content drives down the market value of web content. Why buy pricier work when nearly-free (and sometimes free) is right there for the taking?’

• Handling Your Perfectionism

‘One of the biggest problems perfectionists have is setting realistic goals. I never realized I set the bar too high for myself. Halfway through whatever I was working on achieving, when nothing went according to my vision, I would give up in frustration.’

• What a Camera Can Teach You About Customer Service

Sorry, you’ll just have to read this one. No excerpt would do it justice.

There is so much good stuff in there it’s hard to give you a flavour of it. The blog focuses on blogging, business, design and writing, and currently has a great series on fiction writing. Just to round out the list, here are some posts with great titles that made me stop and look:

• Bloggers That Fake It
• Don’t Be Efficient if You Want a Successful Business
• Knitters Never Comment!

Over the past year, posts from this blog, and its predecessor, have turned up regularly in my links roundups, which shows how consistently readable it is. If you haven’t done so, check it out.

Technorati Tags: writing,blogging,reviews

Today was different. We had to visit a family member, which ended up taking twice as long as I had thought. By the time I had run some errands, the day was pretty much shot for work. Instead of stressing about how little I had accomplished, I decided to revel in some family time, so we played in the pool then went out for dinner. It has been a day of much needed relaxation.

Don’t get me wrong. As a freelance writer, I firmly believe in having a writing schedule and sticking to it. That means that I always meet my deadlines and that all my clients are happy. However, as a mother, it’s important to spend time with my family. Since my daughter’s back at school next week, I will enjoy this last week of her company, and I’ll work evenings this week to make sure I complete all my work on time. How do you handle this balance during the school holidays?

As writers we may find ourselves crammed into the only available space at home, but there are still some things that we need to do our jobs. Check out How to Create the Ultimate Home Office for Writing.

When you blog a lot, it can be hard to find inspiration, but sometimes other people find it for you. Here’s what someone suggested I blog about today.
Today I was trying to finish up a batch of eight articles to partly meet a tight deadline that’s looming. While I was doing that, the phone rang and I had a ten minute conversation with a friend. (OK, I could have told her I was busy, but talking to friends is part of having a balanced life, so I chatted for a short while.)

I went back to my computer, finished the articles and started to upload them into the CMS for checking. While I was doing that my daughter came to ask me to help her find her trousers, which she had lent to her full sized doll a couple of weeks ago. We haven’t seen them since. I had to stop for a moment, help her with her problem and then go back to work.

Many of us are juggling the joys and responsibilities of motherhood and friendship with the joys and responsibilities of freelance writing. It’s not always easy. Often, while you are writing you think you should be with your child, and while you are with your child, you are thinking about that looming deadline. But although it can get a bit manic sometimes, I wouldn’t have it any other way. How about you?

The first is about why writers need other writers. I think this is one that I may expand into a longer article one day.

The second is about setting up a writer’s office. It made me think about the things I have in my office that I can’t do without. Apart from my laptop and a reliable internet connection, I still find a pen and paper the most useful writing tools I own. Sometimes I need to write something down without having to open a new document or leave the one I am working on. What’s your most useful writing tool.

Setting Career Goals

What I mean by that is that my short term career goal is to make enough money to pay my bills. That’s also my medium term goal, with the addition of enough money for holidays and other small extravagances. I also want to improve the pay rate, so I get more money for less writing (who wouldn’t?) But the reason I am doing this - and the reason I work at home - is to be able to spend more time with my family and to have a better quality of life. Those are things that I think most people want. (And don’t think life is perfect, because there are some family members I can DEFINITELY do without!)

So this was what I had in mind when setting my goals for 2007. My perfect day would involve about four hours of writing for others, about two hours of teaching and about one hour of dealing with the other writers I work with. I would do this Monday to Friday and on weekends I would spend a couple hours a day working on my own stuff. I would be able to spend every evening playing with my daughter, and I wouldn’t get stressed.

Living The Perfect Writing Day

Someone suggested that I try living (and writing) that way now instead of thinking about all the things that get in the way. So I tried it yesterday - and guess what? Yesterday I did as much writing in four and a half hours as I had done the previous day. I spent two hours on a new course, spent an hour on some admin - and took the rest of the day off to spend with my daughter. And I didn’t get stressed even once. I’m going to try this for a couple of weeks and see if it works. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, I’m curious - how do you plan to change your writing life this year?

Like many people, I used to go out to work. For my daughter, work was something that you did when you were out and when you were home you were off duty. But last year, when I went freelance, that started to change.

Of course, the change didn’t happen overnight. Freelance writing success rarely comes quickly. But with all the writing I’ve been doing in the last couple of months, something major has changed. I’m never off-duty, though I force myself to spend family time (that IS why I’m a WAHM, after all). All you writers will know, though, that when a deadline looms, everything gets shoved aside so you can deliver on time. And that somtimes means children, too.

Like most three year olds, my daughter is the centre of her universe, and she doesn’t like my work stealing the limelight. She knows I’m a writer (thanks to five unpublished children’s stories which I’ve tested on her and her friends with great success) but she doesn’t always understand that it means I have to sit at the computer. But she IS beginning to understand about money, so I came up with a way to explain my blogging and writing habit to her. The conversation went like this:

Me: You know that Mummy’s a writer, don’t you?
T: Yes (smiling)
M: Writing has to be done at the computer, because that’s where people write. Do you understand?
T: Yes
M: Do you remember Daddy explained to you about earning money to buy treats?
T: Yes (warily)
M: Well, that’s why Mummy has to write. So she can earn money to buy food and treats like Smarties (Smarties are small chocolate sweets wtih a bright coating, like M&Ms but smaller). They are her favourite treat at the moment.

So that’s where the notion of writing for Smarties came in. And since I also earn money from blogging, I must be blogging for Smarties too.

Funnily enough, I think my daughter understood what I was getting at. And it gives me a handy way to explain why I’m sitting at the computer sometimes when I would rather be playing with her.

What about all you other WAHMs? How do you explain your work to young children - or older children? I might need to come up with something new in a couple of years.

PS. If you haven’t already read it, check out Mitch’s post on backing up - it’s great advice for any writer. I wish I’d read this before my laptop died.

Here are a couple of the things I’ve written recently:

Inspired Author

It’s In The Bag: How Writers Can Take Their Work With Them
Record Keeping For Writers: Tracking Writing Income And Expenses

Sharon’s Writing Lab

German Weekend
German Weekend 2 - The Hotel

WritingLife

Writing Blog Review - gracepub
The Writing Parent

BloggerParty

Sometimes Parenthood Sucks!

Thursday to Sunday
6.30-7.00am - daughter wakes up and either (a) makes clanking noises in her room as she rummages for toys or (b) comes bursting into our room to tell us something important. Either way, I’m awake and haven’t had enough sleep
7.00-8.30am - My daughter and I talk, and play
8.30-9.30am - her dad gives her breakfast and plays for a while (he works from home too) while I do a lightning-quick email and blog check and post
9.30-1.30 - playgroups of various sorts (Thursday and Friday only); followed by lunch and a nap (for my daughter if I can persuade her.
1.30-2.30pm - catch up on email, writing or web management
2.30-7.15pm - playing, reading, singing, television, outing to the park, supermarket or wherever.
7.15-8.00pm if my husband’s on the bedtime shift, time for another quick email and writingup check; if not, it’s the shower, story, bed routine.
8.00-10.30pm - grownup time: reading, talking, television

So, how does it work? Well, I’ve never missed a writing deadline, though I’m always playing catchup on the domestic front. I spend a lot of time with my daughter, which I really enjoy. I never begrudge a second of it, because I’ll never have that time again. I feel a bit guilty sometimes when I’m working and it’s obvious that she’s desperate for my attention, but by and large, I think the balance is right, though I am ALWAYS tired. However, there’ll be time enough for me to focus even more on writing when she goes to school. So, that’s my story. If you’re a WAHM/SAHM like me, what’s your week like?