Freelance Writing and Research

 Making it Through the Mud

The weather in my "office" has generated a lot of mud in terms of backlog. Several weeks of flu, followed by bronchitis and an increase in incoming work resulted in a huge backlog.  Mark Foster has described backlogs as trying to cross a muddy field, which is why I ask when should freelancers wear their wellies? However, wearing my wellies the last few days has meant that I have only two tasks left and I am out of the mire. I have only two tasks left which should now be finished in time for me to get started on the new stuff - and I only had to extend one deadline in truth.

Keeping Out of the Mud

Not needing to wear my wellies is a lot more comfortable. I hope to remain in this state, illness notwhithstanding, to keep on top of things as much as possible. It is all too easy for freelancers trying to build a client base, marketing themselves and their services, keeping up with home and family and my other areas of work, some research and teaching etc to get bogged back down in the mud without even realising it. Keep wellies to hand but set yourself a project plan each time a new job comes in. Don't spend all your time on one thing, work between projects as deadlines allow.

Knowing When Enough is Enough

There comes a time when you just get too tired to work. Try to stop a few minutes before you fall asleep over your laptop, write what still needs to be done under DIT or do it tomorrow. Then when you do finally greet the world you will have your starting point - and it won't be in the very muddy slough of despond. 

I am indebted to Mark Foster's Post for the mud metaphor in this entry.

Coffee Drinking 3 Writing Nil It is already the fifth of January and of course your new year's resolution was to get more writing done - not just work writing if you are a writer, or if you write your own web content (when you should hire a professional); but your personal writing. Remember personal writing? It's that journal you bought which is still full of empty pages, or that half written novel or ebook tucked away out of sight - but not this year. This year the journal will be filled and the novel will see the light of day; and your income will have improved because of all the extra articles you have written - but first you have to put down the cup.

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Is Time Managing You? Do you find yourself always trying to beat the clock? If you do then you also need to ask the question whether time is managing you rather than you managing your time. I know that it is only a couple of weeks since I last wrote about writing and organization For reasons I'll not go into here just before Christmas I found myself trying to beat the clock at every turn - largely because I was spending so much time feeling sorry for myself that work came last on the list and there were two deadlines I didn't meet on time - for clients I do not want to lose; I had to start taking myself in hand. Self Management

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How Do You Structure Your Day? Organization is not really my strong point I suppose that when it comes to writing and organization what I really have is organized chaos. One of the problems is something that most freelancers and wahms face; because you are at home people think that they can just drop by or they will ask you to do them a favor. It doesn't matter how many times I tell other family members that I am actually working they will still drop by and expect me to stop work for a while. Not good when you are trying to meet a deadline

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