Let Your Energy Dictate Your Day

In the mid-nineties, I worked for two telecom companies. In the first one, I had a colleague who was a published romance author. She did most of her writing in the evenings because that was her most productive time. My night owl friend arrived in the office as late as possible while I came in early. Despite my being the morning person and her night gal, we worked well together and stayed in touch after leaving the company.

Dealing with Disruptions from Single Digit Temps

19 high. 8 low. Whoa. Texas gets below freezing temps, but rarely single digit temps. Cold, yes. Affect work, just a little because the kids didn’t have school. It turns out to be a booming YES. This week has not gone the way I expected. I knew extremely cold temps were heading toward the Dallas-Fort … Read more

How a Writer Deals with Work in the Summer

Image by merylk via Flickr I admit it. Summer break messes with my writing work that I work shorter hours, blog less and write fewer online articles. While I have one kid old enough to fend for herself (driving) and another going to day camp, summer still disrupts my schedule. For one, the day camp … Read more

6 Steps to Get It Done for Home Office Workers

Why do we “get a feeling or craving” for something at a certain time of year? It’s Pavlov at work. These become habits and with habits come expectations. Not everyone can succeed in working in a home office. The temptation to procrastinate and do non-work stuff is too great. Lone workers don’t have to worry … Read more

7 Steps to Catch up Quickly after a Break

I took my first break in ages — that didn’t include an illness or a holiday — for a few days last week for spring break. We went to San Marcos and San Antonio and visited Wonderworld, Sea World, and the Riverwalk. Wonderworld contains a dry cave created by an earthquake on the Balcones Fault … Read more

Five Ways Freelancers Can Stay on Track

I have a few clients in which the engagements are open-ended. This means helping them with their ongoing content work. As a result, it’s easy to let something drag on without completing it. For example, a client may ask me to revise the Help documentation and write entries for blogs. Rather than just letting it … Read more

Freelancing Tip: Dealing with "Want to Do" Projects

It’s easy to overwhelm yourself with so many things and ideas that nothing materializes. For example, a writer might think about article ideas for different magazines, project ideas, and Web site / networking pages content ideas. Thinking about all of these will likely produce nothing except one overwhelmed freelancer. This became a problem when I … Read more