Image credit: Hans Thoursie

Martin Luther King Day is an important holiday as well as a school holiday. I had planned to complete my usual work activities. Instead, I spent the entire morning working on one story and didn’t finish it. Writing the story felt clunky, awkward and pointless despite my knowing first drafts were supposed to be like that. Even though the kids weren’t loud or disruptive, the setting was different from my daily work environment.

Panicking

It’s a scary situation because I feel like “I’ve lost it. I’m not going to be able to work the next day.” No matter what I told myself about the day being different, nothing comforted me. I couldn’t check off one thing on my task list; a nightmare for me.

Tuesday came. I fell right back into my routine. My fingers flew as I threw up words on my screen to create a few new articles. I checked a few things off my work tasks for the day. I felt in the zone and full of satisfaction. It was as if Monday had never happened.

This happens on holidays and days of personal appointments. The cruel cycle repeats. Can’t work or focus. Panic. Guilt. Next day arrives. Back to normal.

Even though my mental state would not listen to me and learn from the past, one thing is clear: Schedules make a difference.

Scheduling Activities to Create New Habits

I start my day with email, Twitter and blogging. Thanks to this habit, I rarely write a new blog entry in the afternoon. I exercise after 11:00am on most days. Sometimes it’s 11:30am. Sometimes it’s 1:00pm. 1:30pm at the latest. Whatever the time, it’s still a habit because it’s the mid-day / early afternoon time. Most of the writing I do occurs before mid-day with the afternoons devoted to research, revising and other activities not related to starting from scratch.

I check in with social media a few times a day with the bulk of it occurring in the morning and evening. To make the most of my social media time without falling into the trap sticking around too long, I created a habit to check in for a few minutes and get out. I also figured out how much time I should spend in social media.

Since I do my best writing and focus in the morning, it works well. By the time the younger kids come home, I take a break, give them snacks, spend time with them and help with homework. If I had been more of a night person, I would have to work on creating a new habit. According to various discussions and books, it takes 21 days to develop a new habit.

I’ve also kept the same bedtime and wake up time for years, which ensures a good night’s sleep. I stray from the routine once in a while and it’s never for more than a couple of days in a row.

Habits Help Focus

Because I had the habit of working in a quiet home office with no TV, people noises and other disruptions, I could not focus when the kids had a day off from school.

Bet you’re wondering how I handle this in the summer when the kids have a long break from school. Habit. Summer has longer days, so it’s easier to work in the evenings after my husband comes home. I also schedule a few activities for the kids including visits with Grandma.

Christina Katz shares how she refocused. I did a review of my work and didn’t need to consolidate, streamline or refocus. For some, just the act of writing and brainstorming on pen and paper helps focus. Sometimes this works for me, too. But the best medicine for focus for me is schedule.

How do you focus?

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. I wish I could come up with some other way to say this, but it’s true though cliché. I’m lucky to have him in my life and that we grow together as we encounter new phases in our lives. We enjoy spending time together in simple ways such as our recent discovery of Gilmore Girls. What more can a gal ask for? Oh, and he remembers our special dates, too.

Please vote for your top 25 books on writing.

Brain food…

• The 20 Best Productivity and Personal Development Blogs: Glad to see Web Worker Daily on there.
• 7 Ways to Integrate Facebook into Your Online Platform
• Five Ways to Comply with the New FTC Guidelines for Bloggers [Link: Christina Katz]
• 52 Tips for Writers, from Writers [Link: Debbi Ohi]
• What Does Future Hold for Writers? Predictions for 2010 – 2020
• How I Sold 10,000 Copies of my Self-Published Book
• How to Make the Most of Your Social Media Time: By me.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Bizarre Japanese Candy: No, thanks. I’ll pass.
• The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog: Really.
• First-Person Tetris: The rotate feature drives my eyes crazy, but it’s a unique take on the oft-copied game.
• When Gamers Marry: The cakes you might expect.
• Forbidden Words à la Matt Groening: The Simpsons and Life in Hell creator’s view of tired words.
• Support Details: Anger management resource for tech support.
• Found him! OK, so White Snark and Reddit helped.
• 10 of the Dumbest Gadgets Ever Made: We’ve always dreamed of being able to carry remote controls on a headband… I don’t think so.

Streamlining has emerged as a theme with a few writers. Christina Katz said good-bye to several newsletters and her fun Back-to-School Giveaway that I participated in for all three years. Kristine Meldrum Denholm, Mary Jo Campbell and Pamela Wilson also write about streamlining and finding your direction and clarity. Freelance Switch shows how to start of your new year with an ideal project profile that can send you on your way.

I’ve shared my struggle to plan for the new year, but these posts help me realize something. Part of the struggle could be a result from my *staying* streamlined. I’ve always known that I am not a high energy person even though I played lots of sports as a kid and continue to make exercise a regular part of my lifestyle.

What can you streamline? Originally, I began to answer that here. Only to find out this post fit a client’s blog, and client comes first. So here’s the streamlining work post. Here are the bullet points from the post along with how they apply to a writing business:

• Changing direction. This can be changing your topic, industry, type of writing (articles, white papers, case studies, greeting cards, etc.) and client types (ad agency, publisher, web site, etc.).
• Replacing one for one. You can drop a publication because it no longer interests you and replace it with one that does. You take on a web content project and drop one that’s focused on doing articles for a publication.
• Dropping energy draining clients and projects. Maybe you’re tired of your beat with one publication. If you aren’t comfortable with dropping the beat without lining up another, wait until you find a new beat that energizes you.
• Social networking. How you spend your time on social networking depends on how you use it. For me, it’s my major marketing tool.
• Unpaid activities. Social networking and writing blog posts in your own blog are unpaid activities (unless you have blog sponsors). Review these unpaid activities and determine how much time you should devote to them.
• Organizations. Being active in a professional writers’ organization can be beneficial in a lot of ways and time consuming. You can change up how to stay involved. Instead of being a board member, be a volunteer on an as-needed basis.

Christina Katz left a great comment. “If you could do anything you wanted to do all day without having to worry about money or anything else at all, how would you spend your day?” I’ve been thinking about that since she left the comment, and I haven’t arrived at an answer yet. What about you? What’s your answer?

While I haven’t answered that question, I can honestly say I’m happy with all of my current clients and projects. (I weaned out the not so enjoyable work a while ago.) So I will continue that route with the occasional acceptance of new projects or applying for them. I’m lucky that my work is diverse. Maybe that’s why I can’t answer Christina’s question.

How are you streamlining your writing business so you can focus on what you love to do?

Prizes: Custom blog design by Jon of Spyre Studios and Freelance Folder, one Alawar PC game package including full copies of Virtual Farm, Curse of Montezuma, and Alex Gordon, and 80 Photoshop brush packs from our guest blogger, Jacob Cass. Just leave a valuable 30+ word comment by July 6, 2008.

As a regular reader of Freelance Folder, I read about a contest that Jacob Cass had going on his Just Creative Design blog. Once I checked it out, I became a regular reader even before I found out I won a prize! I also gave away a few prizes there, too. Jacob oozes talent in both writing, design, and business. This guy hasn’t been blogging long and already established himself as a blogger. How I wish I could be following him on his 30+ days of vacation!

Take Advantage of These Productivity Tips

This article will go through the best time of the day to do things in relation to your mental state of mind which in turn will make you more productive. I present to you… productivity tips for designers.

8am – Face Your Fears Time

This is the quietest time for suicide so this is a good time to face your fears – Know that you have a deadline due at 1pm, know that you have 10 other projects to complete, know that your house needs cleaning, bills need paying and know that there is no end to it. Just make sure you know all this by 11 at night as this is suicide o clock.

9am to 10am – Work Time

Time to tackle your work here, these are the most productive hours (for the majority). Even Darren Rowse thinks so.

10am/11am – Chill Out Time

This is the time that most heart attacks occur so it would be good to chill out or have a break at this time. Coffee or morning tea break anyone?

12pm – Sex & Uncluttered Mind Time (If that can go together?)

If you fancy someone in your office or classroom, now is the time to go in for the kill. As James Sniechowski, author of the The New Intimacy explains: “People are more receptive to advances then, because their minds aren’t cluttered with what they have to do that day or what they have to do when they get home.”

Pretty much this is a great time to get your creative juices going as you have an uncluttered mind. You may also want to check out How To Boost Your Creativity.

1pm – Nap Time

The best time to have a power nap (as I call them) is at around 1pm when your body temperature naturally dips. An ideal power nap should last for 15 to 20 minutes.

2pm – No One Can Touch Me (FIG JAM)

This is the time that we have the highest pain threshold so it is a good time to ask for a promotion or get that dental filling you were meant to have last month but ‘accidentally’ missed.

3pm/4pm – Strength and Mood is at its best

Hand and eye coordination is at its peak and mood levels are high during this period so this would be a good time to have a break. Maybe go for a short jog or for the lazy… maybe some Photoshop Tennis.

This is also the time that people are most awake and alert so how about you do that one last proof now before sending your job to the printer.

5pm – Happy Hour

We all know what 5pm means but did you know that your liver metabolises alcohol most efficiently at this time of the afternoon? After work drinks never sounded so good.

8.30pm – Sweet Sweet Food

Despite what many people think, eating late will not necessarily make you fat says Nigel Denby of the British Dietetic Association. “A calorie is a calorie whenever you eat it.” Dig in.

10.30pm – Sleep

A warm shower helps to make people fall asleep as body temperature needs to fall in order to help us sleep… I don’t think I have ever met a designer who does go to bed at 10.30.

Got any more productivity tips?

About The Author: Jacob Cass is a graphic designer / blogger based in Newcastle, Sydney, Australia. He runs a popular graphic design blog by the name of Just Creative Design of which you can get more articles like the one above just by subscribing to his feed.