I hope everyone either had a nice holiday break or will be having at least a nice long weekend with the New Year holiday coming up. I’ve had a productive one thus far, and it feels great.
I’ve been busy with some of my typical New Year’s tasks (you know… organizing and cleaning and trying to convince myself that things are going to say nice and neat for more than a week or two). Plenty of work-related projects are also getting done. The new business site should be ready to launch when I’m back from break (the 4th-ish), and there should be two product launches going on here at All Freelance Writing if things go according to plan.
It’s also that time of year where I look back at what I’ve accomplished and make plans to help the New Year be even better. I set a long list of resolutions, some of which I’ll share with you later this week as we talk more about goal-setting. One of those goals was surprisingly already met, and 2010 hasn’t even started yet (traffic goals for this blog), so I’ll need to go back and up my expectations even more.
The break hasn’t been completely devoted to cleaning and projects though. I’ve watched a bunch of movies, gone visiting a little bit, and just made plenty of time to relax. I’ll admit I’m not one who likes too much general down time (I bore easily), but I know I’m going to come back refreshed (and there’s still a week to go!).
So tell me, how are you spending your holidays and / or vacation time? Are you using the time to unwind? Working on a pet project you normally don’t have time for? Let’s forget about writing for today and talk about how important our non-writing time really is to staying sane and productive as freelancers.
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I’ve also been plotting things for the year ahead, mostly for my current blog and a number of other web projects. I find that for those of us who don’t have to do big holiday celebrations in December, the down-time during the week that includes Christmas is always good for getting things done.
I’ve managed to reorganise most of my working practices, prepare several quotes, and get some non-work writing done. All while supposedly vegging out and not doing anything!
It’s important to remember, however, that the internet is international, and not everyone is off work. This has also been a very good time for checking out prospects in Asia and the Middle East without neglecting clients in Europe and the Americas.
Spending time with family has been a big one this year. My kids fell in love with board games again so there has been a lot of that going on. I still let them beat me!
I have been stretching my dreams as well, or I suppose technically that could be called Goal Setting. Naming them dreams doesn’t put out quite so much expectation, you know ;) Now to get to the point where I’m ready to write them down and be held accountable.
Networking has been a focus as well. Sourcing out other blogs, commenting, getting my name and stats out there. Time consuming, but hopefully well worth it.