Working 9 – 5 has Perks

I’ve never worked “9 to 5.” I’ve work 7 to 4 and right now I work 7:30 to 3:30 (nominally) as a teacher, but that’s a different story. Hours aren’t set in my second, writing career and that’s the best part! All you have to do to take a day off is to stop working. Just stop. Right now. There! You just took a few seconds off!

Of course, those two seconds are no longer billable and you’re going to have to make up that time somewhere else. That’s the main crux of working for yourself and not working for someone else. There is no stopping point or vacation paid on someone else’s dime.

The Freelance Vacation

That’s not to say we shouldn’t be taking vacation days or sitting back stuffed and ready to watch University of Texas trounce A&M (for the last time, allegedly) on Thanksgiving Day. We just have to plan for it – and if you’re working from home with kids, you absolutely have to plan for time off since you’re already working odd hours – it’s the nature of the game.

To take time off, you just have to schedule it. Then you have to accommodate it by making enough money that the time off won’t matter to the bottom line. For example, if you’re used to working five days a week and you want to work only three days this week so that you can enjoy Thursday and Friday without even turning on the computer (little late for that, right?), you have to either cram the work from those two days into the days you’re already working or you have to spread it out over the next week to keep up the finances.

The perfect scenario is that you work more than you have to all of the time and that you have a huge stockpile of cash allotted for holidays and such. Perhaps you’re living well below your means and you can just skip the work you’d normally do on those days without suffering a financial consequence. But that’s not very realistic for most of us with the expenses of this season and the fluctuations of the workload. It’s a big deal for me to only work five days per week. I spent five years working seven days per week and condensing even more is really tricky on two hours per night.

Taking Time Off

I won’t be taking off Thanksgiving or the day after this year. My husband will be utilizing some paid vacation for those days, but I’ll be working through. Why? Because it’s more important to be to have cash in the door to pay for a fun Christmas than to watch football after eating turkey. I’ll just catch the score at the end of the night like I do every year and then I’ll take a few days off in a month for Christmas – it’s much more fun to play Santa anyhow.

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

It takes a lot of dedication and discipline to freelance from home. As I sit here, a book I started and the newest episode of Glee are calling my name. But I won’t stop writing to give in to the temptation. I can’t. I have work to do and only a certain amount of time to do it in. Fortunately, I’ve been practicing self-sacrifice, or as we mothers like to call it, “setting priorities”, for years. And that is why working with kids can be such a productivity booster.

There Is No “Later”

My boys figured it out very fast. When I tell them we’ll do something “later”, they know it means we’re probably not going to do it if they can’t pin me down to a specific time and date. Sadly I try and fool myself sometimes with the same trick. I plan to do something “later”, but it rarely works – it would be like losing an argument with myself. I know there is no “later”, because if there was, I’d have been using that time for years to do the things that need to get done around here. I work during my work time, because there simply is no other time.

90 to Nothing

Try telling a young child to go back to sleep Saturday morning when he pops awake at 5:30 am. (Thanks, Daylight Savings Time.) Just try and close your eyes for a few seconds in the afternoon with two young boys playing ninja in the house. Every moment at home with children you’re engaged in some way – you’re either listening carefully while you try to pretend you have free time around the house or you’re actively involved playing, breaking up arguments, soothing hurts or reading stories.

The concept of downtime takes on a whole new meaning after kids. I’ve yet to meet a mother who lounges about on a Saturday morning wondering what she will do to keep from being bored until she goes back to work. Instead every morning is the start of a daily marathon and you must pace yourself. Guess what? So is work! When you finally have those hours to sit down and work, you can’t screw around surfing the web or playing Facebook Friends.

Fortunately, we don’t require a warm-up period. We can pop out of bed at 5:30 to the sound of crashes from upstairs, and we can start cranking out billable hours in a matter of moments when those little sleepy eyelids finally close. We know that there’s only a certain amount of time available between eyelids closing and eyelids opening and not much time at that. Productivity experts ain’t got nothing on us!

Don’t Look at Me in That Tone of Voice

I hope I can say this for all mom-writers out there, but I’m afraid some might not have realized the true combined power of motherhood and writerhood just yet. Mothers have immense power over their children when they choose to use that power it wisely.

You can also turn assertive mothering into assertiveness in your business. You wouldn’t stoop to argue with your child over candy for dinner – it’s just a firm, “No – that’s not something we do in our house.” So don’t argue about things you don’t do in your business. I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve snapped off with a “Because I said so!” tone of voice(text?) before I could even think about being “softer” on clients.

Surprisingly it’s paid off – as it turns out clients in my market like to know that a freelancing professional is assertive enough to know and state her mind. They don’t want simpering, apologies and gentleness. They want someone who is firm, assertive and tough when she needs to be and nurturing as necessary.

Sound familiar?

There are all sorts of writing – and all sorts of good writing.

Once upon a time I felt like the world was ending if I got caught in a grammatical mistake. I worked hard to separate myself from writers at a level I considered less capable, although as a teacher I tried not to look down on abilities (since I see a range of talent every day in emerging minds), but rather on how niches of the marketplace are set up and the lack of business aplomb some would-be master writers lacked.

Over the years, it’s become more and more obvious that there are tiers of writing. I don’t have to be at the very tippity top and I don’t need to criticize those closer to the bottom. I’ve found a comfortable place for now.

Cheap writers are cheap for their own reasons and they have nothing to do with me or the market as a whole. Likewise the very expensive copywriters or print writers for major publications – not my thing, so I don’t think much about it anymore. Those writers have a set of clients of their own, and often my clients use their services, too – I can’t be everything to everybody after all. I refuse to have my feelings hurt because a client wants killer sales letters or super cheap keyword stuff that I choose not to write.

Is there competition out there? Of course. Just be sure you’re focusing on the right competition and leave the rest alone to write well in a different kind or level of the industry.

The writing market is not stable, nor will it be.

Once upon a time I earned a business degree and one of my favorite lessons I still watch in action was about the business cycle. Every industry has ongoing cycles and there must be constant change and growth to keep the industry and individual companies or providers employed. In the growth part of the industry, money seems to be readily available.

Then, once the market is saturated, there’s a sort of shake out and the stronger players emerge to stick around, but only by changing and adapting to the needs of the market. The weaker companies/writers/employees shake off and go and find new jobs or opportunities.

As a writer, I started online more than six years ago, and I still consider myself a relative newbie to the game. A lot has changed in six years, and part of riding the waves is watching the industry and adapting to it with new offerings, new clients and new marketing angles to stay above the fray. I would argue we’re in a form of shake-out now. The game changed and the stronger players will come out ahead, but only by streamlining and evolving. You might be a casualty of the streamlining in the industry, but it’s just the way the game is played – either drop out of the market or evolve to stake a new place within it.

Always earn more than you need – and save, too.

I made a huge mistake one year. I planned a budget based on future income and I paid for it dearly in the end. What should have been a great year staying home with my babies and writing became a nightmare of bills coming due and some serious cash flow problems. I should have stayed put in my steady job stockpiling cash before making a big leap. I should have eliminated expenses. I should have budgeted in a totally different way, because you’ll never earn enough, especially when you seem to need it the most.

Not surprisingly, about the time we climbed out of that hole and back on top of the personal finance hill, my husband’s business went under and we were right back in cash flow problems and financial stress. I make it a policy now to always market, pitch and gather work that exceeds what I need each month, because there’s always something that comes along to throw me off.

Bottom line: make a budget based on what you’ve earned on average, not on what you think you can earn. Oh, and make a regular savings plan although I’ll be honest – every time I start trying to really save, I get wiped out by some sort of household emergency or a client’s sudden disappearance. But then, hey! It’s all part of the freelance adventure!

What’s the point of waking up in the morning and not using the day to its fullest potential? I say that knowing full well I’m going to finish up here in a bit and go and turn on HGTV for some well-deserved downtime, but even entertainment can be educational and beneficial – I learn a lot on Design Star. Really!

But back to the hats of a working mother. I’m rather proud of all that I’ve accomplished in my respective roles thus far, and I love nothing more than seeing the benefits of what I do starting to manifest in my children. This was exactly the case today, and it was such a glorious WAHM moment, I just have to share.

The boys (I have two) and I were driving across this great city to go and collect a Craigslist chandelier to repurpose (See? I learn a lot on HGTV!). On the way, the boys were having a great conversation about what they want to do when they grow up.

Considering they are six and four, this is especially insightful to Mom listening in the front seat. The boys finally decided that they were going to make the next Transformers ™ movie and design the game as well. They also wanted to make lots of new “spiky” Transformer ™ toys.

They were so excited, my boys spent the better part of thirty minutes planning out the roles they would take – one would be the movie maker and one would be the game designer, but then we had a moment of puzzled silence.

My oldest asked me, “Mom – what if I go to work as a game designer and they want me to make a different game instead of my Transformers™ game?”

He was on the verge of creative collapse and possibly tears over a dream lost early in development, so I immediately administered the best kind of entrepreneurial lesson this working mom could – I told him he could do both.

He didn’t get it right away.

I reminded him that I did two jobs – I taught during the day and I worked on the computer at night. I do both jobs because I like to do the jobs and they are fun for me.  And he could do the same.

Suddenly a whole new world opened up for him and the frantic planning resumed in the backseat.–The eldest proudly announced that instead of being  just a game designer, he was going to be a movie maker and a game designer since he could do two jobs like Mom.

The child is six, already planning on working two careers that are rather self sufficient and creative. Just think of how much I can teach him – and you can teach your children – in the years to come.

It’s a rare universe inhabited by the self-employed and entrepreneurs, and often the families of those working these exciting careers are living there, too. I’m proud to welcome my soon-to-be first grader to the mix. Look out world – you won’t find this guy content in a cube someday!

(Although as his mother, I have to say that he winds up being brilliant in a cube, laying pipe, cutting hair or digging ditches, that’s outstanding, too. Hopefully the lessons he’s learned about being self sufficient, proud, capable and dependable will stay with him regardless of future career journeys.)

Three cheers for entrepreneurial parents everywhere!

Do you hope your child will catch your spirit of adventure and self-sufficiency? What’s the most important lesson self-employed parents should be teaching their children?

As a mom who works at home part of the time, I need to have my office in the middle of the madness. This means I can hear everything when I need to hear it – especially at night when little boys have bad dreams while mom’s working. I like to be on the ground floor of our two-story house so that I can monitor the dogs, the kitchen and the doors. This preference rules out any rooms upstairs including a spare room that is being used as my husband’s office for now and soon a guest room when he moves into the “man cave” to be closer to his aquarium.

I only have a few spots to pick from downstairs that can handle my two monitors, my laptop stand and my writer sprawl and be appropriate. I picked what seemed like the best – the dining room. After all, we never actually ate in here. I sold the dining room furniture, which was in mint condition since it was never used, and set up a cheap six foot folding table to hold the computer, monitors and laptop until I could come up with a better solution.

That moment is finally upon me. Only, I’m having second thoughts about what I want to do.

My original plan was to put in two stock kitchen cabinets and two shorter bathroom stack-of-drawers as the base for a built-in desk and bookshelf system. My desk would be on the lower section, flanked by three drawers on either side. Against the wall on either side of those would be big three foot cabinets that would become the base for very large bookshelves (that I’ll build next summer) to hold my massive teacher book collection and all my supplies and files.

I have no doubt that I could do this well enough to be nicely presentable, but my concern now is that a large built in office in the dining room might be something I regret later since I can’t take it with me and the next owners (in twenty years) might want a grand dining room rather than a library/dining room combo unit. I have to decide soon because the cabinets need to be installed before the flooring goes in.

Writers at home, especially those with young children who need to be all ears all the time, where do you work? Am I crazy for building an awesome library and office in my dining room? Help!

Preface: I Have Three Stressful Jobs

You have to understand that I’m not just idly whining here. I take full responsibility for my three stressful jobs. I chose this lifestyle.  I have two boys – one six and one almost four. We’ll be spending the summer together starting….today. I have a job teaching some seriously needy at-risk teenagers. Most days I feel like I’m really good at what I do here and I like to think, with a bit of encouragement from my students, that I do a reasonably good job with it, so I enjoy it enough to keep teaching. Then, on top of that I have a writing career that I can’t seem to fit very well into the evening or into the morning right now. So I’m tired – a lot. And I’m stressed – a lot.

But I deal with it, and if you’re ripping your hair out, you can, too.

Running Full Speed into a Wall

I find that giving myself a small break means I give myself permission to be lazy over a period of time and I lose money, so I don’t take breaks in that way. I just push myself until I hit a wall. Then I go to bed, drink some more Diet Dr. Pepper and keep going. Usually this takes about four or five months at a stretch, but there are times that it really starts to get tricky for me.

One tricky time is this part of year when school is winding down. Summers were created for teachers to regain their sanity. That means that the normal teacher is crazy right now. Teachers with their own kids are crazier and those of us in my boat are positively insane. I have body aches and twitches that weren’t there in March, I promise you. That means that I have to just expect the insanity, warn my family ahead of time and then just power through it aided by Hot Tamales, yearbooks and $1 drinks from McDonalds. I’ve done it six years now, and twitches aside, there hasn’t been any lasting damage.

I’m not sure this is a good method for everyone to try – some people don’t go pedal to the metal very well and live to tell the tale, but if you haven’t ever tried to just barrel through something – a marathon, an intense work schedule, an all-nighter – maybe you should try. You actually feel pretty amazing on the other side, even if you’re more tired than a human should ever be. You might also be amazed at just how much you can really do.

Pacing: Hourly, Weekly, Annually

Ask any marathoner and you’ll probably hear a lot about pacing. I wouldn’t actually know since I run only when chased by something bigger than me (and that’s saying something). But pacing yourself during a marathon is a lot like what those of us with the insane schedules have to do, I’d imagine. I go into my days knowing I’ll crash by the end of it, but that I can’t crash too early. I go into my weeks and my school years knowing the same thing.

On a daily basis I can physically feel myself holding back reserves of strength. I might skip a trip to the mall with my kids on a Saturday because it will deplete my reserves. I might push for an earlier kid bedtime since I know I’m running out of steam and I have to preserve some energy for work that night. Most parents do this already by the nature of parenting, but I do it so often that I often feel a bit guilty. How much more could I do if I wasn’t saving myself to get some work done later?

I pace myself on a weekly basis as well by staggering assignments to fit my mood throughout the week. Monday gets the easy warm-up, routine work, Tuesday through Thursday are the hard assignments and Friday is the wind-down day. Sunday is my own stuff and Saturday is my day off – which I definitely need by then. Most amusingly of all, I do this same sort of pacing on an annual basis – I don’t take on new projects or anything too hard around the beginning or the end of the school year because those times of year are so crazy already.

Pacing might be something natural or it might be a learned skill – I’m not sure anymore at this point since I’ve been doing it so long, but it does bring with it a sense of guilt. Could I be growing my business? Could I be doing more for my family? Probably – but I’m almost afraid to upset the already delicate balance in my life right now that I’ve worked hard to achieve, and I guess there is some guilt, but definitely no shame in that.

Every parent has bedtime woes with kids, but as a mom who works in the evenings (Yes, I was doing mornings, but I keep switching between morning and evening schedules), I can’t seem to be soothing and patient while my kids take their time falling asleep. I love to watch them sleep, of course, and I love the quiet time together with my little ones – it’s about the only time they are still – but in the background I can hear those precious minutes ticking away between their bedtime and mine.

So far tonight I’ve scouted for monsters. I’ve read plenty of stories. I’ve sang, I’ve fussed and now I’m running out of patience. I’ve been sitting here for almost forty-five minutes and finally I’ve broken down and started emailing myself this post through my phone just to feel productive. This is a great idea, by the way, grammar and spelling of my thumb typing notwithstanding. Maybe I’ll at least get some ideas sketched out while I wait for the little one to fall asleep and the house to become still enough for real creative work.

Like so many things about raising children, this ever-lengthening bedtime drama is going to be a temporary problem since my kids won’t need me to feel their wiggly tooth for the fourth time or check all of the closets for monsters once they reach a certain age, but in the meantime I’m allowing myself a good gripe.

I wish this big boy of mine would just fall asleep! He just peeked over to see what I was doing while I was trying to patiently wait for him to close his eyes. Grrrrrrr! For the record, I learned long ago that I can’t just sit or lie down peacefully beside him – I fall asleep before he does, hence the phone’s heavy use.

Surely I’m not the only parent who loses billable hours to upset tummies, loose teeth and fidgeting kindergarteners. Help me out here!

Sent from my iPhone

If you’re not a part-time writing parent and you have to find ways to balance your time this summer, you have a few options.

Scale Back

There is no rule saying you have to work full-time all the time. Perhaps working part-time over the summer is the perfect solution, especially if your household budget can handle it. You might convert to my insane hours of working 4 to 6 am or the more common hours of 8 to 10 or 11 pm when the kids are asleep. If you’re lucky you might be able to squeeze in some work during the day while the kids destroy the upstairs or watch television.

Simply removing the pressure to work full-time or for a set period during the day allows you more time with your kids and more time doing fun activities now that everyone is home together. You might also find that working very part-time boosts your productivity as well. I work two hours a day, five or six days a week and I make almost as much writing as I do teaching – it’s a matter of billing yourself appropriately and managing that time like a slave driver.

Send the Kids Away

There are so many good camps and programs during the summer months if you need quiet time away from the kids. If your kids are out of school, but need an activity to keep you all productive and sane, look to local universities, museums and community centers for opportunities. Don’t over schedule your children, of course, and if you plan to keep them busy every week during the summer, try and use the same location or childcare provider to give the kids some consistency. A benefit of the summer childcare is that it is often fewer hours than regular school hours, so you have time to work and plenty of time to spend with your kids.

Invite Help Over

If you have younger elementary school kids, invite over a reliable teenager and let him or her handle the requests of your kids for a few hours. Bring over your babysitter and then melt away into your office or take the laptop to the coffee shop down the street and get your work done. This may be less expensive than the camps over the summer, especially if you have multiple children, and your kids will likely think having a “big kid” over to play is very exciting – a total win/win.

Tough It Out

If your kids are old enough, they may be trained well enough to leave you alone during the day while you work. I’ve found that trying to schedule work this way leaves me feeling stressed, but my kids are still young. One thing that does help is working in the morning. You don’t have to get up insanely early to work mornings. If you wake up at 7 and write until 11 or 12, your older kids may only be up for part of those hours and then spend those hours watching cartoons or playing quietly. Mornings and fresh, non-grouchy kids seem to be the best combination for writing during the day if you have to write with kids underfoot.

I got up with my kids this morning around 6:45 and lay in bed for a few minutes thinking and sleeping some more. My almost 6-year-old raced upstairs to play Mario on the Wii and his 3-year-old brother trailed after him. I could lie in bed for a while and luxuriate with my now-slightly-less-sore throat or I could use this time. I could actually work.

So I did.

I have four things to write this morning.

I wrote the first one without interruption. I reviewed it and sent it off. Then I started on the second. It was a bit more complex and required some research. By now I had company in the form of a three-year-old, but I powered through with the help of Starfall.com and some squeezing yogurt.

I thought that was going to be the end of my productivity this morning with my oldest coming back downstairs, but suddenly – a stroke of luck! The boys found their art kits sent to them by their loving grandmother back at Christmas time.

As I write this they are coloring and perhaps painting using their art kits. While I’m slightly concerned about what they are doing, I have them set up on the kitchen table where I can hear them. So far we’ve only had one spill and no fights. Who knows? I might actually finish all of my work this morning while my kids are awake – what a novelty!

I have a few thanks to offer up for this unexpected productivity.

First I’d like to thank the Wii for providing distraction in the form of Mario Brothers. My oldest will play you for hours given the opportunity. In another year or two, the younger man will likely start playing with great intensity as well. I can expect a tremendous productivity boost at that time.

Next I’d like to thank my cheap vinyl tablecloth from Wal-Mart. For only 5 dollars, I have the peace of mind that no matter how much they color, paint and spill water in the breakfast room as I type, nothing will stick to my table. I might go in there in a few minutes and find a huge mess, but with the use of the vinyl table cloth, while not very attractive, the mess will be easy to clean-up. I should give a shout-out to the tile underneath the table as well for catching some of the mess for me.

Finally, I’d like to thank the early morning hours. It’s a proven fact around here that my children are much more cooperative and independent in the morning hours than they are in the evening. Once the day is winding down they are whiny and needy, but right now they are enjoying themselves. They are honing their coloring skills, and they are creating a heck of a mess, but they are content. I don’t feel as though this would be the case in the afternoon or evening. It gives me hope for the summer months – maybe I can sleep in until 5 and still be productive!

Now I’m off to the last piece of work for the day while I still have a chance. May your day be as productive as well.

Save Money by Not Eating

I find that taking time to eat during the day just disrupts my productivity. Sure, it might only take five minutes to eat a bowl of cereal, but that’s five minutes I could be working without little boys for company. You can’t waste that time! It’s best to just not eat at all during the day and then gorge yourself on all kinds of junk food at night. This might be a terrible way to manage your health, but it’s a great way to squeeze every billable second out of your already too short work time. There’s an added benefit to not eating during the day – see the next tip!

Save Money by Skipping the Gym

Gyms cost quite a bit. The one near me that has great childcare is $75 a month. Who cares if that’s an article or two a month for a lifetime of fitness? Since I don’t eat during the day I find I don’t need to burn many extra calories during the day either. Fortunately, I do a lot of twitching in my chair while I work as I try to contain my adult-onset ADD, but between the twitching legs, flying fingers and wandering about the house I figure I burn plenty of calories.

In addition to the normal routines, I try to enhance my daily non-workouts by taking pointless trips to random places in the house. I find that by getting up urgently to do something important and then completely losing focus on whatever it was, I get to have at least thirty minutes of stair climbing, hall walking and standing in a lost stupor throughout the daytime hours. This is great exercise!

Save Money by Not Opting for Childcare

Who needs quiet and peace when they are trying to do a bit of creative work? Not me! I like to write in madness of the day (Jake! Stop hitting your brother!). I find that my best work of all comes at the end of the day when everyone is most tired and the boys are least likely to just play nicely together. (Brian! If you hit him again, there’ll be trouble in this paradise!) I know some writers create a peaceful luxury of silence while they work, but the really tough writers can crank out articles and blog posts with one hand and change a diaper with another. It’s only a problem when you forget which hand is supposed to stay clean for the keyboard.

Save Money by Never Cleaning

It’s amazing how much you spend on cleaning supplies. Want to really waste money? Why not hire a cleaning specialist to come and take care of all that cleaning for you? Who really needs a clean house? The houses and desks of geniuses are always messy! I’ve seen pictures! I certainly don’t have time to deal with things like vacuums and sponges. I figure if it was important enough to do during the day it would either involve billable hours or a future generation. Since I don’t see the sink paying me to get rid of the dirty dishes and it certainly isn’t going to be giving me grandchildren someday, the dishes can wait another day. Or two.