5 Things I Learned About Freelancing from my Toddler

When I started writing online, my daughter was a baby. Today, as my business has grown, so has she and surprisingly, has taught me several important lessons along the way. Freelancing, they say, is not child’s play but one can surely learn a thing or two from kids. Here are 5 things that I learned about being a better, more productive writer and business owner

Freelancers: Get More Rest, Get More Done

I’ve been a bit of a hypocrite lately, not following my own rules about maintaining a work-life balance. Working late happens more often than it should (including today). And I haven’t felt very rested — which makes me feel mentally drained all day, which hurts my productivity even more and leads to more late nights. It’s a lousy little cycle. Sometimes it’s completely our fault

Working the Summer Months: Working at Home with Kids

If you’re used to sending your kids away to school and working, you’re in for a rough ride – summer is almost here! Of course, those mothers who are insane like I am don’t have to worry too much about this. In fact, the summer months are the most relaxing months for my career, simply because I’m on summer vacation as well. My mornings won’t

Optimize Your Email to Become a More Productive Writer

Increasing your productivity can go a long way towards helping you build your freelance writing career in the way you want to. It’s how you work smarter, not harder. You can get more done (and make more money) even though you spend fewer hours working. Or you can open up more billable hours in your existing schedule. What’s not to love? For me, I still

Shhh….Mommy’s Working Now!

I’m doing something crazy today. I’m working on this post while my children are awake. It’s crazy – I know. I’m used to working in the still of the morning now around 4 am, but yesterday about 2 o’clock my body decided that it was done carrying me through my crazy schedule and decided to develop a sore throat and general yuckiness. As I finished

Super Money-Saving Tips from a Super WAHM!

I’m obviously totally awesome at what I do because I’m not completely burned out yet although I do get very, very close at times. In fact, I admire my productivity and economy so much I thought I’d share some real-world tips for saving money while starting up a freelance business any moms just breaking into this madness. This is, after all, a very, very serious

What My Cats Taught Me About More Efficient Freelancing

Sometimes we find inspiration in the strangest places. And today I’m going to turn the floor over to my two kitties, Baby and Tubs. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned from these little beasties that apply to the freelance writing life: Baby: There’s Always Time for a Nap Sometimes we get so caught up in work and deadlines and finding new projects that we

Signs You’re Working Yourself Too Hard

Anyone who properly cares for children works hard. It’s a world of sacrifices and rewards, but there’s very few mothers who don’t sleep well once the angels are tucked into bed. I’ve never lain around wishing I’d been busier on a particular day. But there does come a time when you realize that having a freelance career, and in my case a daytime career, on

2010 Goals and Resolutions: A Follow-up

We’re going to talk about goals this week. First, I want to take a look back on the goals we set for ourselves for 2010. In later posts we’ll discuss failure and why it’s sometimes okay, and then we’ll close out the week talking about how today’s reflections can help us set new goals for the coming year. Why look back on this year’s goals

Freelance Writers: How to Prioritize Your Own Projects

I made a comment on Twitter last week about blog posts. I mentioned how my titles for client blog posts tend to be much better than those for my own sites, and how maybe I should start treating my own projects as I would a client’s. Others chimed in with similar sentiments and LaToya thought it would make for a good blog post idea. Let’s

My Most Unproductive Work Day Ever (And Why I’m Not Letting it Get Me Down)

In my last post I talked about tech-related problems leading to distraction at work, especially when you freelance and you get to deal with most of those issues yourself. Today was unfortunately an even worse day for me productivity-wise. I’d say it might just be my most unproductive work day ever. And it too began with technology-related non-goodness. Morning Upgrades Things kicked off this morning

Technology-Induced Procrastination

Thursday is the last work day of my week. I therefore like for it to be a productive day. Well, that or I’ll work late Wednesday to take extra time off on Thursday. This Thursday was anything but. And technology was (mostly) to blame. I tend to get some early tweeting in while I have my first cup of coffee. I do this because it

The Pain of Brain Splitting – Mom Knows.

Yesterday I got a searing headache. Headaches aren’t usual for me and this one had a cause that was very easily identifiable and I should have known better. It wasn’t lack of water or lack of sleep (for once.) The IRS hasn’t called lately and the scale isn’t too horrifying for the week. The cause of this particular headache was my children. The worst part?

Multi-task Your Way to a Healthier Body and a Healthier Career

Today marks the start of our new Freelance Fitness series here on All Freelance Writing. This is where I’ll be sharing some of my own workout-related updates to show you that you’re not alone in trying to beat the bad health habits freelancing can sometimes lead to. Once per month we’ll talk about workouts tailored to freelance writers, and once per month we’ll share recipes

The 4-Day Freelance Work Week (and Why It’s Time for a Change)

For quite some time, I’ve planned to cut down my work schedule to a four-day work week. I never seem to get around to it though. Whenever I free up the time, either I have a new project to work on during those hours or a client wants to start on a big contract that I suddenly have some free hours for. So the schedule

How To Build A Home Office – The Desk

When I first started freelancing, I realised that my productivity decreased if I were working from my laptop in a room where there were distractions of some sort. Whether it was the TV, radio, girlfriend or cats, I found that I was producing more work on a quicker basis when I was alone. So, mixing my passion for DIY with my need for a separate

Stop Making Excuses, Start Making Changes

Every now and then I talk about the excuses freelance writers make for their lack of success when they’re not happy in their careers (and how they need to take personal responsibility if they want to change that). Let’s talk about the latter half — making changes. It’s not enough to knock off the excuses. You stopped blaming the economy for your lack of work.

What I've Already Learned in 2010

Today my vacation time comes to an end. For the last week and a half I’ve enjoyed some time off. I didn’t go anywhere exciting, but rather just enjoyed some peace and quiet and finished a lot of much-needed housework (although I’ll still be cleaning and re-organizing for weeks I’m sure — haven’t tackled the dreaded closets yet!). Even though we’re only a few days

3 Money-Making Tips I Learned from My Children

Want to make money? Watch an enterprising 4-year-old.  Granted, my kids have watched two parents work from home and have been to the bank more times in their short lives than most kids go in a few decades, but they’re fun to watch and have taught me quite a bit about making money. Maximize Productivity If I have a project that takes about two hours

My 2010 Freelance Writing and Blogging Resolutions

I love this time of year. It’s exciting for me when I get to sit down and look back on my business and make plans for the year to come. Every year there are goals I reach and those I don’t. I change goals or make new ones throughout the course of the year. This is the time of year when I create the big

How to Write an Elevator Pitch for Your Freelance Writing Business

Yesterday I announced our December 2009 freelance writing contest — you can win cash and prizes just for thinking about your own marketing for your freelance writing business. Write an elevator pitch / elevator speech of 4-5 sentences. That’s all you have to do! But wait, how do you write an elevator pitch? Here’s a quick “how to” to help you out: Step 1: List

Getting Started in Magazine Writing With Linda Formichelli

This week our “Getting Started” series post is a bit later than usual due to the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the U.S. We’re kicking things off with a bang though, as we welcome Linda Formichelli! Linda will talk about getting started as a freelance magazine writer. It’s a topic we don’t touch on very often here at All Freelance Writing since my own career is

Freelance Writer Challenge – Write Down Your Ideas

Do you ever feel like you have so many ideas in your head that you don’t know what to do with them? Well then write them down! Perhaps you already do, but is your note-taking, idea-hoarding method really working well for you? Or do you manage to lose those notes anyway, making them useless for bringing those ideas back to life later on? Thanks to

The 10 Second Trick that Doubled my Productivity as a Writer

Lately my work days have been so much more enjoyable than before. I get a solid 7 hours of client work and administrative stuff out the way, I’m actually taking my lunch hour for myself instead of working through it, have the energy to put a few more hours into my own projects daily, and still have time to take care of housework, working out,

5 Ways to Get More Done Today

When you work as a freelance writer, you generally have a lot of control over your own schedule. That may sound great, but what it often means is that we’re prone to procrastination and distractions – it’s too easy to say “Well, I can always just work extra hours later tonight to finish this up.” It doesn’t have to be hard to be more productive

Score Points for Better Blogging

Quite a while back, I was introduced to the blog points system from Passionate Blogger (referred by Judy Gombita of PR Conversations). I forgot all about it until today, and decided that this system would be a good tool to help me better manage my multiple blogs. The idea is simple… to be a better blogger you need a certain amount of consistency, and you

Weekly Writing Challenge: Mix it Up

It’s easy to get stuck in a certain way of working. Sometimes our methods can become stale and negatively affect our productivity as writers. So this week’s challenge is about scheduling, and how mixing it up once in a while can keep your work fresh. If you think you’re already working as productively as you possibly can, there’s no need to take part in this