Photo by altemark

As freelance writers, we all know that there are advantages and disadvantages to being self employed. Some of the best things are obvious:

• Setting your own schedule
• No boss breathing down your neck
• Working on projects you like
• Working when and how you are most productive

Of course, there are disadvantages, too:

• Setting your own schedule
• No boss breathing down your neck
• Taking on projects you don’t like but feel you need
• Staying productive

One of the biggest pitfalls that many of us experience is getting distracted by all of the fun stuff we’d rather do when we should be working. I’m about to make that worse. While working on a recent project, I found a bunch of writing blogs that have threatened to suck away my productivity.

Being the swell gal that I am, I wanted to share them with you.

• Grammar Girl – I still use her mnemonic device to keep “affect” and “effect” straight.
• WWdN – I’ve loved Wil Wheaton ever since he was Gordie in Stand by Me, and this is one of the few blogs that I read just because I want to. (It doesn’t hurt that he writes about writing, either.)
• Apostrophe Abuse – I admit to being snobby about apostrophe use, but these folks take the cake.
• Indexed – One of my favorite blogs of all time. Not technically a “writing” blog, but you have to admit that Jessica understands words!
• The Rejecter – If nothing else, I just like the name of the blog. It’s written by a literary agent’s assistant and has good advice for those wishing to publish books.

While there are so many others, I wouldn’t want to jeopardize your productivity for the entire week. I hope you enjoy these blogs. If you happen to have a favorite way to waste time when you should be working, I’d like to hear about it. Maybe you could put a little linky-link in the comments section, yes?

However, I’ve discovered that one issue that gets in the way fairly often is my attention to personal projects. And I have a hunch I’m not the only one. Freelancers almost always choose their respective fields because it’s something they enjoy and it’s something they’re good at. Photographers love to snap pictures, writers love to write, designers love to create art…you get the idea. This means that in addition to using our talents for paying work, many freelancers also dabble in the “fun” side of their craft. For me, the “fun” side has been trying to write a romance novel.

So far, things seem to be progressing really well with my little pet project. I’m working toward publication and also writing both a new novel and novella at the same time.

And therein lies the problem.

I already struggle to find the time each day to work on my writing projects for clients. Finding time for my own projects only doubles the amount of time I need to spend in front of a computer each day. Not only is it not very kind to my family, but I’ve begun to resent my “real” work for all the time it takes away from the writing I’d really like to be doing.

I’ve tried putting a cap on things with two hours of article writing resulting in a reward of one hour of personal writing, but it rarely works. Because once I get going in my stories, not even the Dancing with the Stars finale can pull me away (and that’s saying a lot). It also doesn’t help that there’s been a bit of excitement with my pet project lately, which leaves me unable to work for all the mooning about I do at my desk.

It’s all about that elusive work-life balance, I guess, but I’m curious how other freelancers walk the line between doing the work they need to do and doing the work they want to do.

So when my family went to DisneyWorld last week, it was with the full intention that I wouldn’t be completely disconnected from my computer. I tried my hardest to tie up all my loose ends and notify clients that I would be out of town, but I assumed I could always check my email each night before going to bed if some sort of writing emergency came up or in case someone needed to contact me.

Unfortunately, the vacation gods had a different idea. Online access at our resort not only cost $10/day, but it was also very unreliable. I suddenly found myself stranded in a remote location where the weather was gorgeous, Mickey was everywhere, and I was wholly disconnected from my lifeline to my good friend, the Internets.

While I did not enjoy the 100+ messages in my inbox when I finally got home, and I’m in a bit of a panic to catch everything up over the next week and a half, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

The whole purpose of our vacation was to have Mommy-Daddy-Child time that was completely free of interruptions. In our real life, my husband spends 60+ hours per week at work. I’m constantly fighting against my daughter to have alone time at the computer. And she’s the poor soul who suffers, since she rarely sees us both at the same time without one of us running off to get “one last thing done.” DisneyWorld was supposed to put all the focus on her and what she loves best. By disconnecting me from my beloved computer, DisneyWorld forced us to do just that.

If I had had regular access to the Internet, I can guarantee you I would have used it. I would have skipped out on an afternoon at the pool to catch up on my emails. I would have cut our days a little short to write one or two articles. I would have been Twittering instead of dressing my daughter up as Cinderella. I know that sounds awful, but completely turning off the workday is really, really difficult for me.

I’m glad things worked out the way they did, and we plan on enforcing more downtime around my house from now on.

After all, no client or project is worth sacrificing this:

We shared with you that the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency made a big move at the end of January when we got our very own commercial office space. We also told you that we’d keep you updated on how the change from full-time work-at-home status went. It’s been quite an experience, and after some fits and starts we’re still settling in. March was a particularly interesting month for me.

I have a Mother’s Helper who comes to look after Baby Dot three days a week. We have lucked into the perfect person for the job, and she loves Dot as if she were her own granddaughter. For the first several months, I actually worked right in the same room with her and the baby. This gave me a great opportunity to observe how they got along, as well as to be available for nursing, rocking the baby to sleep, or simply dropping what I was doing to play with them when Dot felt she needed a little “mama time.”

After this initial period (about four months), I started going upstairs and leaving them to their own devices so I could be more productive. That also seemed to go quite well. That’s why, when Tamara suggested that she really was ready to get an office space, I felt like I could get onboard. I remember back when we first mentioned the idea, I wasn’t nearly as keen on it as she was. One of our readers guessed correctly that the one who was more interested had the older child and the one who was less interested had the younger child.

Once we got the office all set up, I started going in for four hours a day, three days a week. Dot was fine with that schedule. She loves her Mother’s Helper, and would helpfully hand me my shoes and wave “bye-bye” when it was time for me to go. There was no crying or clinging, so I felt OK with my decision.

After about a month of that, my Mother’s Helper and I hatched a scheme. I would up my work hours for the month of March in order for both of us to earn some extra cash. I started going in to the office five days a week, for five hours at a time. That’s a total of 25 hours a week working outside of the home, plus whatever I was able to do during the evenings when my husband was home or Dot was sleeping.

At first, it was liberating. I felt like a productive member of society again. I was able to focus and get a lot done. Not only that, but our office is beautiful, and that made for a lovely, relaxing place to spend my work hours. It was quite pleasant for the first couple of weeks.

Then Dot learned where her toes were—and I wasn’t the one who taught her. Not only that, but the weather started to warm up, but I wasn’t home to take her on the daily walks we had enjoyed so much last year. My milk production dipped, and my hormones went a little crazy. All of a sudden, I was not so excited about going to work every day. But, I had committed to trying it for a month, and I felt like I needed to stick with it to make sure I wasn’t just having “buyer’s remorse.”

By the end of March, I had made up my mind. With my Mother’s Helper’s blessing, I’ve gone back to three days a week. I can’t make as much money as I did last month, but I’m OK with that. Instead, I get to play peek-a-boo and teach Dot how to say “flower” in sign language when we take our walks. It’s been a trade-off, but I can’t help but be thrilled by the fact that freelancing has allowed me to make this decision. Isn’t that what being a “Freelance Parent” is supposed to be about?

I think it’s only fair to tattle on Tamara, as well. She’s totally been cheating on you with Twitter. Don’t even bother to confront her about it, as she’s completely unremorseful. I, on the other hand, just don’t see what’s so great about Twitter. You’re so much more comfortable, and you make me feel much better about myself than that snobby creature ever could.

What else? There’s been some panicking on our part, as it seems that the recession may finally be catching up with us. We have clients who just don’t want as much (or any) work, and there are a lot of new freelancers out there who feel that it’s appropriate to charge a lot less than we do. So, we spent the early part of April freaking the hell out. Things seem to be working themselves out so far, with a new big monthly client helping to replace the creep.

Also, Tamara and I have been able to pursue a couple of our personal interests, which has been nice. I won’t give anything away about what Tamara’s been doing, as she might want to share it herself (or not). I’m actually in the process of buidling a new website all about Bunco. (No, really.) I’m sure I’ll be looking for feedback once it’s up and running.

And, my mom has come to visit for a couple of weeks. She hasn’t seen her grandbaby in a long time, and they’ve been having a blast getting reaquainted. So, that’s cool, but it has been time consuming. Oh, and Tamara’s going to Disney World with her hubby and Baby Berry this week.

So, I guess you’re all caught up now, Blog. I know we’ve got some things to take care of for you, too. We just sort of left everyone hanging on that lolcat contest, for example, so we’ll need to take care of that so we can announce the winner and get the prize shipped off.

Also, also, I thought this was funny: http://strictlywriting.blogspot.com/2009/04/ten-things-only-writers-understand.html

One of the positive benefits of working together, though, is having the time to chat about random things that arise from time to time. (Things that would not necessitate a phone call, but that are interesting all the same.)

For example: I have a new client who thinks I am the greatest thing to ever write web copy. He has hired me to overhaul his entire web page, provide regular SEO articles, and rework a brochure for him. He has also referred me to two friends of his who need similar work. Can anyone say “cash cow?”

He’s actually a really nice, gregarious guy, and we’ve chatted on the phone several times. I usually hate phone clients, since they disrupt my comfortable bubble of misanthropy, but I enjoy him. So when he ended a call with, “Thanks, sweetheart, I’ll talk to you later,” I laughed good-naturedly and went on with my business. I mentioned what he said to Lorna, and she replied with, “You know, someone called me sweetheart today, too.”

Of course, that sparked a discussion that was much more important than whatever work we were doing at the time.

In theory, Lorna and I are feminists. After all, we are living the idea that women can have it all: families, fun, and financial success. We are running a business and doing it well. We do not feel unequal to any of our male freelancing counterparts, and we would immediately resent any suggestion that men are inherently better at this work than we are.

However, I can’t help but feel a little guilty that being called “sweetheart” by one of my clients does absolutely nothing to rankle my feathers. All of my education and upbringing insists that I feel outraged he’s not treating me with the respect I deserve as a businesswoman, but in reality, I just think that’s the way he is, and I’m glad he feels comfortable with me (and continually sends more work my way).

Lorna pretty much agrees. She brought up the point that while being respected is an important part of what we do, business – no matter what business you’re in – really depends on being genuinely liked.

Bam! Let me say that again. In business, respect is good, but being liked is better.

We could be perfectly nice, respectable business owners. I could have politely asked the client not to refer to me in terms of possibly offensive endearment, and I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t have demanded his money back. But the truth is, he likes my work and he likes me as a person. What more could I want out of a business relationship? It’s why Lorna and I work well together. It’s why we get along so well with our freelancing buddies over at JCME, At Home Mom, and Garden Wall Publications. It’s why we’ve been able to really start to networking with local small businesses over glasses of wine and slightly inebriated hugs. It’s why we’re able to do well and succeed with all of our clients.

Because we all get along. We like one another.

I guess here’s where I’ll open the floor. I maintain that being called “sweetheart,” “darling,” “gals,” or any of those other potentially loaded terms does nothing to diminish my success or confidence as a freelancer. Lorna and I are young, we’re pretty cute, and we’re fun. If we can use that to our advantage, shouldn’t we? Or are we sending the wrong message to our daughters and our clients?

However, as with most things, not everything about having an office space is hunky-dory. While I don’t regret for an instant our decision to move in, I felt it wouldn’t be fair to let our readers envy us with complete abandon. Because there is another side to the story: a financially-draining, manual-labor-filled, noisy one.

The Cost of Office Space

The first thing to consider is the cost of rent and utilities. As mentioned before, we got one heck of a deal. We pay $350 per month for about 180 square feet of office space. All utilities – including electricity and Internet – are included, though if we wanted a phone line, we’d have to pay for it. (We don’t want one right now. We’re good with using our cell phones.) This fee also includes one parking pass for a lot right across the street.

But there are additional costs, as well:

Parking for the other person (we’re estimating about $40/month)
Office furniture/decorations (to date, about $450, but we need more)
Office supplies (to date, about $100)
Kitchenette supplies (like water, teas, etc. – we haven’t purchased any yet, but we expect to)
Coffee at the downstairs cafe (Tamara expects to spend at least $60/month; Lorna has more restraint)

No matter where you work, these sorts of things pop up. But because we’re moving in and purchasing everything all at once, we are forced to really face the costs of being freelancers.

The Hassle of Moving In

We had the grand idea of having our husbands help us move in, and while they’ve been okay, most of the manual labor has fallen to us.

I helped haul a couple of 100-pound desks up two flights of stairs and then had to assemble one of them. I also had to assemble a bookshelf (the same day – does anyone else hate those painful little allen wrenches you’re expected to use to put those things together?). I had ridiculously sore forearms the next day.

Lorna and her hubby brought up another bookshelf and some lamps. We haven’t even started on a seating area yet, and we still have plenty of things that need to be hung up on the walls. And then there’s the fact that our entire building has one tiny little garbage can (literally the size of the one my three-person family uses at home), so we had to haul all the boxes and garbage from the move back home for disposal.

Overall, it’s taken quite a bit of time to get everything settled, and we’re hardly settled yet. And if we ever leave or move to a new space, it will have to be done all over again.

Non-Child Interruptions

I’m actually quite productive without my daughter underfoot, but that’s not to say that there aren’t other things that get in my way. There’s construction downstairs, which won’t last forever, but provides a bit of noise just the same. The offices aren’t very soundproof, so we can hear conversations next door and from the woman right below us. I’m sure these people can hear our conversations, too, so we have to lower our voices when we discuss a) them; and b) inappropriate subjects. Both of which come up more frequently than you’d expect…

There are also plenty of great new people to meet in our building. Everyone has been really friendly and welcoming, but each conversation detracts a little more from the time we have set aside for work. Plus, each time a person walks by, I instinctively look to see who it is. Distracting, that.

Yet, we can’t overlook the value of this little community of networking. It seems that almost everyone in our building has worked with someone else in it; web designers overlap with architects, who hit up the massage therapists or hire the PR firms. We honestly expect to start finding some local clients here, which has always been a goal of ours that we have only partially realized so far.

At the end of the day, we really are happy to be here. Lorna is still struggling to reconcile her desire to work at the office with being home and easily accessible for her daughter. I have to learn how to focus my energy to work in three-hour blocks of time – a skill I’ve apparently lost due to working in much shorter bursts at home.

We’re hoping that as the months progress, we’ll start to see this office as an investment rather than a luxury. We’re investing in our time, our sanity, and the professional front we put to the world. Let’s hope it pays off.

Anyway, for those of us who are a little insecure, it doesn’t take much to throw us for a loop. Back when we first started this blog, we took a little flak for admitting that we’ve been known to cry over a dissatisfied client. The funny thing is that between then and now, there have been very few dissatisfied clients, yet we still remember it like it was last week. We’re definitely growing a thicker skin, but (I’ll speak for myself here, and Tamara can add her own two cents’ worth if she wants) I’m actually a little needy when it comes to my words. I think it’s because writing is the main thing I’ve always been recognized for doing exceptionally well; and when it’s called into question, it’s like saying that there’s something wrong with me.

Yikes. That got a little deep for a moment. Moving right along…

I found that my insecurities were dredged up a bit this weekend, and I thought, “Hey, why not tell the whole world (ok, the 600-and-something people who read this blog), what a big dork you are?” Actually, I figured that a lot of you would probably see yourselves in my situation and it might be comforting to you to know that you’re not alone.

So, how’s that for a really, really long introduction?

The point is this: Things have been going great for Tamara and me lately. We’ve been getting new clients left and right. We’ve moved into our very own office in a lovely historic building. We have been receiving excellent feedback from our clients on their projects. We were, in fact, on top of the world.

And then, someone left a silly little comment on an old post here, and my self-doubt went all out of control. The post was geared toward newbie freelancers and was intended to give them an idea of what constituted reasonable expectations for wages. We actually hedged our bets a bit when we said that SEO articles might pay anywhere from $5 to $50. I can tell you that we don’t make $5 an article, but we also don’t make $50. What we do make, however, we think is pretty fair for the amount of work that goes into the piece.

This person left a comment saying that she makes $100 for 500-word SEO articles. Honestly, I felt like she was a little haughty about it, but that’s neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that if she’s getting $100 for SEO articles, then GOOD FOR HER! Also, I would love to know where she finds those clients, because we’re definitely not at that level.

And there, of course, is where my insecurities kicked in. I went from thinking, “Wow, we are really doing a great job,” to “Maybe we’re kidding ourselves.” It sucked. Thank goodness for Tamara, who immediately recognized why I was feeling this way and helped pull me out of it. Sure, I would love to earn $100 for an SEO article, but that seems a little far-fetched to me at the moment. (Not to say this other person isn’t doing it, just that I obviously haven’t hit that level.) In my experience, I don’t generally make $0.50 per word on my web writing.

The question is, can I still feel successful, even if I’m not earning what this person thinks is fair? The answer is “yes.” It took me a little time this weekend to answer that question for myself, but the truth is this that I work hard, and I make a reasonable amount of money. As long as I continue to work hard, I will continue to make a reasonable amount of money. In the meantime, I will be happy for those who are doing “better” than I am, I will try to help those who are not doing “better” than I am, and I will continue to work hard and grow my business in a way that makes sense for me.

So, if you’re not at the level you want to be yet, that’s OK. I’m pretty happy where I am, but I’m still striving to go further. Tamara and I have built our business this way since the beginning, and it’s working for us. I just have to keep those damn insecurities from popping their nasty little heads out and making me question myself.

But it’s becoming one now.

In the beginning, we offered all of our clients a ridiculously fast turnaround. I remember my first-ever gig through Guru. I got the offer and had it back to the guy in an hour. An hour. It wasn’t that I felt he needed it right that minute, it was just that I had nothing else to work on. (By the way, I’m happy to say that he is still a client. So there might be something to say about that super-fast first project.)

Because Lorna and I work as a team, our general project completion time has always been rather low – usually within one week or so of when we get the job. We share our workload, work late nights and weekends, and really want to build up our client list, so we always stick to our motto: Work Hard. Working hard means trying to get our clients the work they request quickly and efficiently. And it’s worked. The clients come back and they come back with referrals.

Well, we’ve done nothing but talk here lately about how we’re growing and expanding by what feel like leaps and bounds. However, we all must remember that there are drawbacks to having a full client list – including being forced to simply say, “Sure, I can get you on the schedule in three weeks,” to which the client balks, declines, or somehow wheedles a better deal.

In the web design world, I would think nothing of a one-month turnaround, but for some reason, asking my own clients to wait that long for website content makes me feel a little stingy. I have a sort of internal cap that stops at two weeks, and I ‘m having a hard time pushing that back any further.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not advocating selling your life away to please the client. Work-life balance is always on the edges of my brain, and I try to be fair to all the parts of my life simultaneously. But I can’t help but wonder, what is the freelance writing standard? Is one month an acceptable turnaround time for ten pages of web content, or is that asking too much? Is offering a two-week maximum completion date good marketing, or just plain crazy?

Feel free to chastise accordingly (goodness knows I’ve done it), but no matter how many times I tried to extricate the thing from the vice of her determination, I caved. She looked so pathetic with those big crocodile tears and shuddering breaths – all she wanted was a little bit of comfort to help her get through the night. So time and time again, I extended the deadline of its banishment and shouldered a little more mommy guilt.

Then, last week, I was in a bad mood. A. Bad. Mood. Work wasn’t going well, I was feeling deprived of caffeine, my husband was still in the midst of two full-time jobs, and I was just plain crabby. So when my daughter started to cry before bedtime because she couldn’t find her binky, I just told her, “Sorry. We got rid of them. You can’t have one anymore.”

She tried all her usual tactics: crying, begging, telling me she loves me. But I wasn’t budging. (Because in my house, when Mommy ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.) So she gave up and went to bed. And slept sounder than she ever has before. Since then, she’s asked for it twice, given a little sigh when told “no,” and moved on.

What? It was that easy?

My husband has decided that Evil Mommy is really good at laying down the law in ways that Normal Mommy is not. Evil Mommy makes her daughter eat what’s served or nothing at all, she turns off the television with nary an apology in sight, and she doesn’t take any crap. She’s hardcore.

So, we’ve decided that, like the Hulk or Niki Sanders, I must learn to channel Evil Mommy when the situation calls for it rather than simply being prey to my emotions.

I like this idea, because I can’t help but think that Evil Mommy would be really good at certain parts of our business. Bill collecting, for example. We currently have about $1,000 in outstanding payments from several clients. Normal Tamara is not good about pushing them. She listens to apologies and takes them at face value, she offers much-too-generous time allowances, and she politely backs off. I get the sensation that Evil Tamara won’t take “no” for an answer. She’ll get her money, no matter who she has to threaten to get it.

She might come in handy at other times, as well. She’d be great at negotiations, hard-headed sales tactics, and responses to mean comments on our blogs. She’d get what she needs from the people she hires without feeling bad about it. I kind of like her.

And now that I’ve discovered her lurking deep inside, I’m excited to get to know her a little better. I think she’ll be a great asset to our team.

• Steady Customers Can Sustain Your Freelance Business during the Holidays
• Plan Ahead to Make Sure You are Busing Freelancing during the Holidays
• Try Something New to Revitalize Your Freelance Business during the Holidays

To bring this series to a close, though, I want to make one last suggestion.

Consider not working too much over the holidays!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a little break now and then, and what better reason to do so than because it’s cold outside, people keep offering you food, and you need to go shopping? Even though we’ve worked to make sure that we have enough to do during the holiday season, neither one of us intends to have too much on our plates during the week of Christmas. Don’t forget that the ability to control your schedule is one of the great things about freelancing.

If things get a little too quiet during the holidays, don’t let it worry you too much. There are plenty of reasons that it happens, and it’s very, very common. There’s a reason all the freelance blogs talk about “feast or famine.” Don’t let it discourage you.

Instead of getting down about the slowdown, take advantage of it. Enjoy your family. Enjoy the season. Have some eggnog…if you’re really stressed, add a little booze to it. This is the time of year when we really should take some time out to appreciate what we have. Maybe not being so busy with work can give us an opportunity to take a deep breath and do just that.

Finding a fine balance

Lorna and I are really great at meeting deadlines for our clients. We really are. However, we – and most work-from-home-professionals that we know – constantly put our own work on the back burner and fly past self-set deadlines like we haven’t a care in the world. We have a separate blog for our business that is utterly neglected, we have really good marketing plans that we’ve yet to put to good use, and we have a number of small personal projects that we never seem to have time to even work on, let alone finish.

Oh, and we’ve tried to work around it. We have a “business account” that automatically receives 15 percent of everything we make, so we tried paying ourselves from that account as a way to get motivated. Basically, we hired ourselves to write blog posts for $10 each. I wrote zero. Lorna wrote two. That was a month ago.

We also sat each other down and put on our stern faces. “We need to get more posts up.” “You write two articles for the marketing idea, and I’ll do three. No backing out.” Of course, we backed out.

Finally, after much painful deliberation, we decided to outsource them to other writers.

Now, I’m a pretty logical gal. I know that paying someone else to write a $15 blog post for us is a big fat waste of money for two reasons:

A) I could write it myself at any point of almost any given day. It’s 30 minutes of work, tops.
B) We are paying out money that we earned (i.e., the $15 I made writing an article of virtually the same length has to be taxed, and is therefore actually only about $12 – so I am essentially losing $3 in addition to spending the same amount of time working anyway).

Still, it feels like the greatest idea ever.

The question of outsourcing has been plaguing us in more ways than just this. Lorna and I have both – completely independently of one another – been toying with the idea of hiring someone to come clean our houses. My house is a mess. There are dust bunnies under the couch larger than my daughter, my sink is full of dishes, and I believe we each have one clean pair of underwear left (which means I’ll probably buy some more when I’m out and about tomorrow rather than actually do the laundry).

Basically, we are willing to have complete strangers enter our homes while we sit at our computers, clean around us while trying not to let us see their faces of disgust, and charge us more than we will actually make in that same amount of time to make our environments livable.

Again, the logical Tamara comes out to play:

A) I will pay the equivalent of two hours of my working time to have someone else clean my house in one hour.
B) I will probably also take the time to make her some cookies and kiss her feet.

Again, I’m really starting to feel this idea.

I once came across an article by a freelance writer discussing the ever-present question of how much to charge (I can’t find it anywhere now, and believe me – I looked). Overall, he was really pompous and irritating. He talked about how his time is worth $100 per hour (or something like that), and that he never spent time on activities he deemed “less worthy” than that $100. So he didn’t mow the lawn because he could hire a lawn company to do it for $35. If he went outside and did it himself, he’d be wasting $65. He went on like this for awhile.

I had a few problems with this theory:

1. Once you start quantifying your time like that, how do you stop? If he’s having dinner with his wife and she starts discussing inane topics, is he going to cut her off and go take his plate to the computer instead? “Sorry, honey. You just wasted $50 with that stupid story about your yoga class.”
2. There is more value to an activity than just the time investment. For example, I wondered if this man belonged to a gym (insert: gym fees, gym clothes, gas to get there). Going outside and mowing the lawn would be excellent exercise, especially if he got one of those old push mowers. He could essentially save himself money in gym costs if he mowed his own lawn twice a week. Plus, there’s the simple benefit of going outside and enjoying the air. He could listen to some catchy tunes, meet some neighbors, or simply enjoy being alive rather than attached to his computer screen.

He would probably have a problem with my outsourcing idea – not because it is asking other people to do things that I can do perfectly well myself, but because I’m not making the wisest financial decision.

So where does the balance lie? Do my distaste of cleaning and my inability to self-motivate secondary projects qualify as enough of a cause to make outsourcing a good idea? Or am I just being lazy and financially irresponsible?

Attending BlogWorld Expo last weekend was sort of an eye-opening experience. While the actual BlogWorld leadership was supportive of the fact that I needed to be in close proximity to my baby for nutritional purposes, the Las Vegas Convention Center was not.

Now, I understand the arguments behind not having a bunch of kids at a professional conference. In my mind, it boils down to responsible parents. Had I actually been allowed to take my baby into sessions, I would have only done so when she was sleeping or quiet, and I would have sat in the back so as to leave quickly should she start to be disruptive. That’s just common courtesy.

The weirdest reaction I received probably came from the “gentleman” who informed me that children should not be allowed in Las Vegas. I got the distinct impression that he thought I sucked as a human being for having Dot there. I stuck up for myself, though:

The best reaction was from one of the BlogHer bigwigs who assures me I should come to their conference where they once had a session delivered by a presenter while she was breastfeeding.

One of my biggest concerns was that she might disturb other people by crying. Fortunately, she did me proud, and if you added up all the time she spent crying all weekend, it might have totaled about four minutes. Trust me, that is way less time than many of the attendees spent whining about how slow the internet connection was. Considering it was free and there were thousands of people using it, I found their fussing to be more inappropriate than hers.

The longer I spend dwelling on the subject, the more bothered I am that people feel that a baby (that they are not even expected to care for) is an inconvenience. Sure, if she’d been crying a lot, I could see how that would be quite frustrating. But for people to be annoyed just because a baby was in the room…that’s really their problem more than mine and Dot’s, isn’t it?

In some ways, breastfeeding is a sacrifice on the mother’s part. In other ways, it is more than its own reward. Still, I think it’s appalling that I should also be expected to sacrifice my career because I need to physically be close to my baby. I find it insulting, as a matter of fact.

In a manner of speaking, I really did feel somewhat discriminated against, and I’m not quick to jump on that bandwagon. It felt to me as if I was expected to choose between being a breastfeeding mother and being a professional woman. How is it possible that in 2008, we still don’t see that it is possible to be both?

• My Children – This is Freelance Parent, so no one knows better than we how utterly distracting having children at home can be. Whether you’re juggling a baby (poor Lorna), juggling a toddler (poor Tamara), or juggling kids of any age, it is your children’s inborn purpose to see you spend as little time on the computer as possible.

• My Spouse – My husband routinely works a second job to supplement our income and buy himself things like motorcycles and big screen televisions. Although I always sigh over the prospect of once again becoming a single parent, I actually get a lot more work done when he’s not around. The demands of a spouse who is home during the day are actually worse than those of a kid, since you can’t just make him/her take a nap or go play outside.

• Myself – Whether you’re a procrastinator, a follower of the elusive shiny penny, or simply no good at being productive, you are probably your biggest obstacle to success. Because honestly, no matter how much outside circumstances weigh on you, you’re responsible for your own fate.

• My Clutter – Nothing is more distracting to someone working from home than a home that is filled with piles of papers, dust bunnies, and dirty dishes. Most of the time, the clutter is really just a way for you to place your productivity blame elsewhere, but there’s no denying that a substantial mess contributes to general unhappiness and, therefore, loss of productivity.

• My Location – This includes the room in your home as well as your latitude and longitude. Do you work in a room with a door, or on a makeshift space at your dining room table? Do you live where the outdoors beckon, or are you happy simply staying indoors?

• My To-Do List – Because I love to cross things off my to-do list, I typically fill it with little things I know I can accomplish (and things I actually enjoy doing). Updating our company’s finances, sending out invoices, writing a really small article – if it takes less than 15 minutes, it’s on there. However, that doesn’t really do much to knock out the big projects, which is what really makes a difference. At the end of the day, I might have 20 things done but nothing really accomplished.

• My Clients – Some clients simply require more, well, handling than others. They want updates, emails, project agreements, quotes. All that stuff takes time, and it typically gets pushed ahead of all the stuff I should be doing.

• My Blog Reader – Ah, blogs. Information, community, business opportunities, and a whole lot of lost time. Don’t get me wrong – I love to read blogs (and I love that you read ours). However, these can really eat up into your day, especially if you’re already behind.

• My Family and Friends – If your family is anything like mine, they plan the best outings and activities when there is a deadline looming. Either that, or they need some sort of help when you least want to give it. When it comes to family members, it may be hard to say “no” or put them off for work at you know could technically be done another time.

• My Income – One of the least-discussed problems of the feast or famine aspect of freelancing is the lowered motivation when the money is good. If I’ve had a particularly profitable month, I have a hard time putting as much effort into finding more work than I normally would. After all, I’ve already reached my financial goals – so why should I be productive if I don’t absolutely have to?

As you can tell, almost all of these factors boil down to one common denominator: me. Take a look at what’s cutting into your productivity, and you might just find that fixing yourself is all it takes to fix everything else.

As far as home-based businesses go, freelance writing has been a dream come true for us. We’ve had our ups and downs, and the ups have been more than enough to keep us motivated and excited. We definitely think of you all as one of those “ups.” We want to thank you for being a part of our success. We truly believe that we’ve gotten as far as we have because of this blog…because of you!

Awesome and totally, totally doomed to fail.

My little family arrived here in Seattle this evening.  As I unpacked our clothes and set up a changing station for the baby, my husband got to work setting up an internet connection.  Within 15 minutes, I had checked the company email and was drafting my to-do list for the week.

• 12 SEO articles
• 3 blog reviews
• 3 Mama Hacks
• 1 Nonprofit Perspective post
• 1-2 Freelance Parent posts
• Podcasting class on Monday night
• Catch up on Google Reader
• Oh, and that sooper-secret thing I can’t tell you about ’cause it’ll spoil the surprise

So, I suppose there is a bit of a question as to whether or not I’m really on vacation.  The fact that I am practically in the shadow of the Space Needle tells me that I am.  (Seriously, I’m looking at the Space Needle and typing this right now!)

My plan for the week is to intersperse the above projects in between visits to the Children’s Museum, the Pacific Science Center, and whatever other wonderful things I find to do.  I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t have any trouble finding a Starbucks with an internet connection around here!

Over the weekend, I did a little babysitting for my niece and nephew (aged almost two and four). My house was pretty much a zoo of giggling children. At one point during the day, the kids were being pretty independent, so I took the opportunity to answer some emails and make a few job bids on my laptop. All was going well for awhile until my daughter came running up to me.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” she screamed with her normal, frantic tendency. “Piggy* is stuck. He needs help. Help him! Help him!” I sort of murmured a response, saved the email I was working on, and trailed my eyes to where she was jumping about and continuing her screams.

Lo and behold, there he was. My nephew had worked his way through the dog door and all I could see was his bottom half, his legs flailing about trying to work themselves free.

After I had a quick chuckle (and took a picture), I went to go help the poor little guy. He was calling for assistance, but in a way that I have no framework for understanding. His voice was barely above talking level as he cried, “Aunt Tamara, Aunt Tamara, I need help. I’m stuck.” Don’t get me wrong – he was upset about being stuck – but in a quiet, understated sort of way.

I was suddenly struck with a thought: Why does my nephew make calm demands while my daughter screams every little thing as though it were end of the world? Is it inherent personality that makes them so different, or is my daughter reacting in the only way that gets my attention – by screaming bloody murder?

I’ll be the first to admit that I am really, really good at tuning things out when I’m working. I’ve adapted the way I focus so that nothing but obvious danger can penetrate my productive haze. My daughter is smart. She probably just found her own way of getting my attention no matter what.

By screaming.

I’m curious if other freelancing parents have discovered ways in which their work-at-home status has a negative reflection on their kids. We always talk about the benefits of working form home (spending more time with our kids, saving money on childcare), but we rarely address the potentially negative side effects that surely exist in full force.

Care to share?

* Not his real name. Nor is it in any way a reference to Lord of the Flies.

However, while individuals working from virtual offices may still be in the minority, there are substantially more work-from-home professionals and parents than you think there are. This is because people working in offices still seem to carry a bit more authority than individuals clocking their hours around soccer schedules and day care issues, so those of us in the latter category tend to “hide” the fact that that is exactly what we are doing.

Although the rational part of me knows that working from home or a virtual office is no source of shame, I can’t help but perk up when I hear the screams of someone else’s children on the other end of the phone. I adore getting apologies from seemingly collected businesspeople as they are forced to attend to what only can be teenagers demanding the keys to the car or money for the mall.

That’s why it is a continual delight to come across clients who are in the exact same situation as the rest of us. In the past two weeks, I have discovered that not one, not two, but three of my client contacts are WAHMs. They work from virtual offices and around the needs of their small children. And these aren’t small potatoes clients either – some of them are incredibly successful professionals amongst whom it is an honor to work.

In reality, working with individuals in virtual offices is beneficial for a number of reasons:

• They have more flexible schedules, so questions are often answered in the middle of the night and phone calls can be set up during untraditional hours.

• They understand the costs of working as a freelancer or an independent contractor. When you ask for a reasonable hourly rate, they automatically know that you are calculating taxes, administrative hours, and PayPal fees into the overall charge, so they don’t balk at the total number.

• They are an incredible networking opportunity. Our website designer and our nonprofit blog designer (yet to be unveiled, thank you very much) both work from virtual offices. We send work their way, and they send work ours. We all belong to the same club, with the never-discussed-but-readily-apparent rules of loyalty and reciprocation.

• They employ the latest in communications technology. Instant messages, Twitters, and emails abound among the virtual office set. Telephone and face-to-face communication methods are oftentimes a heavier time investment than sending off a quick email every now and then, so it’s nice to work with a group of people who operate along the same lines.

• They work on different pay schedules than traditional offices. When I submit an invoice to a large organization, I typically have to wait until the right department approves and submits the payment. The work-at-home set typically pays much, much faster (oftentimes on the same day as the project completion).

The work-from-home set is an incredible bunch of people (as many of us will attest). Although I would never turn down a job from a traditional office setting, I am happy to include so many WAHMs and virtual office professionals in my client list.

Despite your best efforts, you’re likely still going to come across times when you just don’t have as much paying work as you would like. This is frustrating at best and terrifying at worst. We found ourselves in this situation a while back, and our first instinct was to panic. This kind of lull is an open door for worries and self doubts.

Fortunately, we didn’t spend too much time focusing on the “famine” aspect of our situation. You know why? Because we were too busy. You read that right. Just because we didn’t have an overabundance of paying clients at the moment didn’t mean there was nothing to do. In fact, we were able to use the lull to take care of ourselves and our own business. It gave us a chance to sort of catch our breath and look around to discover what else we needed to be doing.

• We spent more guilt-free time with our families.
• We became revitalized when it comes to blogging.
• We came up with a new strategy to make our Berry-Brewer web site work for us.
• We discovered some earning opportunities we hadn’t fully considered before.
• We developed classes for SparkplugU.
• We got to have actual conversations with our colleagues.
• We revisited our goals and our business plan.

Want to know something amazing? Once we got these things in order, the jobs started coming back. Don’t get me wrong, we bid on jobs before, during, and after the lull; but it was almost like the universe gave us the opportunity to get our ducks in a row.

So, the next time you experience a lull in your business, take a look around. What things could you be doing that will help take you to the next level? As long as the bills are paid, you’ve got the perfect opportunity to redirect your attention for a short time. Take advantage of it.

• Let’s say we disagreed on how to split our money, for example. Well, that’d probably be a deal breaker.
• What if we disagreed on the types of projects our company would accept? Nope, that wouldn’t work.
• Oh, what if Tamara wanted to have a brick-and-mortar business, and I wanted to work from home 100% of the time . . . Actually, we decided to cross that bridge when we come to it.

The point is that there are a lot of disagreements that could really cause us some trouble. Fortunately, whether or not we should work on holidays isn’t one of them.

Last week, Tamara posted about how she kind of feels like she should work on holidays. As she explained to me, her entire family has worked in the service industry (nursing, cinemas, etc.), so it just seems par for the course.

I was raised by entrepreneurs. My parents saw holidays as a way to offer some sort of “special” to their customers and then be closed for the big day to do family stuff. I’ll admit that I worked my fair share of Thanksgivings and New Year’s Eves when I was still a slave to the retail grind, but those days are behind me.

They’re behind me because I choose to leave them there.

Not too long ago, we wrote about how we define success as freelancers. In our case, it has a lot to do with being able to say “no” when we want. The flip side of this is that we can also say “yes” if we want. If Tamara is willing to accept a Christmas day deadline, then more power to her. I, on the other hand, am likely to take the entire week off to travel to Montana.

As for the time zone thing . . . well, we both get hosed on that one.