Managing work in a chaotic household

The other day in my job sucks more than yours we looked at some of the perils of working at home. From distracting kids, to friends and family who believe you’re sitting around eating bon bons all day, to finding a coffee shop with non-sticky tables and more, working at home can be a nightmare at times. Here’s how to make it better…

Have a dedicated office space with a door you can shut: If you can’t have this now, or don’t foresee having this in the very near future, working at home honestly may not work out unless you live alone. Kids don’t get that an office space in a common area still means you’re working, and worse (in my experience) neither do the adults you live with. Also, people will take stuff from your office so good luck finding a pen when you need it. With a closed door people leave you and your stuff alone far more often. If you’ve got say, a spouse who works and kids who are in school then a common area office can work, but it’s still not helpful on snow days, sick days, weekends, holidays, and summer break. I’ve had both situations and having my own office with a close-ready door is about 95% better than a common area office.

IF you don’t have a closed door office: You can try some different things if there’s no way for you to get a personal office space at home. Some are more realistic than others, and none are that great, but I’ll list them just in case one might work for you…

Rent a space – if you’re a prolific writer and make nice wages renting a space might be an option, although, most of the writers I know can’t afford this option. Plus there’s travel time to consider; this makes working at home, not so much working at home.

Get a screen – at one point in my life I had a common office space that was blocked off with a large shelf. I’m not sure why, but people left me alone more. Maybe it’s the whole outta sight, outta mind deal at play.

Work off hours – work when other people for sure won’t be in the common space. This is best if you live with just one person. Once you start trying to juggle more than two people’s schedules in regards to a common space it becomes difficult.

Move to the least annoying common area – yesterday I was fed up to the breaking point so I moved my office from the living room to my bedroom. Our home situation is this; my boyfriend works from 3am-noon; my son attends school from 9am or so to 4 or 5pm; when my boyfriend’s daughters are here they take over the living room and extra bedroom. Basically I’m almost never the only person at home minus maybe three hours each weekday. That said, I moved to the master bedroom, where technically my boyfriend sleeps from noon to 7pm or so BUT since we have other sleeping spaces in the house he’s sleeping elsewhere while I work. It’s not perfect but at least I can go in the bedroom and shut the door vs. having people milling around me in the living room.

Turn off the phone: When I’m working during the day, I leave my phone on vibrate only. This way I can see if my son’s school calls but ignore everyone else. Telling people not to call won’t work, because they don’t believe that you’re actually working.

Learn to say no: Because I work at home I’m the go-to friend for emergency childcare, school events, errands, and more. I actually don’t have the time for any of this and learning to say so to others early on is in your benefit. If you’re a yes person people will treat you like it.

Minimize other distractions: If you don’t have a good office space then minimizing distractions so you can make the most of the quiet work time you do have is important. In fact I’ve even cut out email during my work time for the most part.

Ideally your goal, if you want to be a pro writer for life should be a closed door, quiet, distraction-free work space. Until you get that though you can try the options above or offer some other ideas in the comments.

How do you manage work in a chaotic household?

Plan Your 2010 Blogging Calendar

Blogging schedules, or blogger editorial calendars are weird. Most bloggers don’t blog by regular calendar time, but work far in advance. There are some perks to this method….

Many people start looking for tips about holidays and special events early on to get a jump start on their holiday planning. If it’s a week to Christmas you don’t want to just be posting about which gifts are best or how to plan the perfect holiday meal. People have already found that content elsewhere and won’t need it at your blog.

If you are allowed ads on your posts (if you blog for a client) OR if you own your own blogs with ads, again, people are looking to click on them way before, not right before a holiday.

If you blog a topic that requires extra time for tasks, people need tips early not late. One example is a garden blog. You’re not going to post, “How to grow your own Thanksgiving veggies” in late November, you’re going to post something like that in late summer so people can actually do it. Another example is Back to School time. Posting tips about how to save money on college textbooks is less valuable in September than it would be in July.

How to plan your yearly blog calendar…

In January, grab a calendar (or make a list on your computer) of events you’ll want to blog throughout the year. Of course this varies by topic. It’s useful to have an actual list, because when you’re busy blogging and living life, it’s easy to forget about upcoming holidays.

I usually make sure I write down all of my various blogs in my calendar, because the topics vary, as do the holidays and events I should be blogging about. I also write in the holidays or events when I should be blogging about them, not when they actually happen. For instance, I’ve got back to school time jotted down in my calendar in July, not September.

Timely topics you should have on your calendar include…

Note – while all of the below may not relate to your blog topic, there’s almost always a way to make it relate. That said, if you can’t make it relate in a meaningful way I’d skip it.

• All the major holidays – although in my opinion you should blog what you know. For example while I will do a post or two on an eco-friendly Hanukkah, I celebrate, and therefore know more about Christmas, so I tend to focus on that.
• All the obscure holidays and events that apply only to your topic – like Earth Day and World Peace Day for a green blog, National Salad Day for a garden blog, World Breastfeeding Week for a baby blog, Blog Action Day for a blogging blog, or National Breast Cancer Month for a health blog.
• Events that are seasonal but not holidays – back to school, choosing a summer camp, weatherizing your home for winter, getting ready for spring, etc.

How soon ahead should you blog timely topics?

People differ in their opinion on this but for me it depends on the actual holiday/event. I’m mainly a green blogger so Earth Day is a huge time of the year for me. I start blogging about it well in advance; usually about 1.5 to 2 months ahead of schedule. As a parent it’s easy for me to gauge topic time frames for things like back to school or kid Christmas safety, because I’m thinking about it early, so I know other parents must be too. I tend to kick off major holidays at least a month in advance. Smaller events, that are more fun knowledge than useful, like say, national ice cream day I might post a day early or on the day of, because they’re just not as big a deal.

Where to get ideas for your annual blog calendar…

• 2010 Federal Holidays
• 2010 holidays and observances – aka basics and some kooky events too.
• National health observances – i.e. National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, World Alzheimer’s Day, and so on.
  Eco-minded events and observances
• Holiday insights
• Bank and national holidays for the US, UK, Ireland, & Scotland.
• If you write a local blog, head to your state’s website and look for an events calendar.
• Also pay attention to PR people. They work far ahead of time, so going by the emails they’re sending you is a good idea.

While you’re at it, why not plan your 2010 freelance writing strategy too.

I didn’t check my email all day… AND the world didn’t end!

I’m detouring from our get a job series today to gloat. If you want to review the current series check out…

• How to get blogging jobs and web writing jobs – getting started
• Finding blog gigs – starting out with no clips
• How to get a blogging job – advice from b5media’s hiring editor
• How to get a blogging job – advice from Deb Ng of FWJ

Now on with the gloat – I didn’t check my email and survived to tell you about it!

I’m super frustrated right now because I’m moving August 1st, which means I need to post ahead for a few days so I can take said days off to move. PLUS have I even packed (ha) – not even one box. I’m busy and tired and looking for ways to cut out distractions. I can’t cut out the typical distractions like Twitter or Facebook because it’s part of my job (for some clients) to visit those types of spots.

However, email is not technically a requirement. I tend to check mine a lot anyhow because I get so much email. It’s scary to think if I don’t check it, I’ll open it up ten hours later to pages of stuff to sort. I check my email during the day and while I do check it on a schedule, it always distracts me for longer than it should. I start answering emails, bookmarking PR stuff, get mean reader email and have to find a friend to rant to, and so on. It’s a time waster, but I didn’t know how much until today.

Yesterday I was sorting email and I just had it. I got one lame email too many and decided to NOT check my email for a whole day and see what happens.

I checked my email in the evening on Sunday and then didn’t even allow myself to open it all day Monday. It was nerve wracking. I kept thinking “Who is trying to get in touch, maybe I missed some key press release, maybe there’s some life-changing email in there…. ahhhhhhhh!” But I stood strong and left the email alone and low and behold I got a ton more work than usual done.

Cutting out scheduled email checks during my day saved me an estimated two hours. It was cool and sort of freeing plus with two extra hours I got more work done.

What about when I finally did check it – how crazy was it?

Honestly, not that bad. I found it was actually easier to wiz through all the email at once, deleting a ton of junk, category marking others, then I spent a little time answering people. All in all it took about an hour. Go me.

If you’re looking for a way to gain some time I highly suggest holding off on email time – in fact I may try only checking it every other day! Well, that would require more will-power so we’ll see…

What’s your email schedule look like? Is it distracting you too? For more advice read: Are you too distracted at work.

Are you too distracted at work?

If you work as a blogger / web writer, you may find yourself getting super distracted often when you come across fun stuff to see and read. It’s also easy to get distracted when networking; sure Twitter can help you score gigs, but if you’re on there all day chatting, you won’t get much real work done.

I’m not immune to distractions. In one sense I’m lucky because I get to write mostly topics I love, but since part of my gigs is finding news and cool new products related to said topics I love, it’s easy for me to waste time browsing cool gear and then I get off track and lose work time.

To stay on track try the following…

Schedule everything!: I schedule every single thing I do online during my workday, or I’d never get anything done. And by everything, I do mean everything. I blog and do social media networking for clients and I’ve got time slots on my work schedule for all my tasks related to both. My schedule has time slots for lead searches, actual posting, commenting at other blogs, stumbling, email management, answering blog comments, Facebook, Twitter, and all the other little tasks I do at my jobs. For example, I love reading and commenting at other blogs, but since most of my gigs only require a little of that, I have to plan it, or trust me, I might do it happily all day, and not get my posts done. I use a schedule that has little check-off boxes on it, because there’s something about little boxes that makes me work. If I see five little boxes that need to be filled in with tweets for a client, I’ll do it.

Time it all: I’m more a fan of check-off-boxes vs. timing, because I know in my head how long tasks take me, but some bloggers I know use a timing method vs. boxes. For example, set your timer, or watch the clock as you do tasks, which could look like the following….

• 9 am – Network for blog one.
• 10 am – Posts for blog two.
• 10:30 am – Answer emails.
• 11 am – Catch up on news feeds.
• 11:30 am – Posts for blog three.
• 1 am – fun / personal social networking stuff (your own tweets, forums, and stumbling).
• And so on.

Set a time limit: If I find a story I’m dying to blog about, I will sometimes research it to death. TIME waster. Once I find a lead, I give myself a set amount of research time. If, at the end of that time, I don’t have enough info, I set the story aside for later. Same with images. If I have an idea in my head about an image for a post, and can’t find it in a few minutes, I settle for something less perfect.

Know what you’re writing about today: I usually jot down what I’ll be posting about in the morning, and it helps to keep me more on track than deciding on the fly what I’ll be posting about.

Use a weekly schedule: Another way that some bloggers stay on track is to go by a weekly schedule vs. a daily. I.e they do all their posting at blog one on Monday, blog two on Tuesday, blog three on Wednesday, use Thursday for paper work and misc tasks, and break up networking a little each day. Weekly schedules are a total failure for me. I have to go by a daily schedule or I get distracted. Find what works for you.

Write offline: If you’re way too distracted, you can write your posts offline, then go online and in one swift swoop, post the pieces to your blogs, add links, and publish. In this case some discipline can be a virtue, because in my opinion it’s faster to simply write online and gather links as you go, but if you’re always getting distracted, you might save more time writing offline.

Plan for fun stuff last: One technique I use is planning the fun stuff that I know will distract me for last. My favorite part of my job is green product lead searches. I love finding breaking news about new items coming out, and I ALWAYS spend more time than I should doing it, so I make sure to plan this task last and usually on a slow day (for me a weekend day usually), so that my other tasks get done as well.

Turn Skype, IM, etc. on DO NOT DISTURB!: Self explanatory.

How do you keep from getting distracted from all the cool stuff going on in the virtual world?

[image via stock.xchng]

Online resume mistakes you may be making

Applying for online writing gigs is a writing talent all on its own. If you make a mistake you’re not kicking off this whole, “I can write for a living” deal very well. Because you’ll be sending your resume / work bio by email, you need to adjust it for the web. Following are some mistakes not to make when applying for an online writing gig – be it a blog or other website.

Mistakes when applying:

You cut and paste from Word or another doc. application: This can result in some funky formatting and make your email look unprofessional.

You attach your resume or bio: NEVER send attachments unless a potential client asks you to specifically do so. Most folks won’t open attachments, and some have them blocked. However, if you have pertinent clips what should you do? Cover it at the end with a quick, “Magazine clips are also available upon request.” Exchange “magazine clips” with business clips or what have you as needed.

You’re long-winded: Long winded isn’t even great on a paper resume, but it’s the kiss of death on a web resume. Web writing is partially about being succinct. If your resume / bio shows that you can’t be you’ve already gotten off on the wrong foot.

You make spelling, grammar, or other errors that ‘writers’ shouldn’t make: Come on now, I know you know this one. Don’t do it. Note though that web writing technique is different than other sorts of writing. Short blips in bullets are fine for a web resume.

You post the great resume wall of text: HIT ENTER! I’ll say it again… hit enter. I get emails from people who have questions about writing online, and that’s cool, but I don’t make it through half on them because my eyes don’t enjoy reading 60 lines+ of text in a row. Potential employers don’t want this either. Make your text skim-friendly. Note that some bold headings and bullets will help as well.

You leave the subject blank: In the subject should be the job title you’re applying for.

You use a lame-ass email: Sexy_writer@yahoo.com is NOT a good email. iwriteawesome@hotmail.com is also lame. If you can use an email with your name, or the name of your writing biz (if you have one).

You include too many irrelevant facts: No one cares about your ceramic dog collection or the fact that you like creating scrapbooks in your spare time. Keep to the facts which one, keeps it skim-friendly, and two, keeps it focused.

WHEN TO BREAK THE RULE ABOVE…

• You say where you’re from (quickly) – this has landed me jobs because where you’re from is a good conversation starter.
• The potential client ASKS for some personal info.
• Your personal info actually relates to the gig. When I applied for a pregnancy blog I write for I did mention that I’d worked as a doula, went to college for nursing/midwifery, and went through childbirth myself, because it made me look more credible.
• You can say it all in a few sentences. Something quick, like, “On a personal note, in my free time I like music, Frisbee, and have an insane addiction to chocolate” can add a bit of personality to an otherwise blah resume, but you need to add this at the end, and do so for gigs that seem a little more casual.

You add in your entire educational career: Fact, none of the clients I have right now asked me about my education ever, in fact, over the span of my writing career almost no clients have asked – good thing too since I’ve got degrees in math and science, not writing. Education is less highly rated in the online writing world than experience and your clips are. Sometimes a client will ask and by all means include it. OR the info may add to your credibility (like holding an RN degree when applying for a health site) but otherwise, education info only takes up space.

You don’t include links to clips: If you don’t have online clips, start a blog. If you don’t want to start a blog, start your own website and post your clips there. Clients want to see your clips.

For more tips on applying for blogging and online writing gigs read:

• Applying for Blogging Jobs – Do You Need A Resume?
• Sample introduction letter for blogging and online writing gigs
• Applying for a Blogging Job: When to Blow Off Directions

Coming soon we’ll look at mistakes not to make when posting your resume or bio on your personal website.

It’s not too late for blog spring cleaning

At one of my blog networks my channel editor decided that all of the bloggers in the channel should complete some blog spring cleaning. It’s a good plan. I completely cleaned up one blog, and it looks (and feels) much better, and posting runs a little smoother now.

My editor’s suggestions included items like:

• Clearing out your spam cache.
• Checking said spam for any comments that passed though and vice vs. checking comments for spam.
• Being sure to have an “About” page in place.
• Picking up your blogroll – or maybe creating one if you don’t already have one.
• Adding a new poll (at this network we do use polls often – and some are fairly old).

All good stuff to do.

There’s more you can do to spiffy up your blog and post content. Such as…

Set a blog clean-up schedule. Once a year is not usually good enough, especially if you have an intense blogroll. I add basic blog clean-up tasks to my schedule at least once every four months. Personally, I alternate blogs so that I’m not cleaning eight plus blogs at once.

Clean up your categories. Push like topics together, such as combine eco books, coloring books, and green books into one category – books. I tend to gage my categories on how difficult it is for me to find the right slug, quickly, when I need it. If I can’t find what I need fast, there’s a good chance my readers can’t either. Some people think you should have no more than 10 blog categories. I think that’s pushing it. At some of my blogs it would make no sense to have just 10 categories, it would be too vague.

Make sure you have some other pages as well, besides the “About” page. A “Contact me” page is good, and it’s also nice to make pages that highlight popular posts.

Do some back reading. Then read your “About” page or what was written into your contract regarding topic. If your current posts seem to be swaying off track from the original intent of the blog, you may need to jump back on track. One good way to do this is to make a list of keywords and phrases for you topic. You don’t have to fill your posts with keywords, but I’ve found that keeping a short list by my desk can keep me focused and help me work faster.

Do an, “Ask the readers” post or poll. Over time your readers change; their minds change, you get new readers, and it’s hard to tell what everyone is interested in. You could pull some of this info from stats, but it’s not the whole story, especially if you have some posts that have hit it big on Stumble Upon or another social media site. The best thing to do is ask your readers what they’d like to see more of from now on. I’ve asked readers what they’re interested in reading in posts, but currently I’m running a poll about this at one blog, and getting way more responses. If you go with the poll option, I’d set it up so that the poll contains some basic topics relevant to your blog and also set it up so that readers can fill in an answer.

What other spring cleaning blog tasks do you do to keep your blog in top notch shape?