As a follow up to what our dreams are, career and otherwise, there’s a follow up question I’ve been kicking around: What’s holding you back from realizing your dreams, and achieving your goals?

I think in in the overwhelming majority of cases, problems don’t arise from external obstacles but from fear. A while ago I was reading the “10 Money Questions” feature at Blogher, and was struck by a comment that Dayana Yochim made about women’s attitudes toward making investments and accumulating wealth. She said that women are often more risk averse, and their decisions are filtered through fear. Read the rest of this entry »

A while ago I wrote about my dilemma concerning Will not wanting to go to school full time. I ended up drastically reducing his school time, and now he goes to school three mornings a week. Two of those mornings I go to class, and one morning I volunteer in my daughers’ classes. Leaving me exactly zero minutes sans kid to get work done, or canvas for work. Needless to say, this isn’t what I imagined when I decided to freelance.

Next year he’ll be going to school half days, everyday, which doesn’t give me a whole heck of a lot more time to work on developing a client base, or to take all the money I’m making, spread out on the bed, and roll around in it, as I imagined I’d be doing in a year. Okay, maybe I’m a little more realistic than that, but I did think that I would have more than 9 freaking hours a week to devote to work, without hearing SpongBob in the background.

I don’t really know what to do. I’m sort of an all or nothing person, and it’s hard for me to say, sure, maybe I won’t have much time to devote to getting a business going this year, and maybe not much more time next year, but boy, come 2010, I’m all over it! I suppose I could think of it as a part time gig. There’s no shame in that, right? The reality is, that’s what it’s shaping up to be, no matter what delusions of grandeur I had in the beginning. When I first started out, I thought I’d start work right after the girls got on the bus at 7:00, and Aaron could get Will dressed and take him to school, so I’d have 7.5 beautiful, pristine, uninterrupted hours to work. I’d make 60 cold calls a week, heck, in a couple of years, I could be pulling in as much as my husband. Or not.

Maybe I need to look into hiring a mother’s helper. Can anyone give me any tips on websites or other resources I can use in finding some in home care? And how well does in home care really work, if mom is in the next room? Anyone, anyone? Bueller?

Yesterday as I sat banging my head working in front of the computer, my son and his friend from next door walked through the house.

“Will?” I heard her ask, “Why is your mom always in front of the computer now?”

“I don’t know, ” he replied. “She works on the computer now, so she always has to be on there. I don’t know what she does.”

“It’s weird, because now, whenever I come over, she’s always sitting there.”

Out of the mouths of babes. Read the rest of this entry »

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m tired of sitting on my butt. Yesterday I worked on a particularly arduous project. I sat down at the computer in the morning, took a couple of bathroom breaks, ate my lunch sitting at my desk, picked up my son from preschool, fixed my kids an after-school snack, and otherwise did not escape my chair until 5:30. When I taught school I rarely sat down, so this all sitting, all the time business is for the birds. (The birds stricken lame by polio. You know, those birds.)

I guess I need to schedule breaks, which is weird, because I’m all about the breaks, but when I’m working on a design I MUST sit there and compulsively tweak it, until it looks right. Yesterday, I didn’t think the design I was working on would be so uncooperative. I kept telling myself, just a few more minutes, and then I’ll go do something else. That happens more than I’d like.

One of the problems is that I like to spend my breaks in front of the computer, checking email, reading blogs, or Twittering. I’ve cut my blog reading, by about 95%. So I guess if I can break that habit, I can actually get up from the computer every once in a while. And do what, I’m not sure. Baton twirling? 2 minute yoga? I know! I’ll eat my lunch standing over the sink! Seriously though, my treadmill is three steps from my desk, I could walk for 4 minutes a few times a day. I could also poke myself with something sharp, which is one step up from exercise, in my book. One thing I’ve been doing right is making myself exercise for 30 minutes everyday. I hate all 1800 seconds of it, but I do it, and I can tell it’s doing some good.

Another problem is that my posture is horrible. That woman up there? That’s exactly how I sit. Only my eyes are open– most of the time. Part of it’s not my fault, because I’m super short (so short cropped pants are regular length on me) so I can’t lean back in my chair, but I guess I could exert the effort to walk over to my couch and get a pillow to support my back. Ppfft, whatever. I keep hearing about RSI, and I guess it’s something I need to pay attention to. I read a recommendation for Workrave, a free ap that “alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit.” It just seems so counterintuitive to have my computer tell me to stop working, but I may give it a try. And I probably need to have my mother phone me a few times a day, and tell me not to slouch.

Yesterday Mir posted about severing ties with a client, and a while ago she wrote about evaluating which clients to take on. These posts got me thinking; even though I’m just starting out, it’s probably a good idea to have parameters in place for the type of jobs I want.

Of course, freelancers don’t typically blog about turning down work, but after perusing the internet, I found some guidelines. Don’t pick up clients who are difficult to work for, or people who have burned you in the past. Don’t do pro-bono work, unless it will lead to future opportunity, or other non-monetary reward. That’s pretty much common sense, but what kind of work should a freelancer pursue?

The consensus seems to be you should commit to projects you feel enthusiastic about. Pamela Slim, who writes at Escape from Cubicle Nation says that even when times were lean, or she could have made substantially more money, she still turned down work she didn’t feel passionate about.

Be ruthless in defining the kind of people you want to work with and the kind of work you want to do. If anything seems inappropriate, unethical or is not a good fit, run screaming! Go after business you do want with a vengeance.

Steve Pavlina believes that it pays to be discerning about your clients, and that one of the most common mistakes made by the newly self-employed is casting too wide a net in the client pool. He’s another successful business person who declines any offer which doesn’t inspire him. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If your pumped-up about your work, that enthusiasm carries a lot of momentum to help propel you through problems. It’ll give you a sense of confidence, which may in turn, increase your competence. And generally the things we feel passion for are the things we value, which, according to Steve Pavlina, is what business is all about.

“It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the purpose of a business is to make money. But the real purpose of a business is to create value. While it’s possible to make money in the short run without creating much value, in the long run it’s unsustainable.”

Not only that, but lets face it, if you like your job it’s a lot more fun to go to work every day. Even if work is in your dining room.

Sometimes it’s lonesome out here on the freelancing frontier. No one around for miles, just a dusty wide open (office) space, where only the occasional howl of a wolf, and the chime of the email notifier are heard. A few tumbleweeds, and diet coke cans blow across the deserted expanse. Just me, riding my ergonomically designed, leather steed across the wooden floor to the waterin’ hole. Yesirree Bob.

Which is why freewheeling freelancers like me need to network. Joshua Levy wrote a post for Web Worker Daily, and states the problem beautifully.

“When I go too long — more than a day, really — without significant human contact during the workday, I feel like I’m wilting. It’s as if human interaction is the sun, and without it I can’t grow. I get less and less sharp the longer I go without it.”

Yeah, trying being a stay-at-home-mom, Joshua. Oh sorry, did I say that out loud? Anyway, Joshua is absolutely right. Since I’ve been at home for nearly a decade (Dear Lord, I swear I just felt ten hairs turn gray as I typed that), the transition from raise-kids-at-home to work-at-home didn’t change my loneliness factor, but it is, definitely a BIG factor.

But, I face the same problem as a freelancer as I did as a SAHM. I don’t really know how to network. Aside from the fact that I break out in hives whenever I have to interact with strangers, I’m not exactly sure how to get started.

There are sites like LinkedIn, and Facebook, both of which I joined, was baffled about how in the world to use the darn things, and quickly deleted my account faster than you can say “wallflower at the prom.” Web Worker Daily also had an post about how to use LinkedIn more productively, which I read, then stared at the screen catatonically as drool rolled down my chin. Have any of you used these sites as a source to find clients, or meet other professionals?

Researching further, Shane and Peter recommend going to business conferences, and chamber mixers as a way of meeting new clients, and these could be places I could meet fellow graphic designers, as well as joining professional associations. But how do I find these professional networks? I’ve scoured the internet, and can find hide nor hair of any events I could attend. Of course, I live in the sticks, so that doesn’t help matters. How do I scope out other freelancers in my area?

Co-working, or sharing office space is also a growing trend among freelancers. Although those aren’t options for me right now, I’d be interested in hearing about anyone’s experience with them.

Another thing I’d could do is partner with another graphic designer in a mentoring relationship. I would love to have the benefit of someone else’s experience. Or I could partner with another writer to collaborate on projects.

Obviously there are a lot of options, but I’m not quite sure how to explore them. If any of you can recommend resources, I’d be much obliged, ma’am *tips Stetson*.

My family and I are on vacation in LA this week. There’s a lot of data about how much Americans work during vacation, and the subsequent extrapolation about what those statistics mean for Americans and their relationship to work and leisure. Usually the conclusions are that we work too much, and have an inordinate amount of guilt and stress about both working, and relaxing. Why?

1. We fear things will fall apart at the office without us
2. We fear things will go smoothly at the office, and people will realize we’re not indispensable
3. We feel guilty and stressed because we want to work, when we know we should be relaxing
4. We feel guilty and stressed because we want to relax, when we know we should be working

Like being a working mother, it seems no matter which side you’re on, you lose. But I don’t think it has to be like that.

Look at 1 and 2, if you work for a company with more than 10 people in it, that’s a pretty self-centered outlook. Anyone taking a vacation has (hopefully) paved the way for their co-workers to succeed by going over the work that needs to be done, and contacting clients to give them a heads up. It’s unlikely that one person is so crucial to a project, that everything at the office is going to fall apart while they’re gone, and that’s a good thing. The weight of that kind of responsibility is the stuff ulcers are made of. (Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Sorry Mrs. Watts.) It’s true that if things go smoothly while you’re gone, it means you’re not indispensable, but no one is, and I can pretty much guarantee your coworkers don’t view you in that light, so you weren’t really fooling anyone to begin with. But it’s not necessary to be indispensable to be a valued employee. If a person is good at their job, is a hard worker, and enthusiastic about what they do, they will be missed.

If you’re a freelancer, or you’re working for yourself in some other capacity, of course it’s harder to leave work behind, but by scheduling vacation time between big projects hopefully you can lighten your vacation workload. Notifying clients ahead of time and establishing specific working hours while you’re on vacation also helps.

So am I advocating tossing your Blackberry over your shoulder as you skip down the garden path, and cartoon robins alight on your shoulder? Hardly. I think working vacations can be beneficial. Look at points 3 and 4. It seems to me that much of the guilt and stress we feel is tied up with what we assume other people’s expectations are, not only in regard to work, but also in regard to relaxing.

According to the Families and Work Institute, it takes up to three days to relax when you go on vacation, and longer vacations (seven days or more) are associated with better psychological outcomes than shorter vacations. And of course you can’t read an article on work and vacation without the author touting the Europeans, and what loooong vacations they take. And to that data, I say a big, “So what?” Information like this is analogous to the 80 million books written each year on how to get your kid to sleep through the night. The same way that every kid is different and requires a different amount of sleep, so every person is different and has different leisure requirements. I know women whose lives are a blur, a whirlwind of activity, even their leisure time is often filled with work, and most of them seem pretty happy to me. Could those women benefit from slowing down? I dunno, you’d have to ask them. I’m not cut from that cloth; I’m not happy if I’m always on the go, so I couldn’t say. The point I’m trying to make is, why should some heretofore unknown institution with a pocket-full of grant money dictate how much vacation time we need, or whether we need to leave the laptop behind when we go to the beach?

Let’s face it, thanks to modern technology, our work lives and our personal lives criss-cross over each other like a map of the LA freeways. This can be beneficial or disastrous, depending on how we manage it. As with all things business, I think the best way to handle it is to be very specific in detailing the expectations of all parties involved. What precisely, does your boss want you to accomplish while your away? How often do your boss, coworkers, and clients expect you to check in? How many hours will your family/friends let you work before they want to bean you with the nearest Tiki torch? And last but not least, what do YOU need? How much work can you do on vacation and still relax? How often do you want to check in with the office? Maybe it would be more stressful for you not to know what was going on while you were away. Maybe you need to completely unplug. Be honest with yourself regarding what you really need, because there’s not much point in going on vacation unless you’ll return to the office somewhat refreshed.

No doubt it’s a tough task to satisfy so many people, who are bound to have conflicting expectations. Prioritizing who are the most important people to please may help you decide who’s favored in the compromise, and of course that will depend on the circumstances of your work and home life at the time you take your vacation. Once you’ve mapped out exactly how you’re going to incorporate work into your vacation (or not), hopefully it will give you some clarity, and allow you to be present for whatever you’re doing, instead of pulled in a million different directions. In any case, I lift my margarita glass to you: here’s hoping your next vacation is wonderful, even if you’re working.

We enrolled our youngest child, Will, in a transitional Kindergarten, which means he’ll be attending Kindergarten for 2 years. We chose this program because he has a July birthday, so he’s just barely five, and so many kids these days seem to be going to Kindergarten when they’re six. Plus he has a total complex about being The Baby, so we thought it would be nice if he could be one of the older kids in his class as he moves through school.

Unfortunately, Will has decided school is anathema to him. Last week was his first week. On Monday, I expected him to be upset, and he was. Tuesday through Thursday he really liked it, but on Friday I think he had the realization that school happens everyday, and suddenly we were back to the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Monday and Tuesday he was sick, so I kept him home. Today as I dropped him off, there were all the elements of a country song. Tears, pleading, anger, bargaining, all that was missing was whiskey and a gun.

What I told him is this: “You have to go to school. If you give it a chance, I think when you get used to it you’ll have fun.” I pulled out the family calendar, and showed him today, and the blank squares between now and the end of September. “When September is over, then you’ll have been in school long enough that we can talk about making some changes. You’ll still have to go to school, but maybe we can change your schedule, or make some other adjustments so that school is better for you, but for now, everything is going to stay just the way it is. When daddy or I take you to school in the morning, we will read you a story, give you a hug and kiss, and then we are going to leave. I will always pick you up right after nap time, so I’ll see you then, and you can tell me all about your day.”

The real quandary is going to come at the end of September if he still hates school, and we have to Make Adjustments. The truth is, I’m not feeling rainbows and unicorns about having my son home part-time. I know, I know, I’m the one that’s been wailing and rending my garments over having my kids go off to school. But that was all three of my kids. If I only have one kid at home, then guess who’s the primary source of entertainment for that kid. The Mama, that’s who. And, although I really don’t want my kids to be gone all day, I also have big plans for getting my business going, and those plans do not include stopping work at noon to play Chutes and Ladders. Truly though, going from being at home full-time to being at school full-time is a huge adjustment for Will. If, come October, we reevaluate, and decide that the best thing for him is to go to school part time, and I have to scale back my business plans this year, I’m sure I’ll enjoy the time with him. But I reserve the right to weep and gnash my teeth while I adjust.

My husband and I have a rule, we never lend money to friends. Not that the issue arises very often, but the rule is in place for those rare times when it does. We will gladly give money to friends, but we never lend it. Sometimes friends will return money we’ve given them, and that’s wonderful, but it’s icing on the cake, because we have no expectations of ever seeing that money again.

In general I think the same rule applies to business and friendship (or family). They don’t mix well. It’s something that you’re better off avoiding, if you can. So what do you do when a friend becomes a client? I was approached by a friend the other day about doing some work for him. I have done some stuff for him in the past, when graphic design was a hobby, but now? I’ve got some misgivings. I know this situation is going to come up again, and I need to figure out how I’m going to approach it.

There are a lot of ways business and friendship can get messy:

• a friend assumes you’ll do work as a favor, free of charge
• you have a miscommunication about what work will be done
• the friend is slow to pay, and becomes offended when you remind them payment is due
• they expect you to give their cousin, neighbor, great aunt Fanny a job
• someone asks for a referral letter, but you can’t, in good conscience, recommend them

The list goes on. Although I don’t know how to avoid all the land mines in doing business with a friend, it seems like most of them can be avoided by being very clear about each person’s expectations, and meticulously spelling out every aspect of the business deal. Sometimes overkill can save your butt.

My primary concern is wondering if I should charge my friend what I charge everyone else. The idea makes me very uncomfortable. Heck, I’m uncomfortable telling strangers what I charge, let alone friends. Should I charge what I think he can afford? Frankly, it’s a little presumptuous of me to think I know all about his financial accounts. Should I charge what I think he thinks I should charge? Yes, right after I read his mind, I’ll use my powers of telekinesis to bend this teaspoon. Should I do it for free? That’s one option, although, you know, I am in business to make money.

How have you handled mixing business and friendship? And with what results? And what would you do , if you were in my shoes?

Today’s post is brought to you by the letter A (as in Aaaaaa!) and by the number 2, (the hours I spent today correcting a great big boo boo). I’ll spare you the gory details, except to say that although Photoshop may be the greatest program ever, it has no ability to understand the words “Wait, no! I didn’t mean ’save’ I meant ’save as!’ Noooooooo!” Grabbing the monitor and banging my head against it, didn’t seem to effect it either. Maybe if I promised it an upgrade?

Then I had to undo what I shouldn’t have done, by redoing what I already did. Ouch, my brain hurts.

So I guess today’s topic is the oops factor. Or maybe time management as it relates to billing.

When I bid a job, I pad my time, because one universal rule is that it always takes me longer to do something than I think it will. Even when I don’t make any mistakes, there’s always something that ends up eating my time. One common way I misuse my time is spending too much time on details that really don’t matter to anyone but me. And even though I pad my hours? I always run over the extra allotment. I usually figure about 20% additional time, and it’s never enough. I don’t estimate more, because hope springs eternal, and I don’t want to end up charging my client for time I didn’t work. As I get more experience under my belt I’m hoping I’ll be able to better calculate how long a job will take, and I think I’ll get faster as my skills improve. If you have any tips about managing projects, I’d love to hear them.

One thing I do that has served me well, so far, is the way I schedule my projects. I promise a 5 day turn around on first-draft layouts. It’s a number that seems to work well, because clients seem happy with 5 days, and it’s short enough that it keeps me from procrastinating. Because it’s a short span of time, it also keeps me from overbooking, and I can schedule coinciding projects pretty efficiently by staggering start dates. I also don’t schedule more than 20 hours of “first draft work” a week, so that gives me time to do other things, like admin., cold calls, revisions, and fixing big boo boos. I don’t know how well the system will pan out as I get more work. But you know, if I keep screwing up, maybe I won’t have to worry about that. Ha, I kid, of course I didn’t let my client know about my screw up, and I’ll make sure I don’t miss my deadline.

Sorry to drown you in details, I’m trying to keep this general enough to keep your eyes from glazing over, but it’s hard to talk about improving time management without getting specific. So, I’ll just turn the floor over to you; you can leave time management tips in the comments, and I’ll bathe in the light of your wisdom and experience. Or you could regale me with horror stories about mistakes made at work. Or, you know, just pass me some Advil.