If you’re anything like me, you hate mornings. I’m such a night owl, it isn’t even funny. I would rather work from midnight to 8 AM than from 8 AM to 4 PM - and some days, I do! That said, not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to work during the hours they find most productive. Namely, if you have a family or a part-time job, you probably have to be up in the morning most days.

Image: sxc.hu

You might as well get some work done if you have to be awake. Being productive during mornings, however, can be a challenge. How do I do it? Here are some tips:

1. Get dressed.

It may sound silly, but actually getting dressed, rather than lounging around in you sweats, really does a lot for your state of mind in the morning. At least, it works for me! It just makes me feel fresh and more awake, giving me as much of a boost as a cup of coffee, but you know, without all the calories.

2. Eat something.

I’m not a breakfast person. I usually don’t like to eat until after I’ve been awake for a few hours. On mornings when I need a pick-me-up, though, I force myself to eat something. You don’t have to make an omelet. Even just a few spoonfuls of yogurt or half of a banana will do the trick. You just want something to tell your body that you’re awake. Food does that.

3. Walk outside.

This tip comes AFTER you are dressed! The fresh in the morning is a great wake-up; for some reason, it totally gets me out of that sleepy state of mind. Take your dog out, go get the morning paper, or just stand outside with your coffee for a few moments.

4. JUMP out of bed.

Literally. When your alarm goes off, count to five in you head, and then throw back the covers and spring out of bed. It may feel silly, but that’s my little trick for morning when I REALLY need to wake up! Hey, it works. Try it!
Please…comment below - what are your best wake-up tips? Trust me; I need ‘em.

In big business, there’s a practice called Lean manufacturing that makes companies more efficient and profitable. And while your business may only employ one person, there are some valuable lessons that a business of any size can learn from this philosophy.

Often referred to as Lean, the goal in very simple terms is to create more value with less work, fewer resources, and less waste. In other words, the goal of Lean is to find efficiencies and eliminate any practices or resources that do not help create value for the customer or client. This management philosophy comes primarily from the Toyota Production System (TPS), which turned one of the world’s smallest automotive manufacturers into one of the largest and most successful ones.

According to the management philosophy, which is based largely on TPS, there are seven primary forms of waste in a production setting. Waste usually comes in the form of:

1. Overproduction (e.g. making more product than you can sell)
2. Delay (e.g. waiting for processing)
3. Transporting (e.g. moving parts or materials from process to process)
4. Overprocessing (e.g. doing more work to a part or product than required)
5. Inventory (e.g. committing money or storage space to unsold goods)
6. Motion (e.g. moving product more than what is required to complete and ship them)
7. Making defective parts (e.g. creating parts or a product that requires rework before it can be sold)

Granted, operating an independent contracting business is a lot different than manufacturing automobiles, but the concept of creating more value, in less time, and with fewer resources should resonate with any small business owner. Particularly with current economic conditions, I would imagine that almost any small business owner would want to save time, eliminate costs, and learn how to run a more efficient business.

To apply Lean thinking to your own business, here are a few questions to ask:

1. Am I spending too much time on projects that don’t create a lot of financial return?
2. In working on my projects, are there any stages in the process where I am waiting for someone else to complete their work? Can the waiting time be eliminated or put to better use?
3. Am I spending more money than I need to on overhead and unnecessary services? If I had to trim three expenses from my existing operation today, what would those be?
4. What projects are taking the most time? Is there any way to speed up parts of the process? Am I taking unnecessary steps to get the job done?
5. Am I having to spend large amounts of time correcting someone else’s work? Is there a way to eliminate some of this work? Or by talking to the client, is there a way to help them produce a better product or cleaner content before it gets to me?
6. Am I having a hard time selling certain services, content, or product? In other words, am I dealing with some kind of real or hidden inventory? What do I need to change about my business model to eliminate the inventory, and how do I get rid of the inventory I currently have?
7. Am I spending too much time on certain aspects of an assignment or project? In other words, am I doing more than the necessary amount of work than the job requires? What can I do to increase my efficiency or to determine when the job is done and good enough?
8. Are there are any steps in my internal processes that are creating inefficiencies? For example, am I maintaining four different e-mail accounts? Am I using outdated software that is creating more work for me or my clients? Would buying a scanner be cheaper over the long haul than driving to Kinko’s every week?

I’m sure that you can come up with many of your own questions. But I find the Lean manufacturing business model and the whole concept of making your business more efficient very appealing.

And even though Lean is a philosophy that is usually tossed around at larger companies, I think that freelancers and independent contractors can benefit from asking themselves the same basic questions. Waste—whether in the form of time or money—can eat away at your bottom line. And sometimes, the biggest culprits are processes and old ways of thinking and doing things that people no longer question. The aspects of your business that are on automatic pilot—the because-I’ve-always-done-it-that-way processes—are probably the areas where you’ll find the greatest amount of waste and the biggest opportunity for creating a more efficient business.

So what about you? Are you running a leaner operation these days? How have you made your business more efficient?

Photo credit: Ivy Dawned (Flickr)

Gone are the days when you could graduate from college, find a respectable employer, and remain at the same company until you received that 50-year anniversary gold watch, a generous retirement package, and a nice pension. And even if the old-school work model was still available, I suspect many of us wouldn’t even be interested anymore.

Most freelancers and independent contractors I know love the freedom of self-employment and enjoy the variety that the traditional workplace could never provide them. And while full-time company jobs used to represent security, a glance at recent headlines quickly underscores the fact that there’s no longer that kind of guarantee. In fact, there just might be more security for those who freelance and work as independent contractors because they are more likely to have multiple streams of income rather than a regular paycheck coming from one source.

And for employers struggling to compete in an increasingly global marketplace, hiring independent contractors and freelancers is, in many cases, a more cost-effective option than hiring a new full-time employee. Companies don’t have to pay for costly benefits and health insurance when they hire independent contractors. And because there are more independent contractors these days, there’s more competition to provide quality, cost-effective service to clients. So in many ways, it’s a buyer’s market for companies right now when it comes to finding top talent and quality services at the best price.

I’ve talked about it here recently, but the ranks of independent contractors is continuing to grow. According to 2006 statistics, the U.S. General Accountability Office, reported that nearly one-third of the U.S. workforce, or about 42.6 million people, were going to work every week but were not classified as full-time employees. Of those, about 21.5 million of these workers were independent contractors, freelancers, or self-employed. And in recent months, I’m sure these numbers have skyrocketed.

That said, economic conditions also are forcing some companies to trim the budgets they’ve traditionally used to hire freelancers and independent contractors. And instead of jobbing out work, some companies are bringing work back in house as a way to preserve full-time jobs and conserve costs.

While freelancers and independent contractors don’t have any control over how companies manage their budgets, they do have control over how they provide services to clients.

If you’re providing quality, cost-effective work to a client and you continue to nurture that relationship even when you’re not currently working on assignment for them, you just might land on the short list of independent contractors that a cash-strapped company can’t afford to let loose.

To end up on this short list, though, it’s necessary to do an assessment of yourself and your business. When you think about the services you’re providing your clients right now, ask yourself the following questions:

1. How is my work helping the client?
2. Is the client able to get the same quality of work somewhere else for less money?
3. What distinguishes my work from that of other similar businesses? How is my business different and/or better?
4. Is there anything that I can do to provide more value or service to my clients at or near the same price that I’m currently charging them?
5. How often am I following up with current clients and those I haven’t heard from for a while? Am I nurturing my business relationships through regular contact?
6. Is there any way that I can help my clients streamline their businesses with my work/services?
7. Is there any way that I can help my clients trim costs, and eliminate the waste of time and resources?
8. Am I really listening to what my clients need or am I only providing them with the work/services that I want to provide?
9. What value am I adding to my client’s business?
10. How can I provide better services and quality work to current and potential clients?

Answering these questions honestly can help reset your thinking when it comes to this current economy, and that’s a very important exercise right now.

Working in this economic environment is a different ball game—even from what it was six months ago. It’s a much more competitive environment. Work is harder to come by, and there’s not as much of it to go around. So anything you can do to set yourself and your business apart from others can help you ride out this recession and keep your business afloat.

So what are your thoughts about working in the gig economy? What are some of your biggest concerns right now? Drop me a line and tell me about it!

Photo credit: zsofiguria (Flickr)

I’ve come to see a schedule as the backbone of every project. Because if you forge ahead without some kind of timeline, isn’t successfully completing your goal just a shot in the dark?

• Do research
• Create an outline
• Devise questions
• Conduct interviews
• Follow up or make callbacks
• Verify information and round out sources
• Organize and type up my notes
• Write
• Edit and refine my work
• Copyedit my work
• Finalize, format, and send

Call me strange, but I love crossing items off my to-do lists. In fact, I’ve been a list person for as long as I can remember.

I suppose I might have picked this up from my mother, who has always carried one of those small notebooks in her purse wherever she goes. For jotting down lists, thoughts, and things she doesn’t want to forget. Later, my training as a newspaper reporter reinforced what I’d already observed my mother doing when I was growing up. As a reporter, I always carried a stash of pens and at least two notebooks in my car—just so I was prepared for that random newsworthy event.

I’m no longer working in the news business, but I do carry one of those small notebooks in my purse wherever I go—just like my mother. And I’m a fan of work lists too. Which brings me to the subject of this post.

As someone who freelances part time and who also works as a full-time communications and marketing manager, you can imagine that I have a lot of to-do lists. In fact, I maintain separate lists for both areas of my life, along with the usual menagerie of grocery lists and other don’t-forget-to-do-XYZ lists.

I would be completely lost without my lists. Lists help me:

1) Prioritize my workday. Before I dive into any pile of work sitting on my desk, I make a point of writing down all the tasks I need to accomplish that day. And then I prioritize the top three items, and work through those in order. But some days, I’m running the moment I arrive at the office and there’s no time for list making. Even on days like those, though, I eventually take the time to step back and write down what I need to focus on first. Otherwise, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s priority when other requests and assignments land in my inbox. And sometimes priorities change in midstream depending on the kind of workday I’m having.

2) Acknowledge my accomplishments. There are just things that no one else is going to pat me on the back for unless I do the patting myself. Last week, for example, instead of changing into sweats and flipping on the TV set when I came home from work, I changed out of my work clothes, walked out the door again, and went to the gym. I also did a couple loads of laundry. Of course, no one else is going to hand me a medal or pat me on the back for doing a load of whites and a load of darks—and I wouldn’t expect them to. But I know how exhausted I was when I hauled myself to the gym and did those loads of laundry. And that deserved a pat on my own back.

3) Remember administrative to-do items. I don’t know about you, but there are some administrative tasks that I wish I could just ignore, job out, or hand off to someone else. But if you’re like me, there’s no one to delegate these tasks to. So you just have to suck it up and do these things—it’s all part of running a business. Granted, administrative tasks don’t pay the bills, but if you’re running a business, ignoring important things like sending out invoices, tracking your expenses, doing your quarterly taxes, and paying your bills can really get you into trouble. So when I jot these things down on a list, I’m better able to see what needs to get done first. To make things less painful, I sometimes spread these tasks out over a couple of days if there’s no immediate deadline attached to them.

4) Set goals. In addition to helping me organize my daily work life, I also use lists to set immediate and long-term goals. I find it helpful at the start of the week, for example, to think about the items that I need or want to wrap up by the end of my workweek. This helps guide and inform my daily to-do lists, and helps keep me focused on the right tasks throughout the week. I also do similar monthly, quarterly, and yearly planning and usually jot down the top three to five priorities for those time periods.

5) Stay accountable. There’s nothing like a list to help you stay on track. I don’t know about you, but when I write items down in the form of a list, it helps me stay more accountable to the goals I’ve set for myself—whether those goals are daily, weekly, monthly, or longer term. And there’s nothing like getting to the end of your workday and realizing that you can cross all the items off the list that you made at the start of the day. Most times, I carry over a few items into the next day and then make a commitment to finish those items within a certain timeframe. Lists can also help you track how you’re spending your time—informative when you’re trying to determine where your time really is going and how you can better manage it. Outside of the work realm, I’ve also used lists to track my spending habits and to monitor what I’m eating throughout the day. Tracking works because it increases awareness and can create a call to action.

6) Stay on task. Not every request for information, time, or a meeting is a drop-everything-you’re-doing-and-respond-now priority. And few e-mails that land in your inbox need to be answered right away. But when you have a bunch of things flying at you, the urgency of things can get a little skewed. So I always keep my list in front of me throughout the day as a reminder of what my focus needs to be. Of course, priorities can change if a client has an emergency request or you realize that something else needs to float to the top of your list. Sometimes I’ve found it helpful to write down the top item from my list onto a sticky note so that I can place it near my computer monitor. That way, my top priority is always right in front of me, no matter how many distractions come my way that day.

So how do you use lists? How do they help you in your business? Drop me a line and tell me about it!

Photo credit: tiny white lights (Flickr)

Do you ever have stage fright when you sit down to write?

Shelley talked about this in her post yesterday, and I bet there isn’t a reader out there who hasn’t experienced that same agonizing blink of the cursor, the glaring white document, and the sound of the clock ticking closer to that deadline.

But I think writer’s stage fright is a little different than writer’s block. Writer’s block is more of a logjam in the brain where you have collected all the information you need to start writing, but somehow you just can’t seem to make it out of the gate. Writer’s stage fright, on the other hand, happens when you have a lot to say, but you’re uncertain about whether you should say it. Or how it’ll sound to other people. Or whether what you’ve written is good enough. The times when I’ve experienced this have usually happened after I’ve compared what I’ve written to someone else’s work. But I’ve found that those attacks of insecurity are not based on fact. And I think many of us writers and editors are much harder on ourselves than anyone else.

I know that when I first started blogging for b5media.com, I had a lot of writer’s stage fright. Granted, I had a lot to say to readers. But the idea that I was going to write a post, simply press the “publish” button, and make my post magically appear to millions of readers in cyberspace absolutely terrified me. And it was even more terrifying to think that no one else—no other editor or writer—would be reading behind me to doublecheck my work.

Second-guessing myself also contributed to that writer’s stage fright. I knew I had a lot to say, but I wasn’t sure anyone else would think so. I agonized over those first few posts. Edited them, and edited them again. And then held my breath when I hit the “publish” button. Afterwards—after my words were sitting out there for everyone to see—I felt exposed. Like I’d gone out into public half-dressed, even though I wasn’t saying anything that was too revealing or controversial. It was just the idea that my thoughts were suddenly going to be come so . . . public. Granted, I’ve written hundreds of articles and had my byline in many, many publications. But there’s an entirely different feeling when you attach your name to a piece of writing that’s coming straight out of your head and onto the page—without any additional content coming from other sources or so-called experts.

So imagine my pleasant surprise when I posted my “Hello World!” introduction and several readers made a point of dropping by to welcome me warmly on my first day as a b5media.com blogger! As I continued to write day after day, readers commented on my posts, thanking me for my advice and thoughts. And truth be told, it was you, dear readers, who finally helped me overcome my online stage fright. That and just writing blog post after blog post. The act of writing, and writing more frequently helped me move beyond any initial online writing jitters.

Now, I find that I’m having a similar experience as I move forward with my commitment to write at least 300 words a day for my book project. Only there’s no one else reading my words day after day, but me. And I don’t get feedback from readers or pats on the back like I do here to help me along and bolster my confidence. Similar to Shelley right now, I’m experiencing the same initial stage fright only in another iteration and format. But this time, I have a little less of it because I know I’ll get over it and that it eventually will pass.

So I’ve concluded a few things from all of these experiences that might be helpful to you:

1) Everyone has something to say. I think almost every writer has heard this nugget of advice at least once, but here it is again: write what you know. It’s impossible to write about things you don’t anything about—at least with any kind of authority. So your best writing subjects, ideas, and fodder are probably going to come from your own experiences. So mine your area of expertise (yourself and your experiences), and write away!

2) Practice gives you confidence. The more you write, the easier it gets. That’s why I’ve talked recently about the need to establish some kind of daily writing routine. Once writing becomes a habit and you do it every day, some of that stage fright goes away. I’ve heard about a lot of actors and actresses who initially were afraid to get on stage, but they pushed through their fear and continued to do it anyway. Until the fear was gone. The same lesson applies to writers. Sometimes you just have to act “as if” you feel comfortable and write through your discomfort. Until the discomfort is gone and it all seems like second nature. And eventually, you’ll probably wonder why you were so uncomfortable in the first place.

3) Take the focus off of yourself. Have you ever noticed that you’re more self-conscious the more focused you are on yourself, and what you’re doing and saying? By contrast, have you ever had an experience where you were feeling so passionate about a topic that you completely forgot about your shyness or any feelings of social inadequacy because you felt so strongly about the subject and felt that people needed to know about it? When I get too hung up on my writing or get too concerned about how I’m coming across to someone else, I try to shift my focus back to the subject at hand. And if I can get into the mindset that someone needs to know about what I have to say, I then start focusing on the readers or on the person who needs to know the information I have to pass along. And then, after losing myself in the subject matter, I forget myself in the process and am able to get out of my own way.

So have you ever experience writer’s stage fright? How have you gotten past it? Drop me a line and tell me about it!

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If you missed Jenny’s great post about the Power of 15, or if you don’t remember reading it in December, I highly recommend you give it a second read.

As I prepared to write my post for today, I was struck with an acute case of stage fright. I mean, this is a big job. Bizzia.com is about to revolutionize the blogosphere, Jenny’s regular readers adore her, and then there’s me.

I am talking blank Word doc, staring back at me, blinking with an unsympathetic eye of a cursor. What do I have to say? Who am I to be writing this blog? Surely I have nothing to say that could possibly interest these readers. I set it aside and decided to hit it fresh the next morning.

Fortunately, I was able to catch up with Jenny for a little reinforcement. Her advice? Try the Power of 15.

The funny thing is, I happen to have an egg timer with a rooster on top. Its ding is pretty basic—no fun crowing sound at the end like Jenny’s cell phone—but it seemed like kismet anyway. Bright and early the next morning there I was: me, my computer, and my rooster. I set it to 15, and off we went.

My first observation was that when I stopped typing, the ticking of that timer quickly reminded me that my fingers weren’t ticking along. It made me laugh! And off I’d go again. Next thing I knew, I was typing along with the rooster like it was a metronome.

The words were coming, and perhaps I had some inner demons to release, because they started coming fast and furious—even faster than that infernal ticking. This Power of 15 technique is pure genius.

In fact, my first 15 minutes went so fast and were so much fun I reset that timer and did it again. By the third 15 minutes I was having a ball—in fact, I was pretty much addicted. An interesting drug!

After nearly 3,000 words had poured through my keyboard and onto the screen, I had to move on to other tasks. But I’ve got to tell you, that creative spurt powered me through the rest of my day. I found that I had energy, confidence, and a sense of purpose unparalleled since I’ve been trying to make a go of it on my own as a freelancer.

Catharsis, perhaps? I’m chalking it up to starting my day with an immediate and tangible sense of accomplishment. Because there’s a certain wind that goes out of your sails when your hubby heads off to work and you have nowhere to go, nothing “real” to do. No one to make you accountable for your time but yourself. No opportunities except for those you are going to create for yourself that day. Without coworkers, meetings, ringing phones, and dinging emails, it can be easy to get lost in the abyss of a full day alone with your computer and the prospect of finding work in this economy.

It’s an amazing exercise, in my opinion. A mere 15 minutes, and I stayed motivated, focused, and on task the rest of the day. So, seriously, if you haven’t yet, I hope you will try it. And let me know how it goes.

Enjoy your day,

Shelley

Photo credit: Author

Ever get an interesting assignment, land some great interviews, and then struggle for motivation when it’s time to start writing?

A freelancer friend of mine was having a crisis of this sort recently and talked about it in one of the writers forums I belong to. There were a lot of people who empathized. Because I think most of us have been there at one time or another. And you have to remind yourself that it’s normal and it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad writer.

Keyboard Motivation - Image: Flickr

But it’s certainly frustrating when it happens because if you’re a freelancer, you have to write and complete assignments in order to get paid. So in order to get things moving again, it’s helpful to take a step back and think about what might be causing the lack of motivation.

Here are some questions to ask:

1) Are you lacking motivation because you’re overwhelmed by all your notes or by the assignment itself? If so, you can chip away at a big story by breaking it down into smaller tasks. If you have the luxury of time, you can estimate how long the story will take you to write and then simply break up the assignment into manageable chunks of time over a couple days. I also strongly suggest using the Power of 15—particularly to work your way through writer’s block. Sometimes I simply read through my notes the night before I have to write a story. This works for me. Even while my brain is sleeping, it seems to absorb information on a deeper level so that I’m able able to write with greater ease and fluidity when I get up the next morning.

2) Are you afraid of making a mistake? I talked about the difference between the writer’s brain and the editor’s brain last week. Freelancers who seem to have a brain that’s wired more for editing than writing often have a tougher time tuning out the hypercritical internal committee. You know when you’ve fallen victim to the editor brain. Every time you write five words, you end up deleting four—because your internal editor is telling you that everything has to come out perfectly the moment your words hit the page. Then, your progress slows like snails crawling in molasses. Once again, using the Power of 15 is helpful when you’re trying to get past this hangup. If you try to write as much as you can against the clock, and you tell yourself that you have to hit a certain word count by the time an alarm goes off, your editor brain won’t have time to ramp up its hypercritical self. It’s the same concept as NaNoWriMo, only on a smaller scale. But it does work. And when you’re trying to get words down on a page, temporarily quieting the editor brain is a good thing. Then once the words are down on the page, the editor brain can take over again, nipping and tucking all it wants to.

3) Do you need a break? With the economy the way it is, I’d be willing to bet that any writers with workaholic tendencies probably have gone into hyperwork mode. It’s hard not to because you have to work harder and longer to find freelance assignments these days. But if you’re working too many hours and you’re not giving yourself any downtime, you’ll eventually pay the price. You’ll either get too brain tired and too burned-out to work, or you’ll wear yourself so far down that you’ll get sick. And then you’ll be forced to slow down. I’ve done the latter in the past, and it’s not fun. Working to the point of exhaustion and not taking care of basics like proper sleep, diet, and exercise will eventually catch up to you and erode your motivation over time. You are a human being, not a human doing. So it’s better to choose downtime than to be forced into it. Besides, if you’re overtired, the quality of your work will suffer and you won’t have the energy to market yourself or bring in more work. And that will ultimately kill your business.

4) Are you bored with the topic you’re writing about? This is a toughie. And I’d also be willing to bet that every freelancer has dealt with this problem at least once. The bad news is, if you’re bored writing it, the reader will probably be bored reading it. So find something—anything—interesting about the topic and expand on that. I remember when I was still a news reporter and had to cover things like planning commission meetings and sewer system stories. But if I could find the human element in the story, I always got more interested in the story. I remember once when I was covering a story about a neighborhood that continued to flood over and over again. It was a dry story until I went out into the neighborhood with a photographer and we saw how people had to live as a result of a problem that the city never seemed to adequately fix. Seeing the buckled floors and smelling the mold and mildew made the story real. So if you’re bored with a story topic, you probably haven’t done enough digging or you’ve left the human element out of the story.

So what about you? Ever have motivation problems when it comes to writing? How do you move yourself beyond the problem and into the solution? Drop me a line and tell me about it!

Photo credit: Martin Kingsley (Flickr)

“To survive and succeed, every organization will have to turn itself into a change agent. The most effective way to manage change is to create it.”
—Peter Drucker

The creator and inventor of modern management had it right about change—the best way to manage change is to create it.

Of course, I believe Drucker was talking about larger organizations when he offered that very sage advice. But I think the same advice can helpful to one-person businesses and independent contractors. If you create change for yourself, it’s easier to manage when it comes along—even when the change is not something you initiated. And you can create change for yourself by continuing to diversify—no matter what market conditions are doing.

That said, I think having some conversations about managing change is important right now. Many people don’t have the luxury of creating change right now—they’re just having to deal with it.

From my corner of the world, it seems that economic conditions are forcing most people I know into some kind of lifestyle or career change. Increasingly large numbers of people are having to accept and adjust to changes they didn’t foresee a year or even six months ago. And many people, hard-pressed to find a job, are starting to realize that the only immediate option to create an income of any kind is to create their own job and start their own business. Make no mistake about it: the ranks of independent contractors and freelancers are growing.

But even those of us who are well-established as freelancers and independent contractors are finding that the landscape looks sharply different than it did even six months ago. Work is harder to come by, clients are cutting pay rates, and people are taking longer to pay for services. Some companies we’ve always worked for are simply shutting down.

I’d be willing to bet that most Bizzia.com readers also are experiencing economically induced change of some sort.

A few days ago, I talked about fears and how to manage them when they’re attached to changes we don’t ask for or market conditions that force us to consider different business models. But learning how to manage fear is only part of the change management equation. Learning how to accept and even embrace change is the ultimate goal. And it can take a long time to get there. Like the grieving process, change also can come along with all kinds of unpleasant emotions—anger, feelings of loss, powerlessness, and depression. And like the grieving process, it takes as long as it takes. The only way to get over it is to go through it.

When I was working my last corporate job, part of my function was to help teams buy in and adapt to needed changes in processes and software. It was one of the most difficult parts about the job—because even when change is needed, it’s often not easy. Thankfully, my job was made a lot easier by some forward-thinking managers who had participated in change management training.

I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to attend change management training as well. But few self-employed people have the time or the funds for that kind of training—especially right now.

If you’re self-employed, you have no choice but to adapt quickly and keep moving forward so that money continues to flow in the right direction. So there’s not a lot of time for adjusting and adapting—you just have to do it while you’re juggling everything else in your business.

So how do you get to that final, desired state of acceptance in the change management process if you hardly have time to catch your breath as it is?

I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers. And despite my change management training, I still struggle to accept some changes as much as the next person—especially when I’m not the one initiating the change. But there are a few things that have helped me learn how to manage change—both wanted and unwanted—in my work and personal life.

Here are some things that have helped me:

1) Find the silver lining. Like most people, I have stood at several crossroads in my life. Times when what I was doing was no longer right for my career path or my personal life. And there have been a couple times when I chose the change, knowing full well that I had no other option. A couple of those should-I-stay-or-should-I-go decisions were agonizing on several different levels. But the blessing is that I can now look back on my career and recognize that everything happened the way it was supposed to. And had those other situations worked out, I wouldn’t be standing where I am today. And where I’m standing is a really good place right now. So now, when I’m confronted with change that I find hard to understand or accept, I think about those instances I just mentioned and remind myself that great opportunities and significant personal and professional growth sometimes originate from painful or difficult circumstances. So with any change I’m having a hard time accepting, I try to find as much silver lining as I can—and then I focus on growing it. You know, the lemons-to- lemonade approach.

2) Feel the feelings. You may have to run at lightning speed right now to keep up with the demands of your business—especially in this climate. But make sure you set aside some time for yourself to reflect on some of the changes you’re going through—both on the personal and professional levels. Because one doesn’t live without the other—a change in your professional life affects your personal life, and vice versa. I find that writing is the salve I need to work through and process change (in fact, it’s probably why I started writing in the first place). Over the years, I’ve kept personal journals. But I’ve also processed a lot of these personal and professional changes in Word documents on my computer. My message is this: Don’t be afraid to feel some of the feelings that go along with change—even good change. Processing change can be a lot like the grieving process because you’re actually working on letting go of something and moving onto something new. As you adjust to new market conditions, you may have no choice but to change your business model. And having to change your business model away from sectors you’ve always enjoyed working in may be very difficult. So cry, scream, pound your fists if you have to. And then move onto the next thing.

3) Take a step back and assess. The good thing about change—particularly the kind you don’t choose—is that it forces you to step back and take a macro view of your life. Perhaps you’ve long considered venturing into a new market or pursuing a new type of client, but for whatever reason, you just never had time or the inclination before. But if one of your longtime clients starts having budget problems and cuts back on the work they’re jobbing out, you’ll have no choice but to diversify. That happened to me several months ago. And it forced me to move in some new, very positive directions. For some people, getting laid off can actually be freeing for that very same reason. Sometimes change forces your dreams into reality. If you keep doing what you’re already doing five years from now, will you be satisfied with your life and your business? Now is the time to zig when you’ve always zagged. Take time to reassess what you’re doing and then reset your personal and professional compass according to where you’d like to be one year, five years, and 10 years from now. Take time to honor your dreams and then start laying the foundation underneath them.

4) Develop a plan. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else. I think that’s a title of a book I read once, but it’s always stuck with me. Even if you’re a one-person operation, you have to have an overall business plan and mission that informs your daily decisions and the assignments you pursue and accept. How do you want to specialize as a freelancer or independent contractor? Are you there yet or is there still more work to do before you can attach that specialty to your name? Map out a plan and attach timelines to goals related to your overall business plan. Revisit your plan at the end of every quarter (or more frequently if needed), and make any needed adjustments. It works. It really does. Try it as an experiment for a year and let me know what happens.

5) Focus on the learning process. This kind of ties in with the find-the-silver-lining advice, but every change that comes your way—either personally or professionally—is an opportunity for growth and learning new skills. If you can focus on the opportunities that the change will bring you—and then capitalize on those—you’ll emerge from this downturn much stronger on a personal level and as a business. For example, I know that in order to attract new kinds of business and clients, quite a few freelancers I know are delving into social media, blogging, and learning how to provide multimedia story packages that include written stories, podcasts, and videos.

6) Have faith. I alluded to this above, but sometimes we don’t know why change happens. We only know that it’s arrived and that we have to accept it. Fortunately, I can now look back at all of the significant turning points in my personal and professional life and see the gifts that sometimes came from difficult circumstances. And because I’ve had those experiences, I’m better able to accept change when it happens today. Even when the change is unpleasant. Because I now recognize there’s a bigger plan at work and it’s not mine. I don’t know what your spiritual leanings are, but I think that tough times and difficult changes can increase your faith—that inner knowing that even though things may appear bad on the outside, everything is going to be okay in the long run. And probably much better than okay.

I realize this is one of my longest posts, and I hope at least a few readers have made it to this sentence. But in my opinion, this topic of change and how we’re managing it on a personal and professional level is one of the most important discussions we need to be having right now. And how we manage it will determine our success going forward.

I always love hearing from my readers, and I’m very interested in hearing how you’re managing all the changes in your life right now. Is there anything you’re doing that you think will help others? Please drop me a line and tell me about it!

Photo credit: GroggyFoggy (Flickr)

Is fear ever a good thing?

Absolutely. Fear can help you move off dead center and take positive action. And if used in the right way, it can save you and your business from going belly up. Fear is natural, and it’s there for a reason. But when that natural instinct is overdeveloped, it becomes an issue—especially if you remain stuck in the problem and don’t move toward a solution.

In my book, inaction is the biggest thing to fear about fear.

The other day, I talked about taking action to face your freelance fears—those things that you tend to put off or resist. In other words, things that are within your control. But today, I’d like to talk about how to manage the kind of fear that comes from legitimate causes, how to manage that fear, and how to use it to your advantage.

In particular, I’m thinking of the current economy and how much it’s impacting so many people I know. And I agree—it is scary. And it makes you wonder where and how low the bottom will be, and how soon we’ll hit it. There’s certainly no shortage of things to wring your hands over when you read the news or turn on the television these days. And for those of us who freelance or consider ourselves independent contractors, the current economic climate seems particularly precarious right now. Although as we’ve observed in the banking and auto industries, working for someone else doesn’t necessarily guarantee any kind of security either.

If you’re freelancing or doing independent contracting, you’re doing work for clients and banking on the fact that you’re eventually going to get paid, that the client will remain in business, and that the work will continue to flow in your direction. But as we’ve seen in recent months, many publications have suffered severe cutbacks and some have simply shut down. And now—in addition to the normal insecurities and fears that go along with self-employment—there’s suddenly the need to carefully consider and investigate the financial viability of a client before you accept an assignment or sign on any dotted line.

It’s one thing to have the kind of fears that I talked about the other day—fears that I would put in the category of hangups or insecurities that you just have to move through and get over. But the kind of fears I’m talking about today—the kind that come from legitimately concerning conditions—are more difficult to manage if you’re self-employed. Because let’s face it: there’s not a lot we really have control over when it comes right down to it. But that’s always been the case, has it not?

We’ve never had any control over when a client pays us or whether they stay in business. It’s just that our lack of control is more noticeable now with the current economic conditions and so many businesses shutting down or going bankrupt.

So what can you do? How do you manage the kind of fear that comes along with conditions that you don’t choose or that you didn’t ask for?

The key is to focus on what you can control, not on what you can’t. Here are some suggestions on how to do that in this economy:

1) Watch your attitude. I’ve mentioned it here before, but I truly believe our thoughts are more powerful than we realize, and that we tend to attract more of what we focus our attention on. So do whatever it takes to stay positive—despite all the bad news. Spend time with positive people—the kind who see opportunities for business growth in adversity, and limit your exposure to people or other business owners who are always peering through the glass darkly. Equally important, pay attention to what you’re telling yourself. Do you believe that you will find a way to make your business survive this recession? Do you see yourself coming out on the other side? That’s important. Because I think we also tend to live up to our own expectations—whether high or low. Just remember that many successful businesses launch during tough economic times because the rules change—and when they do, they sometimes create opportunities for the kind of forward-thinking people who are opportunity-focused.

2) Change your business model. You may have planned on continuing to freelance or do independent contracting full time, but you also might want to reconsider that business model. Working a full-time job and freelancing part time may be a better option for you right now. It all depends on your situation. Or perhaps you’ve always focused on performing a certain array of services or doing work for a certain type of client. Now is the time to listen carefully to what your clients need. Is there an opportunity for you to expand your services? Or if you’ve always worked for a particular sector, expand your vision and think about your skill set. Do you have skills that might be useful to companies and clients in other industries? You have no choice but to expand your vision and the definition of what you do—poor economic conditions force companies to do that. And if handled in the right way, it can be a real boon for your business.

3) Focus on what’s in front of you. I don’t know about you, but it can get overwhelming if you think about all the things you have to do whenever you sit down to work on an assignment. But studies have shown that the benefits of multitasking are a myth. When it comes right down to it, you can only focus on what’s in front of you at any given moment. Sure, there are times to look at the long-range view and to map out a plan. But doing that is different than worrying about everything. Worrying is not planning, and I think sometimes people confuse the two—or at least allow the worry to take over once they begin considering long-range plans or what lies ahead. Stay in today, it’s all you have anyway. There’s a reason there’s only 24 hours in a day, no?

I’m sure I’ve left a few things off this list, but I think it’s crucial to give some thought to how you’re managing yourself and your business in this economic climate. And I think it’s also important to understand how a refusal to change your business model and adjust to new conditions can be deadly for your business. One advantage of being a small business owner is that you can implement changes much more quickly than a larger company. So in that sense, you have a real advantage.

But the key is to cultivate that nimble attitude and to have faith that you’ll figure it out as you go. It is impossible to plan for every contingency that lies ahead. But it is possible to learn how to stay open to change and experiment with new tools and processes, so that when the big changes do come along, you’re better able to adjust to the new market conditions.

Inaction and a stubborn refusal to accept change and new conditions will kill your business. Especially in this climate. The change has arrived—it’s on your doorstep.

The question you need to ask yourself now is: What are you going to do about it?

I’m always interested to hear from readers. Drop me a line and let me know how you’re handling and managing your fears? What are you doing that might help other freelancers right now? What do you need help with?

Photo credit: haveweallgotthebends (Flickr)