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.
You might as well get some work done if you have to be awake. Being productive during mornings, however, can be a …read more

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 …read more

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 …read more

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?

Sunday I talked about utilizing a planner. And for any project that contains more than a step or two, I’ve learned it’s vital to break the big picture down into segments that can be estimated in terms of time, energy, and resources. Without doing that, I suppose it’ll get done eventually. But will it be done on time? And will it be a good product?

In industries such as …read more

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 …read more

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. …read more

 
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 …read more

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.
But it’s certainly frustrating when it happens because if you’re a freelancer, you have to write …read more

“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 …read more

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 …read more