Just to put you in the picture: I'm sitting beside a river, the sand is warm between my toes, my son is swimming, my husband is fishing. I am working between the occasional 'Yes, I'm watching, Sweetie', and 'Are you sure there's bait on that hook?'

This is my office today. Is this

enough incentive to work toward a career from home?

This month I'd like to talk to you

about the importance of balance between building your

business and living your life. When starting out, a

freelancer often makes one of two mistakes: Burnout or

procrastination. Sometimes an interesting combination of

both can occur.  

Burnout

Embarking on a freelancing career is

exciting. Your daily existence develops the glow of freedom

about it. You feel like a super hero and you dive into your

work and disappear. You don't sleep much and you eat less.

Every waking hour is spent planning, thinking or talking

about your work.

Beware the honeymoon period.  

For the first few days, weeks or even

months, you're working on adrenalin. You get a lot done. You

see your business as having the potential to become a

burgeoning success. You replace family time with answering

emails and the only exercise you get is when you need a new

packet of copy paper from the cupboard on the other side of

the room. Organising your office takes precedence over sleep

and getting ahead on an editing project seems more important

than eating properly.  

When you do leave your office, you

accost family, friends and sometimes strangers with speeches

extolling the virtues of your new office chair or the

trouble you're having with your website host. You mistake

polite nods for interest and glazed looks for fascination. 

The honeymoon period can be

beneficial. The single-mindedness and long hours in the

early stages of a home business can help to kick-start your

career … unless you burn out. 

Freelancing takes a clear and

organised mind. Though you feel virtuous for working until

the glow of the sun peers over the horizon, your lack of

sleep can make your mind fuzzy and your work sloppy or

sub-standard. You may find that super human hours are

actually wasting time, as you have to rewrite and resubmit

your work more then once.  

Poor nutrition and lack of exercise

can have the same effect. A packet of two-minute noodles and

a chocolate bar may keep your stomach from rumbling, but it

will not keep hunger at bay for long and it is definitely

not conducive to clear thinking and good health.  

The most important thing you can do

for your home business is to look after yourself. Eat well,

sleep well and stay fit with regular exercise. Spend time

with your family, friends and take time for yourself. If you

can achieve and maintain a balance between business and the

rest, you will use your working time more efficiently.  

The other side of the coin is

procrastination.

This tends to be more common than

burnout, especially if providing finances for feeding the

family is not entirely up to you.  

A chronic procrastinator can be busy

all day and into the night without accomplishing much at

all. Let's take a closer look.  

Monday morning. 

You leap out of bed and make

breakfast, pack lunches, braid hair and put the washing on.

You bundle everyone into the car and wave goodbye. 

Instead of heading straight to your

workspace, you see the breakfast dishes. Better do those or

you'll get ants.  

As you're wiping the dishes, you

glance out of the window. A huge weed is flowering in your

rose garden. If you don't rip it out now, seeds will

germinate and your weed problem will multiply.  

While you're heading for the bin

dangling the offending weed, you notice that the bird

feeder's empty. Better fill that, or you'll lose the

resident finches that have recently discovered your garden. 

You fill the feeder and stand back,

waiting for the finches to reappear. Is that the phone? Yes.

You race into the house. It's your neighbour. She knows

you're working and sorry to bother you, but how was your

weekend?  

Half an hour later, you hang up and

head for your computer. Time to get to work. Log on and

check your emails. You have six spam messages, eight writing

newsletters, a question from someone in your critique group

and three personal emails wondering when you can get

together. You block the spam, glance through the

newsletters, answer the question and plan your weekend with

the three personals. 

Time for lunch. Wander into the

kitchen and crunch over some scattered sugar from breakfast.

The vacuum comes out and, while you're at it, you may as

well do the whole house. Silly to waste the effort for just

a square metre.  

You hear the washing machine marching

across the laundry floor on the spin cycle. Before you can

get stuck into work, you may as well hang out the laundry.

You're hanging up the last shirt and … is that the phone?

Yes. Darn! Don't they know you're working? 

You race into the house. It's your

sister. Do you know that it's your mum's 70th birthday this

year? You need to plan a special party. Maybe a surprise.

Forty minutes later you hang up and head for your computer.

Log on, and check emails again. Three

more spam, two more newsletters and a query for a quote for

a manuscript assessment. Put an exclamation mark next to

that one and read the other personal emails. Answer two and

disconnect.  

It's really time to get to work now.

Open the manuscript you're currently working on and settle

in. 35 minutes later, you glance at the clock. Time to pick

the kids up from school… 

Sound familiar? Probably not to this

extreme, but you can see how easy it is to procrastinate

when you're working at home. If this sounds a little like

you, there are some basic things that you can do to change

the situation.  

Never underestimate the power of

routine. Set yourself time limits. The family leaves the

house at 7:30. Give yourself one hour only to clean up,

tidy, weed and fulfil your domestic desires. When that hour

is up, you are at work. Check your emails when you first log

on, once. Take one hour to answer, write, plan, etc. Then

close your mailbox and open your work. If the phone rings,

let the machine get it. If it's an editor or prospective

client, answer of course, or ring back immediately. If it's

a social call, leave it until later.  

Then…work.

Any domestic chores that aren't

finished can wait until the kids get home or until the

weekend. Social calls as well. Urgent emails have been dealt

with and you have made a note of future action to take on

the others.

Don't prepare for work by sharpening

pencils, refilling cartridges or starting another to-do

list. WORK. Write, edit, assess, submit. Uninterrupted. If

you were working for someone else, you would clock in and

out. Be firm with yourself, don't allow unfocused, wasted

hours to drag your business down. 

Time saving tips: 

Delegate -- Just because you

happen to be the one that is home all day, don't do it all.

You are on-site so it makes sense for a bit more of the

domestic duties to fall on your shoulders, but if you are

serious about running a business from home, you must make

sure the rest of your household is too. It's lovely to hear

them say, 'we support you, we think it's wonderful that

you're taking this on'. Get them to prove it. Enlist their

help. Make a list of the daily, weekly and monthly chores

and delegate. Hang up a calendar and include everyone.

Encourage the idea that we live in this house, we must all

work together to keep it up.

Inform your friends -- It may

take a few weeks, maybe even months, but if you allow your

friends to break into your working time, you're not taking

your freelancing business seriously. If you don't…they

won't. If someone rings or 'pops in' during your work time,

you can be kind, but firm. "I'm sorry, but I really have to

get back to work. Can I ring you later?" Simple,

straightforward and understandable. You wouldn't ring them

at work and chat for half an hour. Demand the same respect.

If they're your friends they'll understand.

Set goals -- If you have a lot

of trouble sticking to time limits, try using daily goals

instead.

•     I will write one thousand

  words today.

•     I will submit two manuscripts

  to three different publishers and write a query letter.

•     I will finish my short story

  and find a market for it.

Only when you have completed your

goal, may you fill the birdfeeder or make your pumpkin

soup. 

Be firm with yourself -- Read

your long-term goals. Imagine them completed.

Taste the glow of success you will

feel. Then be firm. You will get there.

In essence: To become a

successful freelancer, maintain a comfortable balance and

maintain your health. When you work, work hard, when you

don't - enjoy. You will be well prepared for the long haul

and a successful business. 

Next month -- time saving tips.

I'm off. Time for a swim…

© copyright Ann

Harth 2005. Comments and suggestions for specific topics pertaining

to writing, editing or working from home are welcome. Please

contact me at

annharth@writing4success.com

Ann Harth is a

freelance manuscript assessor, copyeditor, proofreader and

ghostwriter as well as a published author. She writes in all

genres of children's fiction from picture books to young

adult novels as well as adult fiction and non-fiction. She

has successfully completed several text-editing projects for

university students and authors, and is the assistant

fiction editor of www.moondance.com, a  literary on-line magazine. She is

also on the creative writing staff of

www.storydog.com, a website for children.

More information on the freelance services that Ann Harth

offers can be found on her website at

www.annharth.com.