I don’t know if it’s something I’m doing wrong, but I haven’t heard a single yes in all this time. I’ve been doing my regular client work, and I’ve been taking on little maintenance or extension projects for old clients here and there, but I just haven’t picked up an exciting new project for ages. I am going through a brutal business dry spell.

I’d love to say I’m totally cool about it—but that would be a lie. I’m freaking out a little. It doesn’t help, of course, that I recently gave the taxman a metric ton of cash, or that I’m still adjusting to being back in a country where wine costs triple what I think it should, and that I keep doing asinine things like racking up expensive speeding tickets. I’m naturally pretty paranoid about money, which is great in some respects—I have no debt and money stored away that I refuse to touch until I actually am desperate—but lousy in the respect that it means that I feel like I’m “broke”, even though I’m really not.

Is it crazy to worry that your business might be barren? (Probably.)

1. Keep calm and carry on.

When my dry spell started (what feels like a million years ago) I totally freaked out. I was convinced that I’d finally done in my business and was destined to spend the rest of my days living in a cardboard box (full of shoes) under the overpass. I debated moving to Costa Rica and becoming a banana farmer.

Then I took a deep breath and remembered that it’s summer—or, at least, Canada’s variant of the theme—and that business is always slow this time of year. There’s a summer slowdown every year, and every year I’ve had this exact same panic attack. Perhaps there’s a pattern there, given how I’m not presently eating out of dumpsters.

2. It’s not me, it’s you.

Most of the responses to my estimates haven’t been straight-up “no”s. Most have been variants of “we don’t have the budget right now”, or “the client changed their mind”, or “we’ll revisit this later in the year”. There’s a good chance that a lot of these leads will turn into actual projects in the future—I’ve had some leads turn into great work years down the line. It’s not really a comforting thought when I’m looking for work now, but it at least helps my self-esteem to realize it’s not just because I suck that the work isn’t coming in as enthusiastically as I’d like it to be.

It’s easy to let this sort of thing get you down, which is a dangerous place to be. I’m at my happiest when I feel like I’m being productive and I’m producing great work for my clients. This feeling of idleness, coupled with the sting of rejection, can easily derail motivation. I’ll admit I’m in a bit of a slump, and it hasn’t helped that I’m still suffering from the wanderlust and a sort of existentialist what-does-it-all-mean life-evaluation syndrome induced by my return to Canada.

I posted a list of positive reminders on my fridge, where I can look at it every day, and told myself to get it together. You can’t take anything personally when you’re running a business.

3.  Don’t get desperate.

Don’t take on projects you’ll hate (unless they’ll pay a ton). Don’t do stuff for a lot cheaper than you would otherwise. It’s so tempting to take on lousy projects when it feels as though nothing is coming through, but in the long run, doing so is devaluing both to your own business and to the industry as a whole. I’d rather spend my time finally sorting out all my accounting (ugh) than participating in spec work, or entering lame-o design contests where my logo could win $100 if I happen to be the lucky chosen one. (Actually, there’s a whole slew of revolting things I’d rather do than that.) Ultimately, devaluing your work just because things happen to be slow will contribute to the sense of negative self-worth brought about by the slump, and it’s difficult to recover once things start running smoothly again.

4. Focus on other stuff.

I’ve got a list as long as my arm of summer projects—some design related, some not—and I have no time to do any of it. It’s driving me bonkers, actually. I’m in a dry spell! Shouldn’t I have gads of time to fritter away? Apparently, it doesn’t quite work this way, since I’m spending a lot of time sending out emails and going to meetings for projects that don’t pan out. It’s frustrating, but a necessary part of the process.

I’ve been doing a little, though. I’m socializing more. I’ve actually read a whole entire book all the way though to the end. I’ve been going on little short-jaunt in-country trips to appease my wanderlust. I keep buying wine bottles with ugly labels, with the intention of doing my own personal-project redesigns. (Admittedly progress on this front tends to be sullied by my drinking the bottle as “research” before getting down to work.) I’m planning for my next series of travels, and learning to ride a motorcycle so I don’t kill myself touring Thailand. I bought vintage roller-skates and am learning how not to fall on my tailbone. I’ve got a whole list of business-y admin type things to do, and another list of personal projects and fun things. I’m certainly not bored.

I have wanted a pair of rollerskates since I was a little kid, and now I’m a little terrified of them. Apparently breaking both your wrists in one summer makes you paranoid.

Keeping busy distracts from the fact that you aren’t, in fact, busy at all.

5. Think happy thoughts!

Ultimately, in order to get through a slump, I think you need to stay mentally afloat. For me, it’s too easy to get dragged down by a slump, which only magnifies the problem. My business is the only stable, constant thing in my life, really, and I’d be lost if I felt that I’d lost it.

So instead, I’m focusing on all the good things that are going on. For starters, all these people are coming to me asking about work, which is a great sign. I’m still not doing any active marketing, and I’m still getting leads. For every client who drives me up the wall and tempts me to use Let me Google that for you, I have two great clients who I adore and whose emails make me smile. I’m still making enough money to keep me in sandwiches, diet Coke, and shoes for the foreseeable future. My life is never boring and I basically get to make up my own rules for everything. I have wonderful clients, great friends, and I can travel the world while running my business.

And if I can just remember how lucky I am, I’ll stop feeling so defeated when things aren’t perfect.

There are a number of anniversaries I could celebrate—the day I left my full-time job, or the day I was first paid for work, but this one falls nicely in the middle and is simple enough to remember: by sheer coincidence, the date on my official business registration is 06.06.06. While I’m neither religious or satanistic, I do believe in serendipity, and thought a pattern of numbers that has such impact on people could only be a good sign. Next year will mark my official six-year anniversary. Maybe if I set an alarm for it now, I’ll actually remember to break out the champagne and fireworks when it rolls around.

Alright, so I did throw a birthday party in early June, but I must have been so distracted with celebrating human birthdays that I totally forgot about my poor little business.

I’ve learned a lot since I built my first “professional” website—obviously—in trade for a beautiful bicycle that was stolen about ten minutes after I got it. Here are the most important things.

1. Never say no. Instead, say “expensive”.

This flies in the face of everything that everyone says about being a freelancer, but I stick by it, and it’s worked quite nicely for me. If someone comes to me with a project that sounds boring, tedious, or generally awful, I won’t say “no, I won’t do that” unless I know I’m not capable of seeing the project through to its completion well. I’ll just say “sure, I can do that” and quote a nice high figure. That way, if the client balks at the price and tells me they can’t afford it, nobody’s lost out—it’s basically like I’ve said no. However, if they say yes, I’ll proceed with the project and be well-compensated for whatever additional frustrations or tediums come along with the project.

This approach may sound mean, but it works. It also means that sometimes I can charge less for the projects that are going to be more fun, but may not have as large a budget. Of course, this only works so well because I abandoned hourly billing for almost all projects and switched to a flat-rate, which has been a major blessing. And switching to flat-rate only worked once I’d been doing this for long enough to be able to tell how long certain tasks take, which took at least a year.

2. Stop working 18 hour days.

This is a constant process for me. My five months in South America helped me enormously with my workaholicism. I actually find it challenging to work weekends now, and I usually only work around ten hours a day—sometimes even less!

For years, I’d to work every single day, from the moment I woke in the morning until the wee hours of the night. This felt normal, after all—when I was in school, I was always working as well, and even when I was working, I was doing freelance work after getting home. I’ve always been like this—I have a lot of energy and I feel better when I’m productive. But running a business is so unstructured (at least the way that I do it) that Extreme Workaholic Behaviours simply aren’t sustainable long-term.

I spent the first few years of business constantly burnt out, and eventually it really started to get to me. I was letting things slip. I’d have little mental breakdowns in which I’d burst into tears, babbling about “the juggling balls break when I drop them!”, and then would refuse to leave my bedroom for a few days until I’d recovered. My work was suffering, and my brain would probably have eventually imploded on itself.

These days, I work less. I socialize more, and I try to do healthy things I never had time for before like eat and exercise on a daily basis. I’m happier, I’m doing better work, and my clients are happier. Everyone wins!

3. Talk to everyone and their dog.

I will take a meeting with anyone. Anyone! Since coming back to Canada I’ve actually been having lots of in-person meetings and I’ve realized I really miss it. (That may just be because I don’t usually drink coffee unless I’m going to meetings, and it makes me very excitable.)

Oftentimes these meetings won’t lead to business at all, so they’re a time investment that may not pay off. I’ve actually been tricked into “meetings” that turned out to be more like “dates” more than once, which can be a little awkward when you realize what’s happened.

Meeting people and talking to them is never an efficient use of my time. However, it allows me human interaction that I often lack sitting in front of a screen all day, and I often learn things I wouldn’t otherwise from an email conversation. There’s something to be said for sitting down with a stranger for an hour. Everyone—generally speaking—can teach me something, whether it’s of relevance to my work or not, and I’ve learned so many things for all these millions of meetings over the years. They’ve also helped me become exponentially more sure of myself. Sometimes just hearing yourself talk and realizing that—surprise!—you know what you’re talking about can do just that.

4. Constant work is worth its weight in platinum.

Cash flow issues can really make or break a business. (Canada Post employees, this is why I give you dirty looks when I pass you milling about in front of the dead post office that contains my cheques.) I have a line of credit that covers me when I’m waiting for invoices to be paid, but it’s not an ideal situation as it becomes very easy to accidentally end up in over your head when you can’t really budget effectively.

Years ago, I started doing regular weekly work for a local clients. It’s often not the most wildly exciting work, and it doesn’t pay nearly as well as the one-off project I do, but it’s been a lifeline for me. The fact that I don’t have to write up estimates, go to meetings, send endless emails, negotiate or wait for the work, means that I can offer a lower (hourly) rate than I usually would, and getting paid every two weeks means I don’t worry so much about my cash flow anymore. Basically, it gives me the bits that I liked about having a “real job”—stability—without cramping my vagabonding-unscheduled-flower-child sort of style of business.

5. Work less, charge more.

I charged all of $300 for one of my very first websites. It was such a bad idea, and the incredibly low rates I started off charging definitely explain why it took me a few years to actually be making any money at all. My rates increased fairly dramatically for a little while until they reached something of a plateau. I’ve hit the balance point where I feel that what I charge is fair, indicative of my ability, and allows me to buy shoes every now and again (okay, sometimes more often than that, but don’t tell).

Charging more means that I can spend more time on projects, which I like to do. I’m kind of on the anal-retentive super-detail-oriented side anyway, and charging $300 for a website simply doesn’t allow me to do the kind of quality work that I like to. From time to time, people still email me looking for the cheapest option, and I explain that I’m no longer competing on price. I don’t want to be the IKEA of graphic design. I want my design work to stand up, and I’d rather my clients not have to build everything themselves from incomprehensible diagrams. My clients pay more now than they used to, but the work they get is infinitely better. They get my full attention, they get support whenever they need it, and the end result is always much, much better than it would have been had I been charging bargain-basement prices.

And again, my clients are happier. More and more, I’m working with clients I love, who respect my work and my suggestions, and who really are a delight to work for. I’m happier working for these people, and they in turn refer other awesome clients over to me. It’s a lovely cycle.

Just one part of world I’ve seen—the beautiful, complicated Budapest. Summer 2009.

All told, I’m so lucky to have come this far and still be running my business. I have the kind of freedom I’ve always wanted—I can travel the world, I can sit outside and work on sunny days, and I’m constantly challenged and excited by new projects. I’m never bored, I get to meet some great people, I make my own rules, and I very rarely have to wake up at 8am.

I never intended to start a business, and every now and again, I consider going back to a real-live job. However, the longer I do this, the less and less likely that becomes. I really do love my job.

Usually, I’d determine this Not a Very Good Thing. It’s always dangerous, when you’re running a business, to fall into the trap of spending too much time working on the business, and not enough time working in it, but I suspect I rather tend to err on the other side, and I could do with spending more of my time making my business run a little smoother.

So, I may be crazy busy, but I’ve been investing some time into setting things up so that my projects can run a little more smoothly, which I expect to be well worth it in the long run.

1. I started using Basecamp.

I avoided using Basecamp for ages. I’m a big fan of bootstrapping it, and as a result I avoid anything that entails a monthly fee like the plague. I’m also only a one-man op, at least most of the time, so I don’t usually need a great deal more co-ordination than “sending out emails back and forth”. I once installed a standalone project management system, and found it ineffective: I was spending too much time entering dates and todos and doing administrative tasks, rather than actually achieving anything productive, and my clients were confused by the interface and process. Accordingly, I gave up on the idea of project management.

Then, along came the Nightmare Project. If you know me, you’ve probably heard of the Nightmare Project. (Not to be confused with the Nightmare Nibbler, which was actually a Dream Project, and needs to be added to my website very shortly.) I may still be working on the Nightmare Project on my deathbed. It’s been mismanaged; it’s out-of-control; and every day there are twenty different emails flying round, indiscriminately reply-alled. I have no idea if files I’m sent are final, there’s no repository, no organization, no whatever. It causes me an immense amount of stress and I have very little control over the situation, as the project management isn’t in my hands at all.

I signed up for a Basecamp trial and realized that if I’d insisted on using it to manage the project, I’d be able to avoid most of these problems. The client would also have a clear idea of their responsibilities, and how they impact the overall timeline.

I’m still testing Basecamp, but I’m fairly enamoured with it right now. The monthly fee is low enough that I won’t really notice it, and the benefits that it will yield—better managed projects, projects that are completed faster, and a better grip on timelines—will almost certainly be worth it.

Basecamp in action! It’s going to look a LOT busier for me in there once I get used to scheduling-stuff, but so far I’m finding it’s really wonderful.

2. I set up tests.

As much as I swore never to develop for IE6 again, I still need to test on various versions of IE. Browsershots and its ilk are helpful, but if you’ve ever tried to isolate a CSS bug using their system—well, you’re probably still trying. I’ve always intended to install a test suite for various IE incarnations (6, 7, 8, 9) but have often had troubles making it work. Then I discovered the magical WineBottler, and now everything just magically works. This means that I’m much more likely to test across multiple browsers, rather than just quietly hope they won’t give me any trouble. (Admittedly, not the most effective way of approaching the problem.)

3. I’ve started working on a website framework.

I build a LOT of websites. I’ve always maintained I need something of a “working draft” template—something I can use as a base to get up and started with. My base, of course, is very much a work-in-progress, especially since I have the organizational skills of a monkey on meth, and I need to have two, basically–one for WordPress, and one for non-Wordpress sites, though I don’t build those very much at ALL anymore. What I’ve got right now is something of a mash-up of things I like—half HTML5 Boilerplate, half Wordpress’s default TwentyTen theme, with a hook into 960.gs, and jQuery. I’ve gotMAMP properly set up and am using it again, and I’ve got a blank-slate WordPress installation so I can test out all my themes locally, all at once. I’m building up a library of my favourite fonts, packaged into @font-face folders, all ready to drag-and-drop into place, and I’ve got ready-to-roll folders of my favourite plugins for jQuery and WordPress. I’m working on integrating Lettering.js and Baseline, but I’ll need to properly test both these tools first, to make sure they’ll mesh with my workflow, to ensure that I properly understand how to make use of them, and that they won’t conflict with any other tools used. A work in progress, indeed!

4. Miscellaneous “other stuff”.

I finally redesigned my contract template so that it actually looks like a designer might have made it. (Before, it just looked like an unformatted Word document. Seriously, I don’t know how I let that happen for so long.) I also cut out writing schedules into the contract, since Basecamp is now Officially In Charge Of That. I cleaned up my fonts (sort of. This is a huge, multi-faceted job for me.) I’m itching to redesign (or “realign”, as the case may be) this website, again, and I’d like to eventually start doing some real-live marketing, which I simply don’t seem to do anymore at all.

So, even though I’m not really getting paid for all this work I’m doing, I feel like it will pan out well. With the number of contracts that seem to keep popping up, I think it’s about time I either raised my rates again, or limited the number of contracts I’ll take on at once—ideally both, actually, although it’s hard to limit contracts as I often can’t control the timeline of a project. (Another thing I’m working on, though it does require some client wrangling.)

My next big step is probably accounting—I use Billings for my invoicing/estimating/time-tracking, but it’s flawed and it doesn’t work out my accounting properly, so tax-time ends up being a bit of a nightmare every time it rolls around.

I foresee shoes in my future, if I can ever get that particular hurdle figured out. Maybe next year!

Like these! Maybe if I can figure out my accounting before the end-of-year (so very unlikely), I’ll buy myself intensely expensive shoes. More likely, though, neither of these things will happen.

Seriously, though, I’ve spent the last five weeks with my dominant arm in a giant cast. (Although after week two, I regained the use of my elbow and some fingers and by week three was able to use an extra couple of fingers on my right hand while typing, which has helped. My drawings, however, still look like they were done by a five-year-old, and I sign credit card receipts with a squiggle and/or lipstick kisses.) Meanwhile, the work has by no means slowed down, even though my working speed has, and it’s still challenging to do simple things like make a sandwich for lunch or empty the garbage.

Accordingly, I’ve been working rather long hours and have been becoming intensely stressed out. (Throw in the fact that I’ve quit smoking in support of Bone Healing Power and the fact that I’m sometimes still in a good deal of pain–breaking your bones stinks!) Luckily, I have the greatest clients and friends in the world who help me out and understand when things take a little longer than they ought, or I’d have gone entirely insane by now.

I am not going here, although I rather wish I were. It’s basically my stress-free island paradise. Unfortunately, Croatia is a long drive from here.

So, in the interests of preserving that aforementioned sanity, I’m running away to a secret undisclosed island location this weekend, where I’m hoping I won’t be able to get cell-phone service, and I won’t have any way of leaving until a nice fisherman comes to get me. My laptop, shockingly enough, is staying home (it’s very rarely far from me) and I’m excited by the prospect of no electricity, no emails, and no possible way for me to try to get any work done. I’ve noticed that as I get busier, it’s harder for me to actually take a full day off, in spite of how important it is for my mental well-being.

If you border on the edge of workaholicism, I recommend getting tough with yourself and forcing yourself into isolation. So long as you can return refreshed, and not dreading a massive pile of new emails, it’ll make you so much more productive in the long run. And so on that note: ciao, amigos!

This probably means that I’ll be forced to finally change my voicemail message, which is faulted for featuring a lengthy pause between me speaking and the beep, among other things like being mumbly and unclear. Since I very rarely pick up the phone, and I never pick it up when I don’t recognize the number, I am thinking I’ll change the message to read: “Hi! This is Sarah. I’m not picking up because I’m busy working on your project. Send me an email instead!”

My hatred for the telephone, I think, is well-justified. (I sound a little like a monkey on meth while on the telephone as well, but that’s irrelevant. Mostly.) While some people seem to think it’s annoying that it’s so hard to get me on the telephone, I have my reasons, and I’m sticking by my guns.

1. I need to focus.

Every time you break from your work, it takes an average of twenty minutes to get back into whatever you were doing. Let’s say your phone rings four times a day—that’s at least an hour and a half of wasted time, most of which will likely be spent trying to coerce telemarketers to take me off your damn list, already. If I’m talking to you on the phone, I’m not working. The less time of my time is spent doing actual billable work, the higher my rates need to be. By not picking up my phone, I’m getting your project done faster and saving you money.

2. There’s no paper trail.

98% of all of my client communications take place via email. With email, it’s easy to search through conversations to find out details I may have missed or to make sure I’m on the right track. If there’s any confusion about details of a project, you can simply back-reference an old email. You can take notes during a telephone meeting, but they aren’t nearly as reliable a proof. This works to protect both parties: if I tell you something’s going to cost $300 and then bill you for $600 (please note that this doesn’t happen) you can just send me back my original email to explain why you’re not paying up. Again, saving you time and money!

My telephone is only marginally “smarter” than this one. At present, it keeps trying to voicedial, and then I yell at it to stop, which doesn’t help. It also typically won’t connect calls. At any rate, the whole “telephonics” thing seems to baffle it.

3. It’s better to think about what you’re saying.

A lot of the things that people call to talk about I can’t answer immediately. How much will this cost? (I don’t know. Give me five minutes to think about it, add up the numbers, and figure it out.) Can we implement this system? (I’m not sure. Let me look it up on the internet and see how it works.) The problem with the telephone is that it forces you to give immediate responses (five seconds of silence, while acceptable in person, feels like an eternity when you’re on the phone) that are likely to be less researched and well-thought-out than if you’d been given a moment to think.

4. It wastes everyone’s time.

Cordialities are nice and everything, but honestly, my clients aren’t paying for scintillating chats about the weather, and I’d rather be spending my time making them great stuff instead of hearing about their cat’s liver disease. I absolutely hate wasting time—none of us really has enough of it anyway—and we can get so much done, so much faster, with two emails than we can with twenty minutes on the phone. While, in theory, I’m sure it’d be possible to dispense with the pleasantaries and get right down to business, that sort of brusque behaviour tends to makes people feel dehumanized, which seems rather to defeat the purpose, no?

5. Email will get to me just as fast, anyway.

Most people in business get their email on their phone. Usually, my emails actually show up on my phone before they show up on my computer—either way, I am almost always accessing my email. My telephone, on the other hand, is less reliable—sometimes it’s downstairs while I’m working upstairs, and I can’t hear it ring. Sometimes it’s out of juice, or, like now, it’s just not working. Sometimes I’m in a meeting. There tends to be this idea that if something’s urgent, it’s better to phone, but this simply isn’t true. If I’m in a meeting or on the bus, I won’t be able to listen to your voicemail, but I sure can read your email. If it’s that urgent, I’d rather fix the issue and email you back in five minutes when it’s fixed, rather than dally around on the telephone for ten minutes, then fix it, then email you to let you know. See? Immediate results!

To sum up: the telephone, while it certainly serves a certain purpose, is generally an outmoded, inefficient vehicle for communication that hampers productivity. Got a problem? Don’t call me—email me.

As it turns out, it’s not. Due to a variety of factors, I’m staying home. While this was a little crushing at first to realize (I was so excited!), I am choosing instead to approach it as an opportunity to enjoy the nice Halifax weather that’s been happening lately (must be a cosmic fluke and/or the universe conspiring to send me thousands of tiny little signs that I should abandon my plans of abandonment) and to spend more time doing fun projects, which I almost invariably wouldn’t be doing if I were on the road.

For starters, I’m finally going to invest the time and floorspace into setting up a proper workspace for myself, rather than just lounging on the couch all the time–I do miss having creative space (why oh why did I sell my drafting table at a yard sale for $15?) and things stuck all over my walls, and sometimes the entire upstairs of my apartment looks like it’s been hit by a cyclone that carries nothing but paper scraps, bottles of ink, and empty cans of energy drinks.

At the beginning of the year, I made a list of things I’d like to learn and try and experiment with. I’ve lost steam a little bit of late, but I’ve already starting playing with a good number of these things: I took a screenprinting class; I learned calligraphy basics and produced a series of Valentines’ cards; I learned how to make books (although I still need to refine the process a touch before I’m genuinely happy with the results). I’ve also started on a number of new projects that are exciting and interesting, which is keeping me feeling fulfilled.

My first (imperfect) hand-bound book. They’ll be better next round–I’m planning to use matboard en lieu of old corrugated card from shoe boxes, and using a more complex spine design, and I need to work out a better way of punching holes (a drill leaves rather eaten-up edges.)

What I’d like to add to the list: more new and exciting projects, of course, and more self-directed work. I’d like to make an actual book–Candide will probably be my first candidate (hardy har)–which I’m rather excited about. I’d like to start designing some patterns again (I rather like designing my own damask) and applying them to fabrics/stationary products. I’d like to start doing regular typography assignments, just because I like playing with type. I’d like to work more with screenprinting and various hands-on methods of making stuff, and I’m looking into building my own letterpress, which I’ve wanted to do for ages. Ultimately, spending time doing the sort of work that doesn’t necessarily generate money, but keeps me feeling creatively stimulated, will lead to me doing better work down the line.

So, while I was a touch crushed when I realized I wouldn’t be able to go, I’m determined to turn it into a positive event in my life.

Spain, Morocco, and Iceland will probably still be there in the fall (right?). And in the meantime, perhaps I’ll treat myself to a nice pair of shoes.

Like these bad boys. Only $650! (That’s half off, and still far, far too expensive for my tastes. So, probably not THIS nice pair of shoes. But they’re pretty!)

In theory, this focus on time should engender the ability to delegate. If it takes you two hours to do something that you could bill, say, $120 for, but you can pay someone $60 instead to do (regardless of how long it may take them, and assuming that they’ll do it just as well, if you happen to be a control freak like I am), it should make sense to start passing off tasks.

The problem is, when you have a precise idea of how much that extra hour you spent sleeping cost you, you suddenly start to believe that sleep is anthema to your business and well-being. Three years of running a business full time have taught me, finally, that this is just a blatant lie.

Whenever I’m working, my computer is running a little timer at the top of my screen. Basically, every work-related task I perform is recorded and tracked. This is great, of course, and absolutely necessary for this sort of work, whether you’re billing a flat rate or by the hour. (And losing these records is horrible! Just horrible. Note to self: do a back-up right now.)

The program I use (Billings) has a little Dashboard widget (Workload) that displays how many hours I’ve worked in a day.

My Dashboard widget. The filled-up red bars represent hours worked; a full bar means I’ve put in over ten hours. (I have a lot of days that go “off the chart”.)

Super-handy, no? It really is! It’s a great tool to keep me on track, and to quickly (and visually) check to make sure that I’ve put in enough hours to count as a full workday. The problem, of course, is that I’m sort of a workaholic. There have been weeks where the chart has been entirely red. There have been weeks where that has been my goal, which I think may be even worse. (I often wish the bars would go up to 16 hours, but then I’d end up aiming to fill all those up, and I’d never get any sleep at all!)

So, how to fix the fixation with tracking every hour?

1. Take days off.

See how there’s a big old empty space in my week? That was an actual weekend, which I usually don’t take (and will invariably not be happening this weekend—but hey, it was nice while it lasted, right?)

If off-time feels like idle time, it may help to learn new skills while you’re not working. My weekend off, for example, was spent learning bookbinding, which I’m now madly in love with. (A friend pointed out to me that some lovely texts are freely available on Project Gutenburg and that I can simply pop over and download them. So now I’m planning to design, print, and produce my own hand-made copies of books I adore, like Candide and The Metamorphosis and The Picture of Dorian Gray—but that’s another topic entirely.)

Many companies now are actually allowing their employees to “daylight“, eschewing the traditional model of corporate productivity in favour of one that is flexible enough to allow for creative endeavours that aren’t strictly related to the work at hand. Freelancers and business owners are often more strictly goal-oriented, but it’s highly likely that your work will improve in the long run if you’re exposed to a wider range of ideas and processes, even if only due to random stimulation.

I also find working on my own side projects (for fun and minimal profit!) is bar none the most effective way to avoid creative burnout and the inevitable breakdown of productivity, passion, and personality that ensues.

2. Track hours for essential tasks.

If you’re obsessed with hitting that “productivity mark” to the point at which other, life-sustaining type tasks are dismissed, it may help to count them as work-time. Showering, eating something that isn’t fast food, and doing yoga all count. (I keep meaning to start tracking these things—they may not be Billable Hours, but they’re necessary to the long-term functioning of my business.)

Things that keep you healthy and sane will, in the long-term, help with your productivity. That makes them productive hours, and if you can start viewing them as such, you’ll stop seeing them as time wasted.

3. Switch to a flat rate

The argument for, and against, a flat rate has been made many times, so I won’t attempt to get into it, but I would say that it’s certainly worth taking into consideration, and that whether or not it works for you will depend on your personal style of work and billing. Personally, I always swore I’d never do a flat rate (again), but I’ve recently switched over and have found it’s made a world of difference. (I also once swore I’d never start my own business, so, there you are). Switching to a flat rate allows you to focus more on getting tasks done in an efficient manner, rather than counting every minute, and it means you’re rewarded for using your time well.

I also end up making more money this way(!), which is always an added bonus, though not necessarily a primary motivator. My clients are happier, as the estimates seem more firm this way (although in actuality they’re as flexible as they were when I was using an hourly rate). If I forget my laptop on the bus and lose all my tracked hours, the whole world doesn’t fall apart (quite so much, at least).

But most notably, my obsession with “this hour spent taking a nice walk in the sunshine cost me how much?” is receding, and, unlike in hairlines, that’s a lovely thing.

My Valentine cards took more time to produce & prepare than I’d expected, although I’ve heard so much very encouraging feedback that’s it’s been quite delightful, especially as it’s my first-ever foray into making & selling my own work. (If you’re interested in a card, they’re available on Etsy, or in Halifax at Duly Noted Stationary on Quinpool and Love, Me Boutique on Birmingham. I’ll also be selling them in person this weekend at the Harbourside Market in Dartmouth.)

I’ve been also working on a whole boatload of projects, in between all the inking and painting and panicking. I’ve got a few websites in the works, a logo, and a printed booklet with a short turnaround time, along with all the usual Wicker Emporium work. I’ve been meeting with all sorts of people to discuss new projects, and am working on finishing up some projects that have been dragging their heels for too long.

Outside of that, I just took my first screen printing class last night, and it was rather delightful. Given that my print work is all digital offset printing, I’ve never had an opportunity to apply any of delightful things I learned in school, like trapping and registration and colour plates, all of which now I have a practical use for. I’m getting more and more excited about doing more work by hand, and am hoping the print process will lead to all sorts of exciting new developments and discoveries.

In short, while sleep would be nice, I’m happy to be mad-busy and thrilled about my work again.

and a “new” website (that was completed months ago). I really don’t like updating my own website!

But I’m determined that it’s about time to do it, especially given that I’m about to move again, and that means that my address as listed on the website will be even more wrong than it is currently. (Sure, in theory it only takes two minutes to change it, but that’s not how I work…if I’m going to spend two minutes, I’m going to be there three hours trying to fix all the little things.) At any rate, all the little things have really added up, and it’s time for some major-ish rearranging.

Actually, the most dramatic upgrade has already happened, and that was my finally giving in to the whole “blog” phenomenon. It took years, but I finally buckled, and I’m sort of enjoying it. What sold me on WordPress is how monstrously simple it is—I actually started using it the place of a word processor, and I find it much smarter: it auto-saves constantly (good for those of us prone to data loss), it’s totally un-bloaty, it’s faster than typing out my own html, and it auto-formats my smart quotes. God, I love smart quotes. I actually spent an hour or so today formatting a client’s novel to get rid of all the dumb quotes, hyphens, and “period” ellipses. I don’t know why these tiny details are so important to me–but I suspect that there’s a place where the grammar-fascist in me meets the typophile, and proper typography is born. Or maybe it’s just that I, embarassingly enough, didn’t know about smart quotes and such for so long that I now consider them to be something of a litmus test for “quality” design?

Smart quotes aside, the news/blog section has all been redone, and I like it a lot, and may even get into the habit of using it more frequently. WordPress is really great and easy to develop themes for (once you figure out what you’re doing), which I’ve been doing of late for Lilith Saintcrow, who writes novels about girls who kick ass and take names (all told, the best kind of lady). I’ve got a couple more weblog-based websites in the works, so I’m learning a lot these days.

On a side note, why is there always an elephant (in the room) on my to-do list? I’m a notorious list-maker, and I’ll sometimes prioritize my lists in order of importance, not that I follow my own order religiously. For example, today I’m at #12, but #3 is still sitting there patiently, un-crossed, with three exclamation marks following it. It’s the most vital thing on my list, but I’m betting it’ll be the one thing that’ll end up being neglected. Is this some kind of subconscious self-mutilation wherein I’ll always sabotage myself for the work that is most important? How do I trick myself into thinking “eat three tubs of chocolate fudge icing” is the Elephant Task, instead? I’ve read a few productivity-type tips that recommend things like offering to wash a friend’s car, or pay them $50, if you don’t complete the Elephant by the end of the day (the theory being that we’re all inherently lazy, and the only way to make us do something is by threatening us with something more unpleasant), but I feel like that’s somehow compounding the pressure of the situation, thereby inflating the psychic block.

Anyone know how to take down an Elephant (or a run-on sentence)?