Try as I may to make sure I’m doing one networking event per week, it doesn’t always work out that way.

Some weeks—like this past one—there’s either nothing going on that really floats my boat or no time to squeeze even one more thing in, even if I wanted to. (And trust me, after a couple of the freakouts and setbacks I’ve had this year from overscheduling, I most decidedly do not want to anymore!)

That’s okay, because really what we’re after with this marketing calendar thing is consistent, ongoing marketing: avoiding feast or famine syndrome, not breaking our backs, blowing opportunities or otherwise screwing up our lives and businesses by adhering rigidly to some kind of absolute set schedule. Yes, I need to market myself regularly; no, it does not have to be the way the law was laid down in print by someone else or even in the beginning of the week by me. I am the boss of me, but I am more than that: I am the capo di tutti capi, the boss of bosses, too.

This past week, I had the opportunity to have several one-on-one meetings with people: one with a brand new friend (we’ve been Facebook friends for a year), one with a former client (who resurfaced with a new opportunity because—wait for it—we had stayed in touch via marketing) and a couple that were sort of hybrid business meetings/stay-in-your-face meetings. (There’s a lot of bleed in business.) Between these meetings, a full workload of consulting and an uncharacteristically full workload of writing (downside to a 21-Day Salute™)—oh, and a personal life, which I’ve been working hard to reinstate—there was no time for a standard networking event.

That’s okay by me. I had a super-intense network-y month in September, and just came back from a solid couple of days of networking at BlogWorld Expo (sans flu, which some of the unluckier attendees—possibly overnetworkers?—got). There will be other times that are similarly lush with multiple-human contact—March, with its anchor, South by Southwest Interactive, always seems to be one of those.

The way I’ve come to look at it is the way I’ve come to look at eating a balanced diet: rather than feel obligated to have x portions of y and z in one day, I try to aim for balance over the course of the week. Similarly, I’ve heard people talking about having more success with flossing once they moved flossing time to the morning, upon arising, when they had the energy. I get that it may still be ideal to floss at night, but a thorough job in the morning is better than nothing. (We’re assuming we’re still brushing at night, or…well, ew.)

Finally, I get how easy it is to beat yourself up over any of this. May I suggest that it’s fine if you want to do that (because it goes without saying that it’s not the most productive, nor nicest thing in the world), AND that if you do, you do it quickly and get back on the horse. One thing. One call. One email. One “thumbs up” or “Happy ding-dong birthday!” on Facebook. One “@” reply on Twitter.

No one is keeping score except you. No one wins or loses except you.

xxx
c

Marketing round-up for this week:

• 8 blog posts (seven at the main blog, one here)
• recorded last week’s GYBWM podcast (2 in a row?!? Holy crap—I’m gonna spoil you guys!)
• two one-on-one meetings, plus two hybrid biz/networking one-on-one meetings
• some writing for my upcoming newsletter
• email! email! email!
• morning and afternoon checkins with Facebook and Twitter

A big trip involving lots of networking tends to wipe me out, and my trip to BlogWorld Expo mopped the floor with me.

It was all good, long car ride there and back included. (I hate driving generally, but enjoy distance driving on highways, which tends to jog loose all kinds of weird ideas from my brain.) But it was a lot, especially on top of the Biznik meetup I co-host the night before. On the phone the morning I was to leave for Vegas, I whined a bit to my accountability partner about how tired I was, and how many people were getting sick, and how maybe it was a better idea to just stay home and rest.

Fortunately, he talked me out of it, by throwing my own methodology back in my face: “Go,” he said, “and just do your SXSW thing, where you dip into activities as you feel like it, and spend the rest of the time relaxing by the pool.”

I didn’t do any pool time, but neither did I push myself. I got to sleep early both nights, and didn’t schedule any early breakfasts the next day. I barely partied, much less drank. (I did have one forbidden—and DELICIOUS—Coca-Cola off the gun at the Las Vegas Hilton. Yum yum yum.) I got a good, daily walk in. And I left more rested than I came. This never happens! I think I may have turned a corner, maturity-wise.

On the other hand, when I got back to L.A., I decided to opt out of Le Web—even though it’s in Paris, even though I was one of a special cadre of bloggers given a free pass to live-blog the event. (I guess my entry about writing marketing poetry piqued their curiosity.) I’d be coming off of a three-week trip to Portland and Seattle, and I have two huge projects I need to put to bed by the end of this year, so something had to give. Fortunately, they were lovely enough to assure me that this wouldn’t be some big, black mark against me should I decide to go for it in the future.

I will, on the other hand, be presenting at my very first Ignite event in Portland this November! I was selected as one of 20 lucky people to give a little talk in the strict 20-slides-in-five-minutes format required (plus 15 seconds to hustle your ass onstage and grab the mic from the last guy). I’m wildly excited and terrified and pleased; if you’re in the PDX area, I hope you’ll come to the event on November 19th to hear me talk about the intersection between bloody poop and happiness. Yes, really.

Finally, the decluttering continues at full force. It finally occurred to me (on the road, no less) that maybe it was time to start applying some of these fine principles to my own website. So I did—just a little (tweaks are good, so you can track what kind of difference they make.) I wonder if you can even tell what I’ve changed on the home page. I can’t believe how I agonized over it: now that it’s done, I have to remind myself of what I took out!

xxx
c

Marketing round-up for this week:

• 8 blog posts (seven at the main blog, one here)
• wrote actor marketing column
• recorded last week’s GYBWM podcast
• more work dreaming up promotion ideas for upcoming Pam Slim seminar
• major hang-out time at BlogWorld Expo
• did an interview for a very interesting project (although I’m not sure if it’s marketing, exactly)
• minor blog page tweaks (see if you can see what they are!)
• email! email! email!
• morning and afternoon checkins with Facebook and Twitter

I’m still in paring-down mode after last week’s meltdown (oh, the good times! the goody-good times!), so this week was a lot less about marketing and a lot more about jettisoning projects that aren’t serving my key goals and cleaning up the horrific backlog that has built up because of my poor past practices.

I’ve already detailed much of what I’m doing to pare down, as well as what I’m working toward, so I won’t belabor it here. Just by implementing a few new practices and removing a few projects, I feel a huge sense of relief, including some hope that I may come out of this year with a much clearer sense of what next year needs to look like, both from an overall sense and a marketing perspective.

The marketing keepers

Since I’ve been doing this marketing and self-promotion stuff for a while now, it makes sense for me to look at not only what’s working for me from a business perspective (i.e., what’s bringing clients in the door, and prospects up to it), but also to really look hard at what’s missing from the mix as well as what’s fun for me. “Fun” doesn’t necessarily mean whoop-dee-doo and hallelujah: it’s more about what I find interesting, challenging and engaging—what is a good fit for my skills and bent.

The newsletter is a no-brainer, as is the blog. In addition to providing the means to share useful information with clients, prospects and fans, they keep me writing and the more I write—my core competency, by a country mile—the better I feel and do. I’m keeping my skills sharp, growing as a writer, and, because of the relentless nature of the writing, discovering by combination of necessity and accident some new avenues for my writing. Poetry Thursday, which I re-started earlier this year after not being able to write one single more long blog post, has turned out to be one of the most popular things I write. And I’ve never, ever identified as either a poetry lover nor a poet. Go figger.

The podcast is a surprisingly fun vehicle for me. I resisted it when Peleg and Ilise first suggested I try my hand at it, but like other things I think I hate until I meet them and fall in love, I’m a convert. What’s more, I’ve been genuinely shocked by the enthusiastic response to it from listeners. To me, the idea of listening to content when the same stuff is available to read is crazy, but that’s just me. And I love doing them, so there you go. Because of my commitment to the calendar project, I won’t starting my own podcast until 2010, but it’s gonna be a hum-dinger, trust me.

In-person networking with Biznik has been richly rewarding. I have really enjoyed hosting the events in the Marina, and it’s been thrilling seeing other people discover the value of them: so much that they’re willing to start up their own events. Having Heather come on as co-host was the greatest single thing that happened in the entire process. If anyone is interested in getting a regular event up and running, I strongly suggest figuring out a great, ambitious, fun, trustworthy colleague to partner with. You’ll each take the heat off of each other, plus you’ll forge an incredible bond. Heather even made me an SCD-legal pie for my birthday! (see pic top right!)

The marketing also-rans

Ilise, I’m ducking in advance, but cold calling is off the menu right now. Honestly, it’s been off since I abandoned the idea of taking my little branding and marketing song-and-dance for actors on the road. The combination of eviscerated university endowments and my split focus killed off my enthusiasm: as the old saw goes, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. I’m really, really good at talking to actors about how to market themselves. But it pulls me from other stuff I’m even better at. The good news is that once I have a real reason to pick up the phone and ask people questions, I have no doubt that I’ll be able to. So this isn’t a loss—it’s a real win.

I love my Biznik events, because I’m making great connections while I hone my leadership skills, build something much bigger than myself, and hey—just have fun! (Don’t discount fun, ever!) But I’m going to be far, far more judicious about the number and types of other events I go to. I just can’t hit that many big conferences, unless I’m speaking and they’re paying me for my time. C.C. Chapman has a fantastic podcast episode on what he’s calling Personal Price Tags that addresses this; it’s short and compelling and well worth a listen. I get that it’s going to require more effort on my part to research what are and aren’t good events, but that’s much easier to manage than wasting time at the wrong dance.

The marketing “maybes”

I have to be careful, here, because I have a well-documented and chronic case of Eyes Bigger than Stomach Syndrome. But these are other marketing ideas that have my interest:

A video podcast, series of videos or narrated presentations/screencasts. It finally hit me that after all those years of performance and presenting, I have chops that I’m STUPIDLY letting go to waste. Plus, I love it. I love talking and I love performing. Not everyone is going to want to see and hear this stuff, but some people, we’ve established, like it better. So, untapped market + Colleen Fun = DO IT. Somehow.

A book. Yes, that book—the one that some people have heard me yakking about for years now. I finally have the title and the idea. Well, that’s not quite true: I have two titles and two ideas for two totally different books. Not sure how that’s going to play out, but I have until January 1st to wrap my brain around it. (I plan to start the proposal for one of them sooner.)

A tour. Not sure what this means yet, but I have a vision of myself doing some more extended versions of my now-annual PacNW trip. If you have ideas—or better yet, if there’s a way you would love love love for me to show up in your town, please let me know.

As usual, a huge part of the reason I’m blathering all this stuff in such detail is that I’m hoping to gain some clarity. Seeing it written out is helpful right away, but feedback from objective sources is always welcome. What am I missing that’s glaringly obvious to you? What do I do that’s good for me and for you that I should turn more attention to?

xxx
c

Marketing round-up for this week:

• 6 blog posts (four at the main blog, one here)
• attended the second Biznik Chicken Wing Thing
• lots of email (although the system helps when I apply it)
• morning and afternoon checkins with Facebook and Twitter
• sent hard copy thank you notes and a thank you gift
• revised one page on my website

I attended two completely different events this week.

The first was a dreadful, infuriating waste of time. The people I talked to were mainly unfriendly, unreceptive and not people I was at all interested in meeting. The panels were tedious and poorly planned; I got nothing valuable from them. Even the traffic was bad. I left early, in a foul mood.

The second was a wildly illuminating and energizing investment in myself. The people I talked to were mostly lively and engaged—so much so that I found it difficult to pull myself away from our conversations to get back to the program, which was filled with great ideas that inspired me. Even the traffic wasn’t too bad. I left early, in a great mood.

The trick, of course, is that these were two different days of the exact same event and, with the exception of Tony Robbins as a presenter the second day (he really is exceptional!), nothing changed—except me.

The first day, I woke up later than I wanted to and had a slew of things hit me sideways, out of nowhere, via my inbox. I’m not sure how many of them were genuine emergencies, but somehow I got caught up in them. Before I knew it, I was leaving a full hour later than I’d intended to the previous evening, which put me square in the middle of hideous morning rush hour traffic. Figuring I’d beat it with surface roads, I instead ended up on a long, frustrating, bumper-to-bumper tour of Los Angeles’ West Side. I showed up in a horrible mood

The second day, I woke up slightly later than I wanted to, but much earlier altogether because the night before, I prepped myself for bed earlier. I limited myself to an abbreviated version of my habitual, obsessive-compulsive, morning digital check-in (comments to the blog, items of excessive delight or despair in my inbox, quick scan of Daily Beast/Twitter/Facebook), made myself eat a light breakfast and hightailed it over.

Traffic was ass, as is the fashion of my adoptive city, but I picked a good playlist, got in the far left-hand lane and—surprise!—my freeway experience was just fine. Arrived early enough that the exhibitors were just setting up with no one to talk to, so I talked to them and got a lead on some PR writing work for a friend. Got a seat close to the stage for Mr. Robbins, then moved up to the half-empty front row: good karma (I’m a speaker, too) and more practice at putting myself out there. During his (TWO-HOUR LONG!) speech, he singled out a woman who was a 22-year entrepreneur with annual revenues of $22 million. I made a point of seeking her out later and we had an amazing talk.

I could go on and on (and on, although not as long as Tony Robbins!), but I have things I want to do today and so do you. And that’s my point, really: what am I doing to make the things I want to do happen? Or, to paraphrase my way more organized and fit and, let’s face it, financially successful friend Jason Womack, “How do I want to show up for things?” I can create the room I need, devise and implement the systems to support my work and stay tuned in to what’s really happening (as opposed to what I wish was happening, or any number of other things). Or I can blow it off and continue to live in chaos, making stuff but not making significant advancement toward my heart’s desire.

The point of the calendar is to help organize what I need to do, and to focus on doing those things one at a time, but at its heart, it’s a system for dealing with stuff. I’ve been doing a lot of stuff—possibly too much stuff—but I’ve not been doing it systematically. The daily blog posts are ingrained as a practice, as is this weekly one (although this week, I fell behind.) Ditto with networking: in my brain, I know that I need to be hitting a networking event per week, so as I plot out my weeks, I make sure that an event is slotted into each one. It works like magic, just chipping away at this stuff*. I need to introduce those kinds of systems and that kind of order to all my work, I now see, if the marketing stuff is going to be effective. After all, if I’m running a crappy, broken-down business because of lousy practices, all the marketing in the world ain’t gonna help it.

I’ve already started implementing some new rules and regs here at communicatrix HQ, and I intend to devote a significant chunk of time to getting my house in order for the balance of 2009. As much as I’d like to do a million other things, too, focus is the cure. If I can restrain myself a bit now, I sense that the payoff down the road will be huge.

Have you had some kind of breakthrough in this area? What made it happen? Which systems—small or large—did you put in place that significantly shifted things for you?

xxx
c

*I playfully call it pushing the c*cksucking boulder up the motherf*cking hill. If you need a shot of inspiration and can handle some seriously blue language, you’re welcome to sing along.

xxx
c

Marketing round-up for this week:

• 6 blog posts (four at the main blog, one here)
• 3 free consultations (1 was donation from last week’s speaking gig; 2 were to make up for poor planning!)
• met with another client and one of my colleagues on a cool new project
• attended the Twitter 140 conference
• submitted proposal for blogger’s pass to Le Web 2010
• email! email! email! (others complain, but I love it)
• informative, supportive, entertaining behavior on my social media outlets
• sent actual hard copy thank you notes
• revised two pages on my website

Some weeks, you spend most of your time marketing, or working, or whatever-it-is that takes you away from whatever the rest of it is that you do in the course of a week

This was one of those incredible week’s of having to push myself a little bit harder than I’d maybe have liked, because so many opportunities came up. (And believe it or not, I actually turned down a couple of opportunities, because even optimistic me realized that something had to give.)

So while I know I’m usually the one who goes on and on (and on and—well, you know), I’m going to keep it short and sweet this week.

I worked hard. Maybe a little too hard. I definitely found the outside of my ability range (is that even a thing? “Ability range?”)

But I think it serves as a useful reminder that all of this stuff is about finding things out: who exactly your target is, and has it shifted? What exactly the market is looking for, and are you prepared to deliver? Which times of the day and which days of the week can you push a little bit harder? How much rest will you need to schedule in after the pushing?

And again, what systems are you putting in place so that you don’t have to deal with the same problems again? Because problems are fine—they’re just you, bumping up against the edges of things. It’s the repetition of the same problems that starts getting…problematic.

After some discussion with my Significant Other, we’ve decided to cancel all plans for this weekend and just chill. “Chill” may mean puttering, but we are both restored by that. And “chill” will definitely mean unplugged, not “on” time. We’ve both had a lot of “on” time this week.

I’m happy with where this week took me. I’m just not sure I want to go to all those places again.

Live. Learn. Live some more.

xxx
c

Marketing round-up for this week:

• 5 blog posts (four at the main blog, one here)
• met with a client for dinner
• met with another client and one of my colleagues on a cool new project
• Monthly Biznik Meetup I co-host with the amazing Heather Parlato (who made me SCD-legal pie for my birthday!) If you’re Los Angeles-local, sign up, then join us next month!
• spoke to the Orange County Advertising Federation on Personal Branding in a Postmodern Age (latest iteration of the “You, amplified” platform)
• attended WordCamp LA (and, as per usual, all the good stuff happened in the hallways)
• did some recon and saw a competitor’s general presentation
• email! email! email! (others complain, but I love it)
• informative, supportive, entertaining behavior on my social media outlets
• sent actual hard copy thank you notes
• met with my accountability group to go over goals made and missed
• enjoyed birthday dinner at Benihana (okay, not marketing—but DELICIOUS)

The calendar is a living document.

Which is to say, it’s meant to be adapted to yours need rather than you blindly following it.

Since, as I mentioned last week, I’m rejiggering the posting schedule to somewhat lighten the burden that having multiple deadlines on a Monday creates, I thought I’d take this piece to do some adapting of my own. (Show, don’t tell, as Mrs. Kent used to say.)

So to break things up—and maybe put something out there to reflect upon as we here in the U.S. get ready to call summer quits for the year and gear up for the “back-to-school” stretch of work before the holidays kick in and dump eggnog all over us—I thought I’d do a bit of reflecting on what’s happened over the course of the year, and how it’s going to affect the way I move forward for the rest of the year: which big projects will I be tackling, where will I be focusing my attention, etc.

And because I’m a creative type, I’m doing the damned thing as a Q&A—where I both ask the questions and supply the answers. Self-involved? Maybe. Efficient? YOU BETCHA.

Q: Looking back over the year, what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned?

A: Without question, the value of incremental work done methodically and, for the most part, executed against some kind of a plan. (Is that one thing?)

Q. Close enough. What exactly do you mean by “incremental” and “done methodically”?

A: Ah. Well. I’ve always been sort of a workaholic-type, willing to spend any amount of energy on a project I’m enthused about. But I wasn’t so good at the drudgery (see how I look at it?) of mundane, daily tasks. I like to say I’m a starter, not a finisher, and the overflowing plate of commitments still requiring my attention for that last 10% of work attests to that. Although I have managed to knock a few things off of it.

The big work spurts are fun for those of us who dig that stuff, but it’s the daily wax-on/wax-off that strengthens the muscles that move you forward.

Q: Do you think that the overflowing plate you speak of might also have to do with an inability to say “no” often enough?

A: It’s like you know me!

Yeah, definitely. I have a problem with disappointing people, plus a dash of God Complex. And it’s taken me a looong time to gain any sort of realistic grasp of how long things actually take.

Q: Sounds familiar. So how have you gone about getting a grasp? Has the calendar helped at all?

Definitely, the calendar helped. At the most basic level, the idea of “one networking event per week” and x amount of time with social networking, etc., was useful. I started to see just how much those things took, plus a sense of what they took out of me.

Q: The energy drain was bigger for certain things?

A: Oh, yeah. I’m an introvert. Cold calling and in-person networking and speaking all take cave time afterward. I’ve learned the hard way not to schedule things too tightly around them.

Also, I’ve gotten a much better grasp of how my brain and constitution work in general. Now I schedule client work for certain days and times, writing everyday for a certain time, marketing and paperwork-y stuff for other times. It all makes more sense now, which I think is a combination of both doing it a lot and turning my attention toward it.

Q: Interesting. Have any other patterns emerged as a result of the work that you can share?

A: Tons. Well, some, anyway.

I’ve learned that I need to chunk up some of my tasks better. Like adding little bits to the newsletter as I find them, so I don’t have a knock-down-drag-out once monthly. (There were a couple of close calls, but I’ve only gone off the schedule once.)

I’ve also learned that I need to schedule downtime: for rest, play, reading, etc. Lame, maybe, but it’s the way I’m wired. Why fight it?

And I’ve started adding features to the blog, both to spice it up and reduce the load on me. It’s pretty hard cranking out a good, 1,000-word essay four or five times per week. Writing reviews and (ulp) poetry gives my brain a break, while it also trains me to write different kinds of things in my own voice. I’m the communicatrix—why shouldn’t I be able to write a Referral Friday review of a great t-shirt shop as well as a diatribe about change?

Q: Why, indeed?

A: Exactly!

Q. So with two-thirds of the year behind you, how do you see this final third shaping up? And how has the calendar work gotten you there?

A. Great question!

The rest of this year is going to be about prepping some huge projects: a book proposal, a secret publishing project for the holidays, an under-the-hood overhaul of my website.

Doing all this marketing work is directly responsible for my vision of what the future holds, as well as for my having gotten to this new point of doing so much more consulting and speaking. I want to keep doing the consulting and speaking, but at a higher and higher level, and that means I can’t put off the book any longer.

Q: How did the calendar affect things, exactly?

A: The more I wrote and spoke and put the word out there about my writing/speaking/consulting, the more feedback I got from people. And it was the feedback that was so directly responsible for showing me the next steps: what do people want? What is resonating with them? What problems do they have that I could help them wrassle to the ground?

I got a little feedback before I got so serious about putting myself out there, but it really increased as I did more of the marketing and networking.

Plus, my network just kept expanding in exciting, unexpected new ways that opened up other avenues of opportunity. I’ve got a collaborative project for actors that’s started to take shape; my increased networking and visibility is what made that possible. And I have so many more resources to draw from, things just feel more possible than they did a year ago.

Q: Wow—that’s fantastic. Anything you’d like to leave people with?

A: Yes. Get the support you need. A group, a buddy, a coach, a mentor—whatever. And be prepared to provide it for someone else. Support and accountability are the final keys to making this work. Having my accountability group—not to mention the commitment to posting my progress here every week—really made the difference between wanting to get things done and actually doing them.

Q: Thanks for your time, Colleen. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you do next.

A: Me, too. Including this week’s podcast—that oughta be interesting…

I’ve tried (and failed) setting up a workable scheduling system a dozen times over—at least.

Among the various things I’ve tested and abandoned were:

• Scheduling like a lawyer, where I slotted myself down to the 15-minute “pod”
• Scheduling like a dentist, where I parceled my time out in 40/20-minute increments
• Scheduling like an actor/cowboy/hobo, where I plugged in my major, must-do’s & deadlines, and just did everything else around them

The problem, of course, is that scheduling like a lawyer, dentist or actor works best when you’re working in one of those professions; for me, in my new capacity as solopreneur wearing many hats, it was disastrous. I got a lot done when I carved my time up in tiny slices, put them in my calendar, and adhered to the program, but I quickly began to resent it. I didn’t go into business for myself to boss myself around. And the actor/cowboy/hobo-style of scheduling, where I basically went where the gig was (or the free meal and ride, in the case of hobo-style scheduling), was wildly inefficient for managing the many, many things I’ve got stacked on my plate.

Obviously, if you’re interested in a marketing calendar, you get that maybe there’s something to this scheduling thing, and to doing work incrementally. But the work still needs to happen in a way that fits your specific needs. The marketing calendar this project is centered around may be the result of years of experience and lots of hard work, but it’s still a serving suggestion, or a rough outline; even Ilise says adapting it to suit yourself is a good idea, provided you’re not adapting your way out of the work altogether.

After wrassling with my calendar for years, I’m finally starting to settle into a kind of rhythm, and an understanding of what works and what doesn’t. What works for me may not work for you, but maybe you’ll find some new ideas, or some reassurance that you’re playing in the right area for your own rhythms.

Rhythmic scheduling

My good buddy, Peleg, and I were talking about rhythmic scheduling this week at one of our occasional brainstorming breakfasts. He mentioned that since moving from a hard-core, 9-to-5-style approach when he was running a design shop with employees and had clients on the same kind of schedule, he’s had to adjust to the vast expanse of time available by looking at it from an energy perspective: when does he have the most, and when the least? How much energy does it require for certain tasks, and when should those be slotted in to maximize efficiency?

I’ve found myself asking those same questions this year with my move into consulting (takes LOTS of energy for me) and my commitment to expanding my writing practice (takes a very specific kind of energy for me). Tim Ferriss, who’s made a big project of “lifestyle design”, has noted in more than one place how his optimal writing hours are wee ones—between 1 – 5 am. My own optimal writing time happens roughly 3 hours after rising and lasts for about 4, so earlier this summer I began “firewalling” 10am – 12pm for writing. I’ll reschedule if I must (I had an old dentist appointment on the books, and travel can interfere), but basically, that’s it: no appointments for me until 1pm.

This is a bit of a conflict with consulting, since I have East coast clients that doesn’t always work for. My solution for now is to reserve a couple of Friday mornings per month, although I’m also looking at giving up a Thursday morning, as I get better about batching tasks like writing, and planning ahead for big deadlines like my monthly column for actors and my monthly newsletter.

Batching tasks

This is nothing new in the land of time management. It’s pretty much a given in productivity circles that processing all your email in batches, grouping errands and the whole “like with like” philosophy make up the path to freedom, time-wise. I’d long resisted it with the blog, though, since I like my essays to be fresh: I use my own life and travails as fodder, so it feels right to report them in as close to real time as possible.

My new commitment to writing 5x/weekly was killing me, though. The site started to feel like a hungry beast that had to be fed, rather than an outlet for my creativity and a way of sharing my knowledge with my people. Finally, about a month ago, I caved and wrote a few posts at once. The unbelievable freedom and ease I felt—the room it created—were so amazing, I became an instant, if slightly guilty convert.

I also have gotten much better about drinking my own Kool-Aid and keeping a sharp eye out for topics, capturing ideas when they happen, and all the other stuff I’m constantly telling other people about. Why I thought I could apply the rules to my own workflow only when the spirit moved me is anyone’s guess; I’m done with that tomfoolery, though, and ready to get stuff done.

On/off, open/closed

A companion to the rhythm & batching techniques is a nifty trick my friend, Adam Kayce, describes in an interview he did about Inspired Scheduling for the Business Oasis, Mark Silver’s membership support community. Essentially, it’s a methodology for approaching your calendar with your heart more than your head. I won’t get into specifics here, but you do a couple of passes where you decide which times feel like they should be devoted to work and which not, and then which feel better as time spent with others and which with solo time.

I was already doing a modified version of this with my own time. Mondays and Fridays have never really been my peak extrovert days, and I like using cave time on those days to get other, more introverted types of tasks done then. Ditto with late morning and writing: it’s a much more efficient use of my time to spend that chunk writing and use later in the day, when I’ve siphoned off all the crazy into my writing and am feeling more expansive, to focus my learning on client needs.

Calendar in action

Just to give you an idea of how this stuff applies in real life, here’s what last week looked like:

• Sun (I know, I know), Mon, Wed a.m.: writing for 2 – 3 hours (blog posts for Virgo Guide and communicatrix)
• Mon night: my weekly accountability group meetup
• Tue a.m., Thu p.m.,  client calls (note the one a.m. slot for an East coaster)
• Tue late a.m. – COB: dentist appointment and recovery time
• Wed p.m.: finish old client job; miscellaneous marketing tasks, including monthly Biznik meetup
• Thu a.m.: Brainstorming Breakfast, followed by client prep for calls
• Fri: catch-all day of phone calls, puttering and marketing tasks (redoing my business card for the upcoming Creative Freelancer Conference)

Some stuff I learned from this week’s scheduling:

• I need even more quality time for writing. I missed Tuesday’s communicatrix post, which was disappointing. These marketing calendar posts have gotten more intricate, and they “drop” on the same day as my big essay post on communicatrix. Something’s gotta give! (Looking for ideas, here, so lay ‘em on me.)
• I need to schedule my dentist appointments for late in the day. I’m worthless afterward—she’s VERY thorough, so the experience is a bit traumatic—so I might as well plan it for veg time after.
• “Mellow time” helps. The days I’ve taken my breakfast and lunch outside to eat on the patio and read a book have been far more pleasant, as have the days I managed to knock off before 9pm. (Again, I know, I know—it’s a work in progress!)
• I can do a maximum of one Full Monty per day. I love them, and so do the people who’ve done them. They’re a little intense for both of us, though, so I think the opportunity here is to raise the price, increase the time from 60 to 90 minutes (so hopefully, it can be less like a fire hose for the unsuspecting) and add some value in the form of screen sharing, audio recording and the like. As Peleg and Ilise say, pricing is a marketing tool, too, so I’m not really concerned about raising it; I just want to make sure I do it right, which is going to mean carving out some time to rephrase the offering, test some new collaboration tools and do a little promotion. (If you’ve been reading me for a while and are on the fence, I’m going to do the first bump in September, so you might want to sign up now while it’s still $250.)
• I still have unrealistic expectations of how much can get done in a day. I thought my business card revision would take an hour, tops; instead, it sucked up a half-day. My posts, this one included, usually take longer than I expect they will. Even email replying isn’t so simple, since a simple “yes” or “no” rarely suffices (and is kind of off-brand for me). Not sure how to deal with this beyond more trial and error. Again, suggestions welcomed and encouraged!

To head you off at the pass, I’m guessing that a few people might suggest I just do less. I know that’s true, and have been overworking a bit to get lingering stuff off my plate. I also gave notice to someone I’ve been subcontracting for that I was getting out of design entirely. I’ve committed to this project through the end of the year, but I’m rethinking delivery dates, and whether a Tuesday or Wednesday “drop” might not be better for my schedule.

In short, I’m probably fail-fast-ing like everyone else, figuring out as I go along. It’s still a great ride, and I wouldn’t trade it to go back, no matter how much effort it is.

So help me out here: what am I not seeing? What tricks and tips have you found that I might try and apply?

Nothing will show you what is and isn’t working about your habits like throwing the bright light of travel on them.

I spent the last 10 days on the road, in Chicago, teaching people about marketing (and, irony of ironies, focus and workflow management) while learning even more about myself.

Before I dump on myself about what isn’t working—and really, I hope I can doing without dumping on myself!—I’ll go over what astonished me by how well it worked.

Stuff that went really, really well

Scheduling appropriately It seems I may have learned my lesson from my brush with severe exhaustion and illness earlier this year. Ordinarily, I would have slotted in three times as many appointments as I did on this trip. In addition to my work-work—this time, a consulting gig and the workshop with Pamela Slim (which was AWESOME, and I’m sorry you missed it, if you did)—I always have plenty of people I want to catch up with in town, since I grew up in Chicago and also spent some of my adult work life there. But because these were big, important gigs and because I’d gotten sick on my last big trips, I decided to scale way, way back and leave plenty of time for rest, for getting around and for taking care of my other, regular work: writing, blog posts, development phone calls.

As it happened, over the first weekend, there was an unexpected death in the family of a close friend. Because I’d left a little maneuvering room for myself, I was able to devote most of one day to attending the memorial service a couple of hours away in Milwaukee without being a nervous, overextended wreck (something I’m sure everyone appreciated, under the circumstances).

Overall, I was pleased both at how much I was able to accomplish and the quality of the work, and I think it was directly attributable to my not being a crazed nutcase.

Putting money in the right places Because I’m from Chicago and because I have generous friends with spacious condos there, I generally have my lodging covered when I’m in town. However, after doing the time math (the day before I was scheduled to leave!), I opted to pay a hefty price for the convenience of staying in the hotel where the 8:30am workshop with Pam was going to be held. Trust me—like you, I hate parting with a dime that I don’t have to. And technically, I didn’t have to: my friends live a short cab ride away, doable in the morning. But when I pictured myself tweaking the presentation the night before in the quiet of a private room vs. late-late at night after my host had gone to bed, I busted out that Visa card and did the right thing. Which I’m so glad I did. I was rested and refreshed and as confident as I could be the next day, rather than frazzled and/or with a split focus.

Sometimes it pays to invest in your business even when you don’t strictly have to. (Hint: if you’ve been on the fence about signing up for the Creative Freelancer Conference next month because it’s a “non-essential” item, you might want to reflect on the investment angle.)

A little insistence on the planning end Okay, I confess: I’m a convert to this cold calling/asking for what you want thing. Well, medium-cold calling.

After all, a huge part of the reason I had a rewarding trip both from a financial and growth perspective is because I basically talked my way into both gigs: when I read about Pam’s workshop, I reached out to her about the possibility of c0-teaching it with her; when I realized I’d have a lot more time than income-generating activity to fill it, I reached out once more, this time to a prospect whom I’ve wanted to work with since I met her last fall. And then, when communication got fuzzy, rather than give up, I followed up with our mutual acquaintance (my former prom date from high school!) to gently push things along. The result? For the first time since I quit advertising, I had a work trip that covered my expenses.

Plus there are the residual benefits of meeting a slew of new people and gaining a great deal of confidence. Not bad, eh?

Stuff that presents—uh, opportunities for improvement

Better systems and equipment After having a few calls get screwed up because I didn’t realize which time zone I was dealing with on my calendar, one outrageously expensive one because I hadn’t checked to see that it was an international call, and having a moment—okay, several moments of panic because I was afraid I’d left a critical document or dongle elsewhere, it’s become painfully obvious that my organizational methods could use some reworking. I’m really excited about applying the methodology outlined in Sam Carpenter’s Work the System, which I reviewed on my blog a couple of weeks ago. (Interesting aside: my review led to a lively email exchange and call with Sam, and the possibility of us working together—gotta love the Internet!)

I was also surprised and not a little frustrated by how hard it was to get my work-work (writing, marketing, client review, etc.) done on my old 12″ Mac PowerBook. I love that little machine, and I don’t love the thought of laying out the cash for a new one, but if I’m going to travel and be effective, I need to have the means of doing my job on the road. That may mean sinking some cash into a new MacBook Pro, although I will probably ask around and see if I can get away with a lower end MacBook, since it won’t be my primary machine. Anyone have experience running Photoshop, PowerPoint and a million open windows in Firefox at the same time on a MacBook?

On a more petulant note, I think I’d also like to put “Kindle” on that shopping list. As much as I love old fashioned dead tree reading, it is tiresome and tiring carrying around multiple books for a long trip.

More planning (and maybe insistence) on the planning end Yes, I got my gigs; now, the bar has been raised. I have another trip to Chicago in September I want to take, and I’d like to fill it up with work, too. Is there time to do it in a two-month time frame? Time to read up on Deidre’s experience with cold calling for inspiration!

Asking for help This is a corollary of the above opportunity. There are so many wonderful people out there who want to help point me in the right direction; a few more research calls in the form of purely asking for help would be incredibly productive at this point. And hey, as long as I’m asking, if you know of a Chicago-based organization, workplace or school looking for enlightenment in a fun, pain-free way around right use of social media, the finer points of branding and networking or how to get people to spread the word of you, please let me know! They’ll love you even more after meeting me, I swear (although I’ve trained myself not to swear in mixed company!), and I’ll be eternally grateful.

I’ll sign off by asking for even more help: what brilliant resources for road-warrior travel have you found? I’ve learned a lot from my friends Jason Womack and Peter Shankman, extreme road warriors both, but if you have any tips, insight, books, etc., I’d love to know about them. That way, maybe I can get to a city near you even faster!

Call me a pattern-seeking monkey, but all of a sudden there are signs everywhere pointing to the Put Systems in Place Method of Work-Life Enhancement.

Yes, there have likely been signs all along, like seeing how my friends and colleagues who worked methodically at something generally were wildly successful, whereas those of us who danced merrily from shiny object to fuzzy bunny did not; I even pitched in on a presentation with Ilise at last year’s Creative Freelancer Conference about getting your marketing machine in place. You’d think I’d get it on a fundamental level.

Alas, the objects, they are shiny (and the bunnies are soooo fuzzy!). Maybe my old, creakity-ness had to set in to slow me down enough to appreciate the giant truth therein. Fortunately, my weekly accountability group is working wonders at helping me build good habit muscles (and to get things done without Getting Things Done), as has this weekly, public, blogging-out-loud of my shame.

Even taking on too much has been helpful, as it’s pointed to the absolute finite quality of time where it intersects with energy. I totally just made that up, but the underlying truth is that days are only made up of so many hours and I am only blessed with a certain amount of energy. Once either is used up—bing! Muffins are done!

This week, via elaborate calendaring, some of which actually held, I managed to get my newsletter out, attend an actors’ networking event (I could write up five posts on the learning I got from that one), post to my own blog four times, record the podcast, and follow up—via email, mostly—with three prospects. I’ve been tweaking my marketing language for stuff here and there, too, per the excellent advice in Naomi and Sonia’s course (which you should totally take the next time they offer it) and I think it must be working, because I’m getting some stupendously qualified inquiries into my services, as well as more new clients.

But possibly the coolest thing I did was to start reading a certain book I’ll most likely review for communicatrix on Tuesday—I think may help me to look at all my systems differently, and maybe get a handle on them, too. A new friend referred me to another book that deals with what’s getting in the way of setting up (and following through with) your systems, so I’m going to check that out as well.

While I’m into this systems-tweaking mode, I’d love to hear of any hacks or tweaks or helpful guides you’ve found, especially ones you’ve already implemented and that have proven especially helpful in the way of wrangling multiple goals and projects. You can leave them in the comments section or email me with them, if you’re feeling shy.

Well, the second half of 2009 already feels different than the first half, and it’s only been a week.

Small joke, but really, there’s more than a little truth to it.

For starters, if I was Q1/Q2 me, I’d be hyperventilating over all the things I did not get done thus far, as it would mean that:

1. I am a failure
2. I have a DOUBLE crap-ton left to do if I want to accomplish the goals I established for myself at the beginning of the year

Strangely, I neither feel like a failure nor am I fretting over the prospect of all I have to do if—and I do mean “if”—I want to meet the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. Instead, I’m pretty pleased that not only have I downshifted a bit, but that I’ve reordered my priorities and even bumped a few up to the head of the list that weren’t on it at the start of the year. Like taking a full day off once per weekend and attending to uprooting and examining some crusty, old habits rather than spending that slice of time dreaming up new ones.

And what’s really amazing is that in one week of focusing on this one-two punch, I’ve already made some significant progress not only on these crusty, old issues, but I’ve dreamed up a slew of ideas for re-focusing my business and for creating some stuff I can actually sell for cash money.

In short, if you’re a Type-A who questions the ROI on downtime, I’m here to tell you, it’s significant.

Accountability

As I mentioned a while back, I recently joined a Master Mind-like group that meets once weekly. It’s a big time commitment—there are four of us, and with each person getting 20 minutes of attention, plus chatter, it can run on for three hours if we’re not careful. For now, though, I don’t care, because it’s been profoundly transformative: I’ve moved ahead two projects that have been stalled for over a year!

Even bigger than that, though, has been the many-minds idea generation and support around gently changing some habits that are no longer serving me, like working my goddamned ass off until I turn into a big crank and everyone hates me. I took a whole day off this weekend, and half-days for the two weekends before, which has done wonders for my mood and the mood of those near and dear. I also got support for getting more support, which has made my experience of being in class more enjoyable and fruitful; my homework assignments have been fun and I’ve met three outstanding fellow travelers, to boot. Win/win!

Speaking of which, I cannot stress how much having baked-in check-in times helps. One thing we do for each other in the group is offer to call someone on the phone to gently nudge them about a hated (but necessary) task; we also do bookending, where the person who has the Hated Task gets to call a designated buddy before (for support) and after (for celebrating). It is a slice of heaven, having this luxury of support. I’m also doing scheduled calls with my homework buddies for class. Seeing the calls in my calendar helps me get the thing done.

If you’re having trouble getting something done, see about buddying up with someone else. Because everyone has something she’s avoiding!

Flexibility

I am not my to-do list. And while my to-do list helps keep me on track, when held up against life, it is a serving suggestion.

This weekend, I’d scheduled some writing time to start at 1pm Sunday. (Before you squawk, writing time is not a hardship, but a pleasure—at least, this type is.) But the opportunity to spend some quality time with an awesome 9 1/2 year old and our beloved dog came up: how could I say “no”? I could not, nor did I want to. Writing was gently pushed back, the three of us are the better for it, and no one missed that I spent less time writing.

Similarly, a few pretty important things came up on Tuesday that conflicted with my usual newsletter prep time. After struggling with it a bit—okay, it was me, exhausted, at 11pm, giving up—I decided the world would not end if the newsletter went out on this coming Wednesday, instead. Which it will, and it will be more awesome, as I came up with a MUCH better, more helpful theme. Seriously. If you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, you should do it now.

Room

The new idea for the newsletter and the slew of ideas I came up with for products, workshops and services are not accidents. They’re the outgrowth of leaving a little breathing room, something I seem doomed to forget. Or blessed to be able to remember, over and over again. (Here’s me, lookin’ on the bright side!) I’ve loved my morning walk with Arnie for a long time; now I’m excited about building in more space. For now, that means tricks and hacks like accountability partners and calendaring, but I know that eventually, it’ll be second nature.

Right?

Don’t forget: Workshop! Chicago! July 17! Me and PAM FREAKIN’ SLIM. Escaping your hateful day job. Be there or be employed in the salt mines!