But I AM working

Written by Mary Lutz

I’m a work at home mom and chances are you are too if you’re reading this. This is a fairly new venture for me-working at home full time that is. I just got laid off from my part time bookkeeping job right before Christmas, and have delved into building up my websites and getting more paid writing jobs. Therefore, I am quite busy during the day and sometimes into the evening writing articles for my 4 sites as well as 4 other ones I write for, not to mention all the maintenance involved in managing 4 websites. It’s important to keep your content up to date and fresh to keep readers coming back and to acquire new ones. Yes, it’s a very busy job, one that I love and hopefully soon I will be able to add an author or two to each of them to help keep adding new content. But for now, it’s all me.

What I’m trying to get at and the point of this article is my family doesn’t seem to think that I am working. Or they don’t realize that even though I work at home now, I don’t have time to pick up after them all the time!!! I try to remind them that I AM working, and that they still need to help with dishes, laundry, cooking, vacuuming, picking up the clutter, etc. But for some reason when they walk by me, see me sitting on the couch, laptop in hand, they think I’m just playing or something. Just today my son, who is 23 by the way, walks by, sees that I’m on a site that is having a giveaway and remarks, “Working huh? Yeah, uh huh. Looks like shopping to me.” I reminded him that I AM working, and finding giveaways on the web IS part of my work. Ugh!

This New Year, one of my goals is to write one article a day for each of the 8 sites I manage or write for. A pretty tall order I might say. The purpose of this goal is to bring new, fresh and exciting content to each of the sites daily, which in turn draws more traffic to the site and keeps readers coming back for more. So far, I’ll say it’s been a little bit of a struggle to post one new article a day for each of them. I have been able to post an article on at least 4 of them a day, plus add new links to relevant sites on 2 of them, but writing 8 articles everyday has been tough. I have done it a couple of times though since setting my new goal.

I’m going to keep my New Year goal where it is, and with a little bit of time management, organization and cooperation from the family, I should be able to meet my goal without killing myself or letting my house go completely!

So, here is a new daily routine I’m going to start, and maybe you can glean a little insight into your day as well.

1. Get out of bed by 8:00AM every day, except Saturdays (hey I need one sleeping-in day!)

2. Do at least 15 minutes of exercise; at least some stretches and crunches.

3. Take a shower right after working out, just as if I was leaving the house to work. I hate feeling grubby all day, and it leaves a better impression with the family.

4. Do something with my hair. I like to let it air dry, which helps with the frizz, but I like to clip it up so it doesn’t have weird flippies everywhere like it does when I just leave it down.

5. Throw on a little makeup. I am one of those people that look tired or ill when I don’t wear makeup, so putting even a little around the eyes helps.

6. Put on something other than pajama pants. I’ve gotten into the habit of wearing comfy pajama pants all day, but I think I should put on some jogging pants at least. That way I appear dressed, not like I spent all day in my jammies.

7. Eat a good, healthy breakfast.

8. Prioritize my writings for the day. Write guaranteed money-making articles first, then possible money-making articles.

9. Go through Email and Google Reader for links to articles relevant to the sites and post where possible.

10. As I think of a topic to write about, place it on the list on my desktop. I keep a handy to-do list right on my desktop; one with my goals and one with a list of the different sites I write for. When I think of a topic for a specific site, I type it next to the site name. That way I don’t forget and it helps keep me on task.

11. Stop working, do a little house work, just as if I were coming home after a day of work outside the home.

It usually takes me less than an hour to write a 600 to 1000 word article, so when I stay focused, and don’t get interrupted, I can get all of my writing done in 8 hours or less. Now if only I can get my family to understand this!!! *sigh*

Tags: