What's Urgent, What's Important, What's Both, What's Neither?

If you were working in cubicle life involving bosses looking over your shoulder, content meetings and brainstorming sessions you'd also have drop-dead deadlines from your editor. That knowledge is usually enough to scare you into producing content by the due time. But... It's a whole other story when you are your own boss.

Sure, your bank account will know if you didn't get that pitch sent out on time or weren't prompt with getting an outline to a potential client, but no one else will know. And let's face it, sometimes just staying on Twitter another 30 minutes is more appealing then getting the needed words down on paper.

When being your own one-man (or woman) show, you've got to establish the same sort of drop-dead time limits. If you train yourself to respect these self-imposed deadlines your work will get done better and faster than it would when put off indefinitely.
This takes a whole hell of a lot of self discipline.

What works for me is a simple chart.

Each morning take a look at your pendings. Separate them into four categories: urgent/important, not urgent/important, urgent/not important, not urgent/not important. For instance: the article that should be sent to the editor by the end of the day is urgent/important. The phone bill due in two weeks is not urgent/important. Painting your nails is not urgent/not important (most of the time). Taking advantage of a sale on a new bluetooth you don't technically need is urgent/not important.

Look at those in the urgent/important category and make reasonable but demanding goals for completing these items today. Still have time? Move to the items listed in the not urgent/important category and then to the urgent/not important division. Afterall it is crucial for you to get your phone bill paid. It's not crucial to get the new bluetooth, even if it would be nice.

True, this way the not urgent/not important things won't get done today and probably won't even get done this week. Fine. That's OK. Interestingly enough, if you break up things this way you'll see that when procrastinating you are a lot more likely to work on the not urgent/not important things because they are less stressful and usually more enjoyable.

Lies, More Lies and the Freelancers Who Tell Them

This is not a post... This is a rant...

Earlier today I was contacted by a PR rep that I have been dealing with for some time now. She's got great connections, perfect for the publication. She gets the message, the theme, the types of people we look to profile and most importantly she is prompt and easy to work with. Almost two months ago she pitched a new artist and I immediately assigned the story out to a freelancer who had been basically begging for better stories, more exposure, etc...

Probably three weeks ago this PR rep contacted me and asked where we stood with arranging the interview. I thought the interview had already taken place since the freelancer told me she had the appointment set-up for the beginning of the week. Not wanting to interfere I asked the PR rep to refer to the writer directly about the interview time. (I tend to over-manage so I was trying to step back a little.) A week went by. I didn't hear anything.

I contacted the writer and asked when the article would be in, since we were now two weeks past deadline. She said I'd have it by Friday. But guess what... Friday came and went without an article appearing in my inbox. Then yesterday I got an e-mail from this great PR rep asking what the deal was with the interview and why it still hadn't happened. Um... WHAT???!!!!

Obviously, I've pulled the article from the writer, reassigned it to a new trustworthy, deadline-focused, polite freelancer and had to beg forgiveness to the PR rep, her firm and of course her client.

This whole scenario just goes right along with my earlier post about Freelancers Flaking Out. Sure, we're not all like this. In fact the large majority of freelancers are hard working, focused, non-flightly workaholics. But for those few who are just cruising through you're giving the rest of us a bad name!