Momphabet Soup - The ABC’s of being a Freelance Writing WAHM

Some freelance writing Moms are writing at home with babies underfoot and some write for a living with school aged kids that are either in school or home schooled. I’ve met plenty of freelance writers who have had various situations to contend with.  Super WAHMs do it all with a smile on their face (most of the time, anyway).

While your schedule is going to vary depending on a lot of things, having a schedule is a very good idea for ensuring that:

• Your work gets done and your writing career blossoms
• Your house doesn’t go to pot
• Your family doesn’t feel neglected
• You don’t crash and burn out

One of the great things about a freelance career that allows you to work from home is that it can be flexible.  That said, you have to run it like a real business if you truly expect it to be successful.

I have a child in school full-time and another in school alternate days as he’s in junior kindergarten. I thought that this year would bring me oodles of time with every other day free but so far it hasn’t resulted in my not having to work nights and weekends yet.  So I need to fix that as I strive for balance.

WAHM Schedules

I’m working on devising a new schedule to try to cope with work and the house and still try to find things I like to do such as watch my favourite shows, spend time with my family, have time to put make-up on and flat iron my hair once in a while. Not to mention maybe even getting to read a novel or paint my nails every once in a while,too!

Here’s what I’ve recently come up with for the days both boys are in school. When they’re home, some couples have Daddy watch the wee ones while Mommy catches up on work and some Moms just struggle trying to do it all and stay up really late or just let the housework go down the tubes. Some wahms hire a Mommy’s helper once in a while which is a great idea, too. Whatever your situation is, a schedule should help.

The following is a schedule I’m planning to follow on the days the Wee Boy is in school in the hopes that the days he is home I’ll have more time to do things with him as well as get some work time in:

I’ll let you know how it goes.

8:20-10:am: Read and respond to new e-mails, check on all my sites and passive earning and affiliate marketing earning reports plus write for my daily blog gigs

10:am-10:30: Housework

10:30-11: Exercise

11-12: Break to watch Y&R

12pm: Eat lunch and then do my freelance writing work until 4:ish when kids come home

4-6:30: Family time, dinner, misc housework

6:30-8: Work

8-12: Family/Hubby/Coronation Street/ Dana time

*****

Today what I generally do is just multitask my rear end off all day long and often alternate between family and work until I flop into bed (way too late) at night. I tend to let the house go when work is crazy and a messy house messes with my creativity so it’s definitely advantageous of me to try to find more balance.

Hopefully this schedule will result in productivity work wise when I have no kids in the house and allow me to be more flexible and less harried on weekends and the days that the 5 year old is home with me.

I’d love to hear about your scheduling challenges and your scheduling solutions.

Who has a nasty stomach flu but still takes care of her (also flu-stricken) husband and two boys (who are ALSO flu-stricken) and her freelance writing business?

SuperWAHM.

Who feels like death warmed over but still manages to write a 3000 word course for one client and a 10 page report for another client over a weekend with 2 needy sons and a needier husband with a nasty tummy bug that results in  expulsion of fluids from almost every orifice?

SuperWAHM.

SuperWAHM also cleaned the bathroom twice, the kitchen about 3 times,  ran out for soup, BRAT diet stuff, Children’s Gravol, and hubby’s vices. She also mopped up copious amounts of dog whiz from her aged 13 year old golden retriever twice this weekend, took care of The Boy’s stinky pets, and did about 4 loads of laundry.

Yep, good ‘ole SuperWAHM.

Let’s just hope SuperWAHM’s doesn’t look like StupidWAHM to her 2 new clients (whom she had to write for this weekend) and hopefully they don’t write to her Monday morning asking for their money back on those writing projects. SuperWAHM hopes the the feverish and painful writing she did amid disastrous conditions resulted as decent output as she thinks it was under the dire circumstances.

Au Revoir for now..

(Oh…What actually rocks about the stomach flu?  SuperWAHM lost 3 pounds this weekend.  That’s me…always finding the silver lining!)

Have you seen the new Kindle 2 from Amazon yet? Oh my goodness, I want this device! It reminds me of Star Trek. I didn’t think at first that anything would be as good as feeling a book’s paper as you read it but I think the Kindle 2 is going on my Christmas wish list for this year.

Some impressive Kindle 2 features:

-wireless access to the Kindle store to buy titles (no wireless fees or worrying about finding WiFi) electronically
-Kindle can use text to speech functions to read text to you if you want
-Holds up to 1,500 titles
-crisp text makes it as easy to read as a page, even in the sun
-weight of just over ten ounces
-you only need to charge about every 2 weeks so this sounds great for vacations
-you can subscribe to newspapers, magazines, and blogs to be delivered to the Kindle
-free access to Wikipedia.org

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Amazon would like to send me one so I can do a detailed online product review? If they don’t, this is going on my Christmas list.