saturday mornings used to be nice

Since I am making my posterous blog my “travel” blog” for this trip, I moved this post over here.

when working in the “other world” I could sleep in on Saturdays. Well, after the kids were grown a bit. But since late 2000, there is no more sleeping in. That is when I became a solopreneur working from home and my own boss. Working on Saturdays often entails the email reading, blog catchup and design work. Like the 3 comps I have to come up with today. It looks like it will be a nice early spring day today (technically it is still winter) so I’ll be tempted to go out and do some yardwork, or clean the inside of the car, or just sit and enjoy the sun and birds and the few clumps of new grass. But, working for myself and having to hustle much more in this down economy, I won’t be able to do that.

So before you go saying that working for yourself is all fun and games, “must be nice to work in your PJ’s”, think again. It is nice and I doubt I could ever go back to working for someone else, but working for yourself means working hours and hours and weekends and weekdays and weeknights. Unless you want to be poor, it is how it is. Luckily I LOVE what I do, so it is not all that bad.

And as for working in my PJ’s… I learned a long time ago, that if I did not treat working from home for myself as a real job, getting showered and dressed and “commute” to work every day, I would stay in PJ mode and not make any money. I happen to like to pay my bills on time and buy new pretty computers, so, I get dressed for work each day. I also set “office” hours, even though people seem to ignore them by calling after hours, or on weekends. With client emails, unless they are earth-shattering important, I don’t reply to them until Mondays, although I may reply to them immediately, and hold on to them as drafts, so that I can capture my gut thoughts on them, and refine them. It seems that more and more people, the late adoptors especially, want you to IMMEDIATELY respond to their needs. Where as once these people could barely use email, they now want you to sit in front of your computer and wait for their email in order to respond immediately. I have a few clients like that, and it’s hard to wean them from that instant gratification. I mean, a web site is NOT LIFE OR DEATH, and no one is going to die if I wait until Monday to reply to your inane question. But I ramble here. It’s just that today, I had a number of clients email me early this morning and already, it is barely 10am, two have emailed me again asking if I got their email from 7 or 8 am. I mean GEEZUSFREAKINCHIRST. None of the requests or questions are important, and I’ll get to them when I can. Now, just for the “lesson” they are not getting a reply until Monday. Period. They can cool their freakin jets.