D is for Doing If you don't DO something, nothing will HAPPEN. Being self-employed is a unique challenge. I am both employer and the employee. As employee I get to look at what sort of boss I have...fair, demanding, resonable? As employer it's my job to keep an eye on my employee...is she sticking to task? Is she working herself to death? Can I help make the environment more conducive to efficiency, dedication and success? Wearing both hats gives me empathy for both roles. It gives me a chance to look at the big picture as well as buckle down to handling details. I have to strategize as well as implement. I don't so much switch roles as feel a fluidity between them. What all comes down to, though, is simply doing what needs to be done. This can mean setting goals, paying bills, sending out marketing materials, reading articles, learning new software, or cleaning. This give a huge range of possibilities for how any work day may look. While I have a sense for what needs to be done, I try to cater to what I feel I can do most effectively on any given day or part of day. I am a morning person, so conceptual work happens before noon. In the afternoon, when I'm a bit thick, I do mailings or drudgier things. At least I can paint at any time of day. Not being a phone person, if I have to make calls I let my body decide when that will happen and sometimes am surprised to find myself dialing. When I'm really on a roll, I like to work for a few hours in the evening, but that's usually optional and viewed as a gift to myself to free up my mind for the following day. Being busy is not the same as doing. Spending time looking for papers you'd find easily if they'd been filed is being busy, but not doing. This is the employer talking. Many years ago I worked with people who prepared me for working 7 days a week and 10-hour days. I fell for it till I realized they had two hour-long coffee breaks a day, a long lunch, and counted going out for breakfast on weekends as work. Before long I was on a 40-hour 5-day week and being much nicer and more efficient because I was able to get away. For most of my career I've had a home office. The commute is great. I go to the office in the morning, work till lunch, often have luncheon meetings which give me a total break and a chance to connect with people and laugh. Errands happen while I'm out, so I can come back and focus till the end of the day. Each day is vastly different, which has huge appeal for me...looking at the big and small pictures and seeing what rises to be the most critical thing to be done, then doing it. We each have our own motivating forces. Money, sense of self, stimulation. We drive and coax ourselves to do our jobs in different ways. For me lists have been helpful, but they can also be demanding, shaking their little fingers at me if I don't get everything on them accomplished. But lists don't know what unexpected thing may crop up in a day, or what state of mind one is in. Lately I'm finding stickynotes to work best. They keep a given task before me, but allow me to adjust the timeline if needed. Not being bullied (dissing the to-do list again) into doing something makes me much more inclined to actually do it. On those occasional days when I'm not sure what do do I simply do SOMEthing. A friend recently said she hates to clean, but will adjust the fung sui - an fun reframing of a task. Clearing an office of clutter may be the most effective thing you could do. Reading a book that gets you thinking about marketing opportunities may trigger any number of thoughts about where you are and where you, the employer, and then you, the employee need to go with your business. It's all good if you do it.