Cat's Eye Marketing Blog

Permission to Play: The Stressed Out Solopreneur

Up at 5am this morning, I've been at my computer for three hours already and it's only 9:10. My self-imposed blog post deadline is today. I have a festival guide to write for a client. It's due Monday. Tomorrow is Friday and I haven't started.

A marketing e-tip and two articles. Copy for MarketingYourSmallbiz.com's brand new website that launches July 8. Final drafts for our upcoming booth at BizJam, the coolest indie conference on the planet.

I am rocking back and forth in my chair, feeling the crushing weight of Productivity and Deadlines and Promises. I want to pull out a stick of black licorice, but it's just past 9am and it doesn't feel right.

I need something, I just don't know what. Or maybe I do.

Play is Powerful

The stars have aligned this week in a strange, cosmic way. The blogs I read regularly, the people I chat with online, the friends I talk to, have all been tuned to the same message: the importance of carving out space for myself.

For we who are creative randoms, it goes beyond running or yoga or watching old movies, though those are all good stress-breakers. For the artist, play is essential to our self-nurturing.

The adult in me disapproves of the silly me. And yet I know that the creative part of me, who I need to show up for work, depends on getting enough play time.

I used to be better at this. I know that being a workaholic blocks my creative energy. I know that the best ideas come to me when I am playful.

And yet it is hard to schedule that time in.

On one blog, we were challenged to back away from our to-do lists and schedule regular self-maintenance.

To create a list of fun things we can do to take charge of the children in us who are lurking inside, waiting to escape. I know. When you're having fun, there's no point. But that's the point.

I am pulling out the toys I have buried. Yes, I'm going to:

• paint with my watercolor set
• find interesting rocks in the woods behind our house
• juggle (yes, I have my own set of balls)
• make something with glitter and Elmer's Glue
• play with my paddle ball (yes, that board thingie with the rubber string and the little red ball)
• sketch a drawing of my cat
• look at the crazy shapes I create with my kalidescope

Have you fallen into the Productivity Pit? Have you ever stopped working to do something absolutely silly and pointless, yet deeply satisfying? If you did, what was it?

I'd love to hear your comments. Better yet, I'd love to hear how it goes if you try it.

Finding Time for Marketing

It’s a crazy world. Everyone wants a piece of your time. To-do lists are made and tossed aside. And those e-mails, well, they’re like those insistent knocks on the door–impossible to ignore.

The first issue of our e-zine went out today. (Learn more about it at marketingyoursmallbiz.com.) One of the columns, The 15-Minute Marketer, gives our subscribers practical ways to promote their business in as little as 900 seconds a day. Don’t have 15 minutes, you say?

I just stumbled on a resource that might help. I read an interesting post yesterday on the infomarketing blog (infomarketingblog.com). The author suggested some excellent strategies for freeing up more time for the important stuff (like marketing). Some of his suggestions:

1. Make four hours of your work day “uninterruptable.” This means absolutely no checking, sending or answering e-mails (if you are like me, it is an addiction that steals precious minutes every day). No making or receiving phone calls. No checking messages. (I say, let the voice mail take over. That’s what it’s for.)

2. Limit the windows open on your computer to one or two. This applies to the tabs for e-mail, you know, the ones that ping or light up and scream, “Open me! Open me!”

3. Say “no” more often. Bob, my business (and life) partner has this problem. He has to stand in front of a mirror and practice using those facial muscles that produce the word “no.” (I’m not sure he ever learned how to use them!) If you are a “yes” person, you know what I mean.

4. When it comes to your work projects, change your attitude from “I have to…” to “I want to…” Seems like a subtle change, but the mindset of choosing over feeling forced to complete something can make all the difference in the world.

I was never at the top of my game when it came to time management, but I am going to try these strategies. They make sense to me.