Well, it’s been about a month since my last update, and I’ve decided to focus today on tips for staying cool under fire…this, after writing religiously every day for a couple of weeks. I confess, after writing my last entry about regulating tasks and maintaining a decent schedule - my tasks exploded and my schedule went to hell. This is called not practicing what you preach!

Because of the insanity of this past month, I’ve decided to put together a list of tips for staying cool under pressure - a new, streamlined approach to handling an overwhelming, almost impossible list of tasks and projects in a way that lets you complete them without sacrificing your livelihood or your family life. It really is possible - and I’ll show you how I’ve finally done it with my own schedule (it’s also the reason that I’m finally blogging here again).

Taking Stock of Projects and Status

So, you’ve got 5 or 6 clients and they all want a piece of you? The better you are as a writer, the more likely you’re going to find yourself in this situation. Once people recognize that you are able to produce quality content at a reasonable speed, you’re going to discover that opportunity knocks. The downside is that opportunity is going to knock from so many sides that you’re simply going to run out of hands to open those doors. You can’t do everything for everyone.

Once you’re at a successful point in your writing career where you have more opportunities than you know what to do with, it’s time to take a step back and reorganize.

From day one, you probably wrote for peanuts just to get your name out there and your writing recognized. After a while, you went from writing for practically free, to writing $10 to $20 articles. The next thing you know, you’re getting offers to write for professional blogs at $35 to $50 and up, as well as job opportunities for editing and management. This is what you’ve worked so hard for - but if you just keep taking more work, eventually you’re going to run out of time and burn out.

So, take a few moments to create a complete and detailed list of all of your current job responsibilities, as well as any upcoming opportunities that you’ve been offered - and make sure to associate an earning amount and “time to complete” for each task. This will help you gauge the true value of your work as well as priority.

Shift Priorities to Higher Paying Work

Here’s the scenario: You have two clients who both want you to write for them as much as possible. You are completely tapped out on time, but you have space to fit in about three more articles per week. One client pays $25 an article, and the other pays $45 per article. Which client should you offer to write more articles for? It certainly doesn’t seem like rocket science does it?

What complicates matters a little bit for writers is when you’ve been writing for a lower-playing client for a very long time, and then a higher paying client comes along and offers you work. Most writers take on the extra work, but maintain their previous workload with other clients.

However, if your new client is offering you even more articles (if you had that time to write them) at such a higher rate than your old client pays, wouldn’t it make sense to cut back on your writing for the old client? This seems intuitive in writing, but you’d be surprised how many writers I’ve met who simply can’t let go of any work, even if it means they’ll be able to replace it with work that pays more. It comes down to your ability to say no to people.

Tips for Staying Cool - Plan Out All Hours Available for Work

I’ve tried all sorts of approaches for scheduling and managing my work, from utilizing online calendar applications like Google Calendar (which I do still use), as well as Astrid for my mobile Droid. It seems that, inevitably, I always come back to using my trusty Excel spreadsheet.

This week I tried using a new color-coded schedule system in Excel, with a different color representing a different client, and assigned blocks of time for the tasks that I need to accomplish every week.

Originally, I had an Excel spreadsheet that just listed all of the tasks I needed to do without any color coding at all, but by coloring blocks of time, it better differentiates the limits of your blocks of time - and there’s no question where the task starts and stops. Most importantly, use large gray areas for periods of time when you simply do not do any writing work, whether that’s time off, time with family, or otherwise.

This approach insures that not only do you get your work done when you’re supposed to, but it also assigns blocks of time to not working, which is just as important to not getting burnt out.

Respect Your Schedule!

Rule #1 to making an efficient schedule work is this is more important than any other one of these tips for staying cool under stress - follow the schedule you’ve defined. Don’t overrun the block of time you’ve set up for work and then eat into your evening sleep, because the next morning you’ll never be able to get up and accomplish the block of time you’ve set aside there. Each overrun will intrude on the next until you’ve completely burnt out.

What makes a schedule work is when you respect it and follow it. Trust that you’ve analyzed your demands properly and that you’ve assigned the right priorities. After that, stop worrying about what you’ve got due next - just focus on that task at hand and get it done in the time that you’ve assigned (or earlier). Make sure to assign enough time to the tasks (don’t short-change yourself), and you’ll find that not only are you less burnt out, but when you are not working and taking time to relax, you’ll worry much less.