As I'm making the jump into web work as a full time job soon, I'm interested in what your work days are like. How do you manage yourself to keep yourself productive? I'm imagining something like this as a trial in the beginning: 3 hours day content writing 20-30 hours week developing software / optomizing sites as necessary 2 hours day link building - directory submissions / link exchanges / participating in similar web communities to mine. 1 hour day on site management (inspiring discussion on my own sites, moderating discussions, etc.) Mandatory 2 hours playing with the kids (I want to avoid working so hard that I end up not taking advantage of the time I'm giving myself at home) I actually want to put a much more structured schedule together, but that's the general gist that I'm thinking of. Although I'm excited about the decision I've made, I want to be careful to make my workdays short and productive and take advantage of the fact that I work much more efficiently when I'm well rested and socially balanced.
My day is very similar to yours. If I had kids, I would have the same mandatory 2 hours playing with them as well. That's extremely important to them and it's nice to see that you recognize this and place importance there as well.
This is an easy one... Avoid it like the plague! I think I put in maybe 30 minutes of work this week, removing a few products from 2 sites. Yep that was my stressful work week.
I haven't been doing this long but here's how mine goes. I keep three fire fox tabs open. 1) This forum - I constantly look for new threads, etc. 2) MySpace - Accepting friend request or sending my own out, this is where my traffic comes from for now. 3) My Stats - Trying to analyze / keep up with the data. Since I am [very] new to this I review my content and ad placement a lot, I check for errors, misspellings and so on. I try to review other peoples sites and big sites like yahoo or whatever to see what kind of stuff they do. I spend about 2 hrs total trying to develop new content which includes adding blog post. I spend an unknown amount of time trying to build links through directories or by submitting my site(s) to other related web sites via their 'add a link' features. As of now I have about 10 web sites (including blogs and 1 myspace page used for massive networking) which I try to stay on top of and there never seems to be enough time to do it all !!! Keep in mind, I'm very new and all of my web sites get very very little traffic and have very little content.
hahahah Here's my day! Up with kids (2 boys, 1 is 18 months old, 1 is 4-1/2 years) - and do the Mommy thing all morning. (Diapers, feed everyone, dress everyone, etc.) Check the email, and turn on the IM program. Maybe get a quick chat with a partner or customer. Back to kids - today we played out in the rain with water balloons for like 2 hours, had Chili for lunch, then they got a bath. Now the youngest is napping, and the oldest is watching one of his shows so I can: Check the email, hit the forums - find out any info I need to work with tonight - organize and figure out what all needs done first this evening... and generally make a plan. As soon as the youngest wakes up it'll be back to kids, dinner time, then I might get an hour or two back on the PC while Dad plays with the kids. In which case I usually go through the email again, check in with the partners, whip out some quick graphics, find someone to do some work that needs done, etc. Then it's back to kids - tubby time, snack, nite-nite time. Once I get those two to bed - my work day begins! LOL I usually start real work at about 10-11pm - and go through til about 3-4 am most nights. During these hours: Go through email AGAIN Find new ways of advertising Build relationships in forums Build websites Deal with hosting/website/domain issues as they pop up Buy domain names when I get a brainstorm to do so Work on customer orders for graphics Work on my OWN graphics Talk to partners and customers via IM Deal with learning curves on new programs and ways of doing things Build videos Listen to mp3's usually while working on graphics - learn as much as I can from my "mentors" - check out thier new stuff. Promote a product or two as they pop up - for instance someone will have a sale, and I'll get in on it... or I need to get one of my sites noticed, etc. Now that I think about it, I'm amazed I get any REAL work done - but somehow I do. I find that trying to keep any particular type of hourly shcedule is near impossible. There are just too many interruptions, either from the household, or from someone needing some help, or this graphic needs done now - or I come up with a real brainstorm I gotta go on before I forget... I'd say just go with the flow. If you're staying home to be with the kids, then you may have to work while they are sleeping a bit. Or have a fantastic baby sitter so you can concentrate (which I don't have) - so for me sleep? what's that! Thanks! Michelle