Work Again Postpones Work

Landed a couple of great copywriting gigs. One is pretty SEO-heavy - building out a catalog of really nice product descriptions. The other is more generalized - I am doing some press releases and content pages for a retailer.

But both gigs are the result of cold calls from the site. The site is old, and I was in the process of updating it...but now I am sidetracked again with other things to do.

Unfortunately, this is a trade I have had to make repeatedly over the last year or so....but I will get to my rebuild sooner than later. It is a personal goal more than anything else, because professionally this old site seems to do just fine for me.

Knowing Your Limits
So the SEO copywriting tip that best applies to my situation here, is to know your limits. For instance, I know, with the 2 newly signed clients, one other new one I have starting later this week, and the existing clients I serve regularly, I am pretty much at maximum capacity for the next 3 months. This is great - I look forward to the new work, and the money will be nice when it is all said and done.

But at this point, I need to be really careful in balancing my workload and managing my client's expectations. If I am not careful, being busy becomes being frantic, and that hurts the copy and that is never good. I know my limits, and I am about there right now - very comfortably busy, but not frantic or harried. I don't want it to go any further.

However, freelancing experience tells me that when it rains, it truly pours. So I expect more of this - more cold calls and existing relationships asking for favors and projects. And I'll need to determine when enough is enough.

Usually, I determine whether or not I can do more work based on the creative demands I have during any given day. To me, most site building and code maintenance is pretty easy to do on auto-pilot, while writing can be much more mentally demanding.

And there is a definite sway of the dollar to consider. If I have a client that I know pays well and is responsive, I am much more inclined to do all I can to keep them wanting more. If a client is a demanding, cheap, pain-in-the-butt (and believe it or not, there are a few) I feel no anguish in letting them find someone else.

I will end up picking the jobs I most want to do, and either delaying or passing completely on the rest. I do my best to be judicious in evaluating the demands of each experience, so I can feel like each is receiving my best. My clients are paying me to make sure of it, and I don't disappoint.

But I do so often get a little too happy with my commitments...Iwant to do everything for everybody all the time, so I might get a little overwhelmed if I am not careful. I will do my best to follow my own advice here.

And I will also take the problem of being too darn busy...it is a really nice problem to have.