I don't deal with business clients over the weekend, although sometimes I will deal with fiction clients – and I am ALWAYS available to my agent! 😉

When I script doctor, I'm on call — I've fed pages in LA to a live, shooting set from NY at 1 AM eastern time, rewriting as they shoot — but the money on that tends to more than cover any inconvenience.

If you work in the entertainment field, you can't expect business hours.

My husband asked me if I'd ever considered taking a part-time job just for the social aspect. I had to laugh, because with the socializing comes the gossip, politics, ladder-climbing behavior that used to drive me nuts. Do I miss any of that? Hell no. But the point I'm trying to make is I told him I work harder for myself than I ever did for a client. I may be able to work six solid hours here, whereas in an office I was required to work eight hours. Try looking busy when you've finished the job. Right. Now when I finish, I look for more work.

Much more productive.

Jake & Lori — Not 16 hours, but I have three 13 hour days scheduled this week. And I worked from the time I got up until the time I went to bed when I first started my business. So it's definitely possible. In my case, I usually only sleep around 6 hours (7 on a good night). It's just what works for me. So maybe that other writer is similar in that sense and going through a workaholic phase.

I'm not usually like that anymore. In fact I can be a bit of a stickler about my super-lean schedule (I used to easily work 60-80 hours per week, now I earn more working only 28 in a normal week). But right now it's crunch time before a big site launch. I'd never pull these kinds of hours for a client project. But for my own, I'm happy to make the exception once in a while.

That said, I have no qualms about taking vaca time when I want to, and I take more than my fair share of days off on a whim. When work is wearing you down, it's time to stop working for a while. When I feel guilty about it, I nip that by reminding myself that I'm only good to my clients if I'm first good to myself.

Sometimes I hate being responsible, but I couldn't enjoy splurging on any non-essentials while my house turns into the 21st Century version of Gray Gardens.

Gabriella, I love that you quoted Tim Gunn! Make it work indeed. 🙂 Hey, if working weekends helps you get time off, go for it, I say! And if you decide to put your weekend in the middle of the week, again, go for it. It's up to every writer to make these decisions for themselves, in my opinion.

Jake, I'm not buying it, either. No way you can work 16-hour days. You have to sleep. If you're really, truly working that long, you have time management or pricing issues.

Twisting. Your. Arm. 🙂

P.S. I don't believe it either.

I simply don't like to work that hard.

And I do love long weekends and vacations. My wife has been at her job long enough that she has 4 weeks of time off, so it's incumbent on me to figure out how to make it work for my biz. Twist. My. Arm!

Take the time off!

I say this as the girl who's been struggling since my April vacation with motivation and guilt over that lack of motivation.

My May was a very bad month work wise, but for some reason, I couldn't make myself push too hard to make it much better. I think my vacation really made it sink in that I need to do that stuff more often–and I want to do it NOW!

Luckily, my June will be much more productive.

Anyway, the point is that you have to know yourself and respond appropriately. If you need time off, take it. I've found there are rarely times when I can't finesse a little time off when I really need it.

Maybe that means working a weekend day. (I hate it, but I'll do it on the rare occasions there's no other way to meet a deadline.) Maybe it means asking an editor for a few extra days. (Again, I don't like to do it, but when I know the deadline isn't really drop dead and it's a long-time client who knows and trusts me, I've asked, and they've always been laid back about it.)

As Tim Gunn says, "Make it work!"

I'm not bad at taking off for a day or half day here or there. After turning in two articles and a column on Monday, I took Tuesday off. Yes, I spent half the day doing yard work, but it needed to be done.

Once in a while I'll plan a day off – sometimes to have a learning adventure with my niece and nephew. But I usually make the time up on a weekend if I need to.

For me, putting in a couple of hours over a weekend can be the difference between a stressful, time-crunched week and a balanced daily workload.

As for actually going somewhere for a vacation – it sounds good in theory but the stress of having to pay for it would be anything but relaxing. Even in a pretty setting, stress is still stress.