And you’ve hit on exactly why resolutions, without goals attached, are wasted time, Devon. Building blocks — yes. Dreams with no direction? Pointless.

Paula, I do my own creative work first in the day. First 1k on the novel before any client work. The whole day goes better & the client work is higher quality because I’ve met my commitments to my own projects first.

I usually only answer the phone if it’s a sibling or business contact, so that’s not a big deal for me. Neither is Facebook, since I never joined. The Mail system with my new computer has notifications and it’s so annoying. It reminds be of the bad old days on AOL. Because I’m constantly setting up interviews, and more often than not the publicists alert me with short notice via email, I can’t ignore it, but I’d rather glance to see if any important things have come in than hear the chime each time something arrives. (Worse? I can usually see the message sitting there about a minute before the chime sounds.)

I think I need to block out times to work on a couple of personal projects, because once I get my work stuff done I’m usually out of steam. Like right now.

I like the idea of putting Facebook in a folder, Anne. I suspect in my case, just not going online until I’m finished is a good solution.

LOL I hear that, Mary! I’ve actually been able to enforce those boundaries for myself. I give them times they can call, times they can interrupt, and my quitting time. If they interrupt any time around those times, I fail to respond except to remind them I can’t talk right now.

Other than that, it’s a crap shoot. 😉