LOL Paula, when have I ever learned to follow my own advice? 😉

Your dad was genius at this, wasn’t he? I know Jake Poinier practices his second rule quite a bit. Good idea.

I have one quick turnaround — due on Monday — but it should be easy. Should. It’s the ones you think will be easy that often bite you. 😉

My dad’s two rules of freelancing were:
1. Never turn something in too early, or your next deadline will be shorter.
2. Always leave one tiny, easy-to-fix error for the client to find. That will make the client feel smarter and feed his need to change things.

Dad was a graphic artist, so it was easier for him to have some tiny little thing to fix – it was like those mind puzzles where you have to find several errors, only he only gave them one.

I guess I did! Gabriella, we’re both over our heads in work. It’s easy to enforce boundaries when you’re just damn tired.

I love the Shonda Rimes move — perfect!

I’m sitting here staring at 14 deadlines. I won’t make them all, and the clients already know it. I’m one person. Their projects are all important to me, but they can choose good or fast, not both. 😉

Totally with you. Overworked. Clients are going bananas. I had to push back against one, and it worked. I curate two newsletters for the client, and staffers submit the items I curate. And they were totally ignoring deadlines and just submitting stuff late. And it was a nonstop project rather than an every-Monday or ever-Thursday project. I contacted my staffer and said, “Can you please send a note to everybody and make it stop?” We did. Turned out, staff had lots of turnover and new staff had no idea of deadlines. So one tip: See if you can enforce order when clients seem to be throwing them out the window.

Also, don’t respond after hours or weekends. Totally. I just don’t. I once heard Shonda Rimes be interviewed, and she’s a big shot in a tough business. She said she instructs her staff to have a notice on their emails that goes something like this: I’ll respond on Monday, unless this is an emergency, in which case, call me at —–. And she never gets calls. And she’s never had a situation in which she was sorry she protected her time instead of responding.

In other words: This is likely more about you than the client. When you tell clients how you work, they nearly always respect it. Unless you permit them not to.

Love the idea of giving long time estimates and not turning in until the deadline. Agree, that also sets expectations. If you finish more quickly than clients expect, they start to question your fee. And darnit, I charge more because I have years of experience and lots more skill than others. That turns out in me spending less time doing work others will take longer to do. That’s why you pay me more, not because it takes me a long time to do work.

OK, rant over. You hit a nerve here!!! 🙂

Oh Krista, I need that same housecleaning company. The place is a wreck. I’m almost glad for a pandemic because no one is visiting!

It is cyclical, isn’t it? But the work comes back because you’ve built your reputation and have satisfied clients. I think you’re good to take a vacation. 🙂

I have also reached meltdown territory when I have that feeling for weeks on end that I just can’t get it all done. I do in the end but it is an awful feeling.

Another thing I could do (but haven’t yet) is just pay someone to come in and clean my house for a few hours a week when I’m working really long hours. It’s a source of stress for me during my busy times that could be avoided.