Busy-ness and Your Writing Productivity
Guilty of answering, “How are you?” with, “Busy,” when it comes to falling into the busy-ness trap? Same, writer friend. Same. Sometimes it’s a good idea to take a step back and think about the ideas of, “it's not a priority” instead of staying, “I'm too busy,” or “I don't have time,” or “my schedule's packed.” In this live, we’re re-thinking busy-ness, busy work, scheduling, and being productive on what we need to get done IN our businesses and ON on businesses. Let’s break down the busy-ness and productivity cycles to work effectively and reach the levels of winning we want.
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If you ever been like me and realize that you are combining busy-ness and productivity and thinking that by doing busy work, you're actually being productive. Yeah. I've been there. It's a huge problem. And there's this thing that goes on where we think if we're just busy all the time and we have our schedule packed all the time that we're going to end up basically getting a lot more done or that, because our schedule is packed, we must be doing it right. Because all of our time is being used up by a bunch of different things. So when we talk about busy-ness and writing productivity, there's a couple of different things that we're talking about here. We're not just talking about managing your schedule and managing your client load and managing the amount of time that you spend between working in your business and on your business.
We're also talking about being efficient in your writing. We're talking about getting the writing done better. We're talking about spending less time working on the actual writing itself, like being more efficient with how we kind of get our writing done in terms of like getting notes and research and putting all of our stuff together and editing and the actual writing process. So we're going to go through a few things here and we're going to do a quick buck update. I have notes too. So I want to make sure I cover a few things. So we'll do a quick puppet real fast. So they're sitting over here. Oh, hi, Bo. You want to treat out both super active today. He's very geriatric.
Good boy, buddy. You got many good job. There you go. Oh my gosh. Street old factory. It's a Trudeau factory.
Oh, many. I see the pet beds all wet. Even doing some licking.
You guys are funny.
There's like my hand. Cause he thinks I have it. All right, bear. I'll give you one more. Cause you're following
Along. You guys are funny. Yeah, there you go. Good job. All right. Everybody had some tree doughs. Great, awesome.
So the first thing I want to go over is like rethinking our busy-ness in our busy work and our scheduling. So here's what we want to do. We don't want to think about packing our schedule full with a ton of different things. We want to pack our schedule with the right things, but also leave free time to do better on our writing, better on our creativity and actual space to just kind of like think things through. So when we're doing our stuff, we don't want to think about being busy all the time as like a good thing. Yes. Like your business will ebb and flow as a freelance writer. But when you're thinking about busy-ness in general, just the fact that you're busy doesn't mean you're working on the right stuff and it doesn't mean you're doing the right things. So for example, for me, um, when I was really busy all the time and uh, I spent all my time working like all my time.
Uh, I wasn't really working in better marketing. I wasn't really paying attention to what prospects would fit my business better. I wasn't paying attention to all the things I needed to do to grow my business to the next level. I was just focusing on the next assignment, the next assignment, the next deadline, the next deadline. Um, when, when are these invoices getting paid? If anything's late, what do I need to do? I wasn't paying attention to the longterm scope of my business. I was just like, oh, I'm busy. Things must be going well because I'm always busy. You know, I always have a deadline. I'm always doing all this stuff. But the problem with that is you end up sort of thinking about busy-ness in terms of just getting things done like that. You just have a lot of work and you're just working all the time and that's great.
But the problem with that is that you don't pay attention to whether it's the right things or the wrong things. So you're working on a ton of assignments, but maybe there are a bunch of low paid assignments. Maybe you're doing that thing where you're like, oh, if I only work on, you know, 10, $200 assignments instead of one, $2,000 assignment, right? You're like, I'll just work on 10. I I'm making these $200 assignments. I'll just do 10 of them and I'll make more money instead of thinking about, well, how can I do a more complex project and get paid better by doing, you know, one, $2,000 project? Oh my gosh, you guys are just a handful today. We've been stuck in the rain just as a side note. We've been stuck in the rain for a while. So we've all been locked inside. There's creepy men. They sit and sit sitting there now, you know, funny. Yeah. We've all been stuck inside. So we're all kind of jumping in a bit. Can you go back to your household,
Go back to your home, go back to your mental health. Good girl. Good job. All right. You guys look so cute.
They've been attention seeking and there've been wild because
You know, we're all stuck inside. Okay. Back to the topic. All right.
So when we're thinking about, um, busy work and scheduling, right? We're thinking about, we don't want to be doing a ton of busy work. We want to be working on the right stuff. So to me, busy work ends up being like you're overdoing your admin stuff instead of getting some sort of system. Um, I used UB Sato. I talk about it all the time. Um, there's a link to it below, but I used them Sato to cut down on the amount of busy work. I do like paperwork or sending invoices or automated responses or putting projects together in that system. It just makes it a lot easier. So I'm not like, oh, and then I'm like, I'm, I must be doing a lot because I'm doing all these emails and sending all these things. We want to cut down on that. So that type of busy work, like all the admin stuff you do in your business, try to automate that as best you can.
So you're not spending your time with paperwork or doing emails. Like if you're anything like me, you wake up and there's like 150 emails in your inbox every day. Um, and they're everything from like things you need to do to press releases to, um, new product launches. People are telling you about to things you need to follow up on to new, new inquiries, all of these different things. And you just have to deal with your inbox, plus all the admin stuff, plus actually doing the writing plus doing, doing well and growing your business. So we want to cut down on all the busy type work that we can because we really want to focus on the stuff that matters, like growing our business and writing great content and helping our clients achieve their goals. So that's one part of busy work. The other part of busy work is that sometimes when we end up doing our content, we do too much for the piece.
So I am definitely guilty of this, where we end up thinking that because we're putting all this time and effort into the article or into the case study or whatever we're working on, that we put all this effort and time into it, then it's going to be better. But sometimes what happens and I'm very guilty of this is that we end up over researching or over adding information because we're really scared that we're going to do it wrong or that we, that we need this piece of information, because if we don't have this, then this thing doesn't make sense. And then it's kind of like, uh, you know, uh, uh, Jenga tower. It all kind of falls apart. Right. But I always try to remind myself, like we're putting pieces of the puzzle together. So we need the right puzzle pieces, not all the puzzle pieces that ever puzzled, right?
Not on not, we're not taking like six different puzzles and putting them together and mixing them up and see if we can make one puzzle. No, we're getting a small puzzle and just looking at it and putting the right pieces in order. So if you end up over researching or spending too much time on something, or just kind of like starts bleeding into other areas, that's a problem. That means that you're like way overdoing it. So in order to cut back on that, what I've done is just like cut down my research. Like I, I don't spend as much time, uh, researching anything and everything. I start feeling like I get to this point where I have enough information to do what I need to write my garbage draft. Then if I'm editing, I'm like, Ooh, I need a stat or a fact. Or, um, I need a study.
I need something to fill this in. Like I'm reading it. And I'm like, Hmm, it needs some support. Then I go find other information. But I start, it took me a long time to kind of get to this place where I'm like, this is enough information. Like I don't need all of the things that ever told me about this, this thing. I don't need to research everything about this, this neighborhood or everything that ever happened in this, in this, um, in this restaurant space or, you know, all the life story of all these things. Like it's okay. That's never going to fit in the piece anyways. It's just sort of like, you have this knowledge that you're like, oh, then now I can add all these things. But what ends up happening is you spend a lot of time where you end up with this big pile of information and you use like 10% of it.
So you, I think what really helped me was just kind of developing this feeling over time of like, Hey, this is enough to make sense for this garbage draft. This is enough information. Like I know from the information, like all the notes, all the research, all the interview, quotes, all the stuff that I've put in here. I know that's enough information for me to get a garbage draft and actually see the flow of how things go, right? Because when we're writing, we're kind of mismatching everything together. So we start with all of this information and then we kind of put it together in our garbage draft. And we're like, how does this actually work? How does it make sense? How can we make it logically flow that we're going to go back and editing? And we're looking through the garbage draft. That's when we're like, oh, now that I see the thing as a whole, I need to chip away at it, hear it, chip away at it there and add this thing here and maybe fix this thing here.
And that stat, I thought I didn't need, I actually need it. Or that stat, I thought I didn't need to look up. I actually need it. That's when you start adding in. So when you find yourself being busy, like you find yourself man, way to go in way too far on a project. Like you find yourself being like, no, I need one more interview or I need to follow up with them and ask them more questions, or I need to do this or this. Like if you find yourself doing that too many times on too many projects, that's when you're like expanding too far into, over researching. And you're adding way too much busy-ness to your schedule. Like you're, you're adding too many things. Now. We definitely want to make sure that we have the information for the article or like the case study or the piece, whatever, working on, like it's, it's fleshed out.
It's good. It makes sense. But we also don't want to make, we also don't want to spend like multiple weeks working on something when it could have been done in a week, I've always kind of like glommed on to this principle. That's like the work that you have expands to fill the time available. So if you have no other work and this thing is doing a month, it'll probably take you a month to do it. If you have two weeks and this, you know, the project could have been done in three or four days. And you know, you're like, ah, the deadline is out for two weeks. It'll take you that long. So think about that in terms of how you put your writing together, how you run your business in terms of admin stuff. And then how you think about busy-ness like, I try really hard now and I still hate those steaks, but I try really hard now not to say like, when someone says like, how are you or how is your business?
I try not to say, oh, it's so busy. I try not to say that. I still say it. I make mistakes. Right? I'm a human being not, or I'm a human being, not a human doing. Right. But I try really hard because like, we're all busy. So saying we're busy is silly. And too, like we, aren't really busy. We're spending our time on specific things. And what happens is we get in this idea of Visy and we spend time on too many things instead of spending time on the right things. So when I say I'm busy, I usually think to myself like, Ooh, am I spending time on the right things? Is my time in my schedule is the time that I spend writing the time that I spend marketing, the time I spend with other writers or the time I spend with, um, like running my course and helping my core students is that all being appropriately managed.
And is that all spending time on the right things? That really matter. That's a big question, right? So if you say like, I'm busy, try to remind yourself like, Ooh, am I spending time on the right things, right? Because you can't get the time back once you spend it on those things. Like the time keeps moving. It's not coming back to you. So think about when you say you're busy, are you actually spending all that busy time on the right things? Like, are you spending the right amount of time doing marketing? Are you spending the right amount of time working in your business versus on your business? Are you spending the right amount of time on admin? Are there places that you can see where you need help? Like, is there some place that a VA can come in and help you manage certain things so that you can get back to like actually running your business and they can take care of all the paperwork, the admin things so that you can kind of move on to the things that your skills are meant for.
Right? The writing things. So think about that a little bit. That was my first point. My next one was, um, we need to talk about being productive. So we need to talk about productivity. Um, and when it comes to working in your business and on your business. So I've mentioned this a couple of times already, but the working in your business is the actual writing. That's like the content creation. Um, that's the anything that you're doing for client calls, client deadlines, project, um, like getting your project scope together. Uh, anything that you're doing in terms of like interviews or research or putting the actual pieces together, like anything that's in your business is the services and stuff that you do in your business. That's the, in your minutes, the, on your businesses, anything you do to grow your business. So the on your business would be like doing your marketing.
It would be connecting with other people, growing your network, attending events, uh, learning materials, like anything that helps you grow your business. And the deal here is that we have to figure out the right balance. And for me, that took me a long time to do so. You have to figure out what is the good balance for you? How much time can you spend in and on your business. So that's one thing too, on this. When you first start out as a freelance writer, you will spend a lot of time on your business and then you will switch to in your business. So on your business will be getting it going, getting your website, getting your LinkedIn up, sending all your marketing stuff, learning how to pitch, learning, how to send an LOI, um, templatizing things, contracts like all the good stuff like the on your business part will be really big because you're starting your business, right?
You have to learn all of those things. And the actual paid writing time will be really small because you're still trying to get clients in the door. As you grow your business, you will spend more time in your business. So you get to a certain point where we're, we're, you're doing a lot of writing work. You're making some money, paying your bills and then the, on your business part shrinks because you're getting more inbound leads. You're getting more. Um, you you've got a process for marketing. That's like dialed in it. Doesn't take very much time. You get it done. And then you go back to writing. So your writing projects become the wealth of your time. You know, you're actually making money and the, the on your business part, it has become process. You have processes and systems and templates to run that. Um, in addition to like thinking about business growth, and it's a lot easier, cause like you already are making money, so you're a little freed up, then it switches back.
So it switches back after you get to pass a certain point because you get faster, you are better at getting bigger projects. So you spend less of your time writing. You spend more of your time growing your business for bigger clients, doing marketing for certain types of bigger projects. So the switch then happens again, where you spend more time on your business growing it. Like if you're trying to hit six figures, that's where you're doing your you're trying to grow your business. And you're being a lot, um, a lot more picky about who you work with, who you're marketing to, um, and how you structure your business going forward. And the actual in your business time, you've gotten a lot faster at writing. Um, it doesn't take you as long to, um, you know, onboard a client. You end up putting more projects in your scope because you're like, okay, cool.
Um, I don't have to worry about the work expanding to fill time available because now all my time available is being spent on paid projects. So the switch is kind of an interesting thing and it evolves over the course of your business. So what you want to do is make sure that you're evaluating your productivity and your busy-ness and your scheduling and the time that you spent in and on your business. So if you're just starting out, just reminder, if you're starting out, you'll spend a lot of time on your business, you'll be doing the marketing, you'll be doing onboarding. You'll learn about your clients. We'll be setting up your website, your LinkedIn, like all the things that run your business. That'll be in the beginning where you work on your business, then it's going to switch to, um, the inner business part where you're not really doing a ton of paid work.
You don't have a ton of clients yet. You're still kind of ramping up. As you grow as a freelance writer, it'll swap, you'll spend a lot more time making money and doing paid writing projects. And the on your business part will be more templatized. And we'll you'll have systems and processes for onboarding and contracts and, um, getting paid and doing your marketing and growing your network. That'll be more of your stuff where you're like, all right, cool. I'm doing a lot more of my pay. My time is paid work. Then it'll swap again. As you grow your business even further. And you're like, Hey, I really want to get to like high six figures or I want to make a really my business really big. And that means I have to be really picky about who I work with and what my project minimums are and what I con what clients I take on.
So that's the on your business part that becomes a much bigger focus. And because you've been a freelance writer for like five or 10 years, the, in your business part shrinks, because it doesn't take you as long to do all these projects, it doesn't take you as long. Like, you know, when someone says, do a case study, you're like, yep. I have a process for that. I know exactly what to do or reported article or a white paper, or they're like, yep, we want to do a content marketing package. It's this. And you're like, sweet, good. Um, or they want you to help with marketing strategy or whatever. Like you already have done enough of those projects that you're like, I know what this is. Like, get on the bike. Let's go. So then you can focus your brain power on making your business bigger and kind of designing it to be more of the schedule that you want.
Like maybe you decide that you want to work less hours, or maybe you decide that you're like, you know what, um, I have enough money in savings. So for the next six months, I'm only going to write for magazines. Um, we're just gonna kind of see how that goes. Yay, Jim, thank you so much. So Jim says, this is worthwhile information. I appreciate the time and effort you've put into the presentation. Thank you, Jim. Um, and then, um, I had another comment here that I didn't get to yet. And she says Farzana is law says really amazing video. Thank you. I hope I'm saying that. Right. Farzana for Zayna let me know if I said that, right. Um, I, I want to make sure I pronounce everybody's name, right? So these are really important principles to hello, to making sure that you have all of the time spent on the right things in your business.
There's a very easy way as a freelance writer to start wasting your time on things that don't matter, like things that, that aren't a big deal in your business. Things that you'll look back on and be like, why did I stress about that? Or why did I worry about it? Things where you're like, oh, um, I know I have a bunch of freelance writers that are doing specific things on LinkedIn, but it's not actually getting money in their pocket. That's a problem. Those are things you have to look at. Like there are specific things that really help on LinkedIn, but they're doing certain things on LinkedIn where it's like, that's good, but you also need to spend time focusing on the things that bring you money in your pocket. Right? So if you're, if you find that you're on a platform and you're kind of getting sucked into the platform, that's a problem.
You're not actually being productive. You're not actually growing your business. You're playing around on the platform, right. Or one of the things that I know is really great. So like a good example here is, um, growing your network on LinkedIn, big deal. Like that's a great thing, but if you're spending all this time growing your network on LinkedIn, but you're not getting money in your pocket, that's a problem that means growing and growing your network is a long-term thing. It can take years for that to pay off. So that's kind of like if you're spending all your time on LinkedIn growing your network, but you're not actually getting money in your pocket, that's busy-ness that you need to work on. That's the things that you need to think about. All right. I have one more point here. And if you have questions, you can just pop them in the chat.
Um, and I I'll answer them once I, once I'm all done, we're like kind of a little bit over where I normally am. Cause I usually end like right about now to do the questions. But if you have questions, pop them in the chat, I'll answer them. Oh, and free pricing guide. I haven't mentioned this in a while. So I updated my free pricing guide a little while ago. Um, but it's linked below. So if you're ever kind of wondering like what you should charge for a project, or like you get a headache when you're trying to think through like different specs for projects and like where you are in your journey and whether you should charge like a lower rate because you're a beginner or a higher rate because you're more experienced check out free pricing guide. Um, you can also go to Mandy ellis.com/pricing guide and download it there. All right. And I would do a pup date, but everybody's kind of wild. Let's see if we can do one more pub date. So Barry's over here, berries over here. Many. Can you go back to your Hobbit hole? Come in.
You got to go back to your hobby hole, go back to your half a hole. There we go. You're almost there. Good job. I don't know why Hobbit hole is a thing for her. Like when I tell her to go back to her pet bed, like
That doesn't make sense. But for some reason, when I tell her to go back to her Hobbit hole, that makes sense to her. I don't know if it's because I said it too much
Or what, but good job guys. Oh, bless you. Bless you.
So, all right. Our last point here is that we want to make sure that we break down our cycles. So we want to make sure that we, the way we do this, and we actually work on breaking through our cycles and paying attention to what's going on is we have to spend time analyzing our business and seeing what's going on. So if you notice that you're spending a lot of time on X, write that down. If you notice that you've spent 40 hours this week, not doing anything super productive, but all your time was wasted. That's a problem. Write that down. This is something that people forget to do. Like we're writers, write it down. It's not that hard. If you sit there, like this has happened to me so many times I get to a Friday and I'm like, what the F happened this week.
I don't even remember what I did. I don't remember. Like, I'm like all the time has gone all the time has gone. Where did it go? That's a problem. Write that down. I don't remember what happened this week. Now. One of the ways I fight that is I have my calendar set up for all of my stuff. So all my appointments, excuse me, all my appointments, all my deadlines, all my important stuff. Um, all of my different things are all set up in my I Cal and I have like 10,000 reminders for things. So I know when they're due. Um, so that kind of gets it out of my head. So that's one of the things that helps me kind of look back at the week and say like, what did I actually do? Some people like paper calendars and paper planners. I have a really hard time with that.
Um, I, for some reason the writing it down on paper, um, just doesn't always stick. Like when I have digital reminders coming up on my computer, which is where I am all the time. That helps me be like, oh yeah, don't forget. And then I can like move on. Cause I know that reminder will come back and tell me, don't forget. Don't forget. So when you're looking at your schedule and you're feeling like, I don't know what I did. If you don't have your calendar, you need to start having some sort of management system. Like you need to have like your Google calendar, Cal or fancy digital calendar or paper calendar, or something that helps you look back on the week and see, Hey, like what was I actually doing? Where was I spending my time? How were things going? We need to have some sort of tracking system.
That's one thing is like, if you find yourself at the end of the week and you're just like, I don't know what happened. Where did my time go? You got to have some sort of database to look after. And every time something happens, write it down, write it down. Like, this is one of the things that we talk about. Um, often, like if we, when we talk about mental health, right, is like awareness. You can't fix the problem. If you're not aware, you have to become aware that is a problem. And aware that something is going wrong in order to change it. Right. So if something weird is happening, write it down. And I keep it, like I do my stuff digitally because like, I like the idea of being able to see it on my computer or my phone, or like what, you know, it goes everywhere.
I don't have a single piece of paper that I'm like, oh, wait, I have to go back to my, to the headquarters, which is like, where we are now. It's just like a little room that I put my office in. We call it the headquarters, like have to go back to the headquarters, get that piece of paper. I just like have it on my phone, on my notes app. I'm like, oh, what did I do? Notice this, write that down. So that's another thing when we are, um, looking at our cycles, right? When we actually want to move up in income, we want to work with better clients. Um, well we want to have our time back. You know, a lot of us freelancers got into freelancing because we want to have our time back. This is one of the things I really struggle with is like getting time back in the right places.
So we have to pay attention to those cycles. That means we have to do those quarterly and by annually and annual reviews, that means that every three or four months, we should be looking at our business, seeing what's going right. What's going wrong. What do we need to do to fix it six months? So like right now, June at the end of June will be six months through the year. So at the end of June, look back on the first six months of the year and see like, what happened? Like, was it great or was it a show? Like what were things going in the right direction? Or were there a lot of things you would have changed? How would it, how does it look then that gives you better planning for the next six months. You won't be spending all your time and energy and effort on things that you're like, oh, I spent all this time, the first six months of the year growing my LinkedIn network.
But you know what? I didn't do get a paid job. That's a big problem. The next six months, I need to actually work on outbound marketing, sending LOI, sending pitches, actually getting money in my pocket. When you get to the end of the year, that's when you look back on all of your different reviews and all the different stuff that you've been doing in your business and seeing like, Hey, what, how, how did this year work? How did my changes work? How are things going? How can I plan better for next year? This helps you break out of these weird cycles that happen. Oh, there she goes. This helps you break out of these. Oh,
Shaken everything. Hello? Hello.
Out of these weird cycles that happen where you get lost, where you're like, how did the year go by now? We're in 20, 22 or now halfway through 2021. You have to take a minute and stop and take a business breath. Oh, what was I doing? What is happening? Right. Like you need to make sure that you're paying attention to all this stuff that's going on. Otherwise you get trapped as a busy bee. Um, just because you're a busy bee doesn't mean you're an efficient bee. That's the problem. Busy bees are just like paperwork, stamp, paperwork, stamp, write this thing, stamp. Like we're done the check the box, like they're not using all the rest of their brain. They're just like checking the boxes and doing, doing the things, just kind of like robotically. We kind of have to step back from that and we need to be both, like I said, in your business and on our business, we need to manage our business and also work in our business.
And the way we need to do that is like, take a step back. Think about the cycles we've been doing. Look through our little lists where we're like, oh, this is our like awareness list of weird stuff that we've done. Right. Then we need to pay attention to the analysis part. We gotta sleep sleeper. Um, the analysis part is really a key to making your business grow. And a lot of writers just get sucked into this thing where they're not actually looking at what they're doing. Like I have these conversations with coaching students all the time where it's like, how do I do this? I'm like, what have you been doing? And they're like, oh, I don't even know. I've just kind of been doing this and this and this. I'm like, and how is that working? And they're like, it's not, well, why not?
And then they, they, they don't go through the steps of like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? How is it working? Or how is it not working? What should I do? Why is, why am I doing, going to do this new thing? You have to think through all of these processes to move from being a busy bee, to being an efficient bee who actually works on the right things at the right time and gets the, it gets better projects, better clients, get your time back. So any questions you can pop them in the chat. That's kind of like my spiel. I might have like a few more things to say, but if you have any questions, you can pop them in the chat. If you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a little thumbs up. Um, if you feel like you want to learn more about being an efficient freelance writer and not a busy bee, make sure to subscribe below.
But I think the most important thing here is really, for me thinking about like the very top level thing is like, when someone says like, how's your business going? Or how are you doing, moving away from the idea of I'm busy? Which means nothing. Like everybody can say that everybody's busy. Cause they're busy in different ways. And thinking about whoa, if I said I'm busy, like, what am I actually doing? Where is my time going? Am I spending it on the right things? Are there ways to make processes more efficient? Are there ways that I can move away from just like running around and doing a hundred things to actually getting the right things done, to actually growing my business, to giving myself space and time to do other things. So I thought, I think for me, anytime you end up hearing yourself saying like, I'm busy, you need to really think about like, what are you working on?
That should be a signal to your brain? Like, what are you working on? What are you spending your time on? How are things actually going? Where do I need to do my analysis? Am I at my quarterly, my annual, my biannual analysis. And, you know, look at your calendar. There's something where, um, there's some productivity experts as say, like they know exactly what's most important to you by looking at your calendar. Right? But the problem is when they look at your calendar, it's like, if it's filled with meetings that aren't going anywhere, that's a problem. If it's filled with deadlines for very tiny projects, that's a problem. You're not actually getting time to work on the other things in your business. So think about what's a priority. What do you want to spend your time on? Are you actually doing that? And where's like the busy-ness part.
Are you wasting a lot of time on platforms? Are you wasting a lot of time by not systematizing and putting different templates and processes in your business? Are you not, um, mint? Are you like overrun? And maybe you feel like you need a VA or someone to help you out think through all of those different pieces, because it's really important to making sure that you kind of get out of the busy-ness trap and you have this space between you and what you're working on. So you can actually look at it with clearer eyes and a clearer mind instead of just like working on it and putting all the pins and everything and you know, putting out the fires. Right. That's a thing like a lot of managers say is like, oh, I'll just put out fires. It's like, no, you need to pay attention to what you're doing.
Like, not the way that makes sense is like, you're not in react mode, you're in respond boat. You don't react to things. You respond to them. You like take your time. Think about it. When you're in busy B mode, you're reacting all the time. Like, oh, I'm busy. This thing happened. And this thing happened. I got to do this and oh my God. Yeah. And I'm guilty of that. I'm totally guilty of it. But I try to make sure to remind myself like, Hey, am I being busy on the right things? Am I putting the time and being productive on the right things rather than just being busy just to get something done. So I hope that was helpful. I don't see any questions in the chat right now. So I hope that was helpful. Uh, we have, I'll do one more pup date just cause like when she's still over here hanging out. So we'll do one more pub date. Cause it's Friday berries, berries
Being good at it. We're here. Here he is. Good job, buddy.
Can you go back to your Hobbit hole? You have to go back to your house. Oh,
Go back to your Hobbit hole. Good job. Good job. You're doing great. There you go. I like your little funny noises. Good job. All right.
Great. Awesome. So I hope this was helpful. Uh, if you feel like you want to learn more about freelance writing, subscribe below. If you feel like this was awesome, give it a thumbs up. A free, free pricing guide is linked below, but you can also go to Mandy ellis.com/pricing guide. If that's one of the things where you're like, I don't know how to price things on spending, wasting my time being busy. I'm trying to figure out pricing, get the pricing guide. It's free, easy to use. Um, hope you have a great Friday. I will see you next week.
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