Get Organized

Today I'm going to talk about a lesson I learned about freelancing. When you have a number of assignments that all need to be done at once, organize them to determine in which order you should do them. Are any of them due before the others? Are any of them more imporant than the others? Here's the lesson I learned: Do any of them require interviews or other research you need to conduct at specific times, like during the typical work day? If an article can be researched completely on the internet, books, or other research that can be done any time, you might want to put those last for when you're up all night the night before your deadline trying to finish. If you need to conduct interviews, do those first! It often takes time to find subjects and connect with them, so give yourself plenty of time.

I have this insane desire to do things from top to bottom, beginning to end. I have a list of articles I need to do, and instead of picking the ones that need interviews to do first, I insisted on doing them top to bottom. Now, my deadline isn't until next Tuesday...but I need to interview doctors. Doctors are busy people. Sometimes they take time off work, like Friday or Monday. Will I get to any in time? I guess we'll find out. I sent emails to five of them in hopes two will get back to me. I'll start making phone calls either tomorrow or Monday...of course, the hard part here is that I need to call them when they're at work...which is when I'm at my day job. Wish me luck.