Time after time....

We're a week and a half into the summer here.


I'm not sure about anyone else, but part of the reason I freelance is so that when we get to the holidays, I can take some downtime with my kids - so that there's no holiday problems with care for them, and so that I'm not spending every minute in work wondering whether I'll need to leave early and find they've caused riots.


It does mean, however, that all of the work I'd planned on doing is being is being sandwiched in between episodes of Hannah Montana and Tom and Jerry. It's a nice life, but it's hard to measure the value of the work I'm snatching in. It also means that I've been pushing back and pushing pack things like theme designs and my fiction writing. I got up on Sunday morning though and decided that I needed to stop procrastinating and actually take control!

So, I've written a post over at Publishhacks about the best, and worst freelance tools, in my opinion, for monitoring and supporting any freelance career.


I'm always expanding and testing them though, so I thought I'd find out what your favs and time sinks are.


(so far, I've got Xobini, RescueTime, WordPress, the Internet (wikipedia), The Internet (RSS), Zoundry Raven - some good, some bad ;)) What do you have, and come on over to PublishHacks, to find out about the tools I've mentioned.

Seven weeks till summer...

Image from FlickrAs a child, though the weather said it was 'summer', I never - really - accepted that until I finished up school for the last day of the year. Summer, in which case, technically started for me sometime in April, but that's not when summer starts in our house. Summer, officially starts on the first day of school holidays for the kids.
So, I have seven more weeks until I'm being driven batty every day by 'mum can I have a drink, mum can I have an ice pole, mum I'm bleeding, mum he cheated, mum she pushed me, mum she's not sharing, I'm telling mum, I'm telling mum, I want, I can't, I will, I won't....'
That's seven weeks of freedom, in many ways - I have one class until the holidays, and that's it ;)
In these hallowed seven weeks, I'm going to make sure I've got enough books to read at the park, enough pads of paper to make it through swimming classes, enough plasters and reward stickers, diluting juice, bribes, loose change and all of the other bits and pieces that every parent needs to get thorugh the summer. Sanity is, of course optional, and is probably going to be a frayed rug, again, by the end of the holidays, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I deliberately don't book during the summer, and ask my clients to plan accordingly, because the summer is for the kids.
What are your plans for summer?