That is great if you can do that, Devon. I am jealous. The alarm and lists (yes, there are more than one) help me to be more productive. I rotate my day(s) off, as well, but always try to take at least one day “off” a week.

I work best with large swaths of unstructured time.

I keep track of deadlines and meet them, but I do much better without a structured day — and I can get a HUGE amount of work accomplished without structure — than with it.

The more structured my day is, the more lists, bells, etc. are involved, the more I resent it. And then I start to procrastinate.

I’m glad you found something that works for you, but what works for me is the exact opposite.

I focus, I complete, I move on.

Of course there are bad days, but then I have the option to change things around, take off a few hours, do something that refreshes me.

I have a “floating” day off — I don’t stick to a regularly scheduled non-work day. I see how my week goes and pick my day off as to how my energy and focus are running.

And yes, for the record, I am a full-time freelance writer.

Thanks for the advice, AC. I really should keep track of it. It will be good to know how much I have spent on something, and who knows – I might be happily surprised!

It can be a little disheartening sometimes to see how much time is spent on a given piece – BUT I must say that it’s great motivation to streamline your practices and techniques. I find that when the stopwatch is running, I am less inclined to take phone calls from friends, thus allowing me to stay on task. If the caller ID shows a familiar number, and it’s not one I know I need to talk to, I just let the call roll to voice mail and keep on working.

Thanks for this bit of motivation. I freelance on top of working full-time (the freelance money’s going straight to my upcoming wedding!) so I can relate to the urge to just hang out with my beau and play with the dogs instead of hunkering down. It’s all for a great cause though. Love the Yahoo reminder idea!