It’s been five days since I got back from vacation and between blogging here and at SecondAct, and doing umpteen loads of laundry (read this post if you want to know why), I’ve been catching up on what’s happening in the freelance, writing and media business. Here are links to some highlights:

Writing

A Victim’s Tale: What it’s like to be on the receiving end of a press error (CJR) – Regret the Error blogger and CJR columnist Craig Silverman talks with an Akron, Ohio, man about how the local paper mistakenly reported that he’d fired a shot at a burglar rather than the other way around. “I’ve still got some faith in the paper, less than before, perhaps. But I wouldn’t trust that reporter to give correct movie times,” the man tells Silverman.

• Do Writers Read Differently than Non-Writers? (Jenny Hansen’s Blog)
• Writer Faster: 12 Top Tips for Freelance Writers (Productive Writer)
• Blog Burnout (Oregon News Incubator)

The Media Business

Why Do You Like Bad News? (Gizmodo) – The age of social network “Like” and “Favorite” buttons has created a paradox of people giving positive feedback to negative news. So be it, writes Mat Honan in this exploration of the nuances of non-f2f communication in the social media age. But “after you click that easy dumb little button, write a reply,” he says. “Say something. Use your human capacity for language. You don’t even have to say much. Just a little text. If you don’t know what to say, you can just say ‘sorry.’ It’s enough.

• How the Los Angeles Times is winning with social media (The Next Web)
• YourHub ‘s sobering case study about what happens when newspapers plunge into hyperlocal (Romenesko)

If you’re a one-person shop, you’re responsible for marketing and sales (pitches and contract negotiations), creative (research, reporting, writing, editing), billing (sending invoices), collections and promotions (Twitter, Facebook et al).

Not only is it difficult to figure  out how to divide your time to cover all those aspects of running a business, you also have to resist giving into to a myriad of potential distractions – after all, you can’t exactly turn off email and Twitter if you use both for work, right?

During the Feb. 23 WordCount Last Wednesday live chat we used the hour to talk about time management for writers. Close to a dozen freelancers shared their biggest frustrations and the steps they take to stay organized and productive. They also shared tech tools they use to keep on top of work.

In this recap, I’ve included the very best parts of the chat, which I’ve structured in Q&A form:

What are writers’ biggest time management struggles?

Writers’  obstacles to using time more effectively fall into these categories:

• Balance – Meeting current deadlines and marketing to existing and new clients to keep work coming in.
• Focus – Switching from task to task or project to project without getting distracted.
• Expectations – Creating realistic expectations for how much can be accomplished in an an hour, day, week or month – so you don’t take on too much and feel overloaded or too little and not be able to pay the bills. “I yo-yo between saying yes too much or too little,” says Boston freelancer Susan Johnston. “Things fall through so sometimes I end up with the right workload.”
• Flexibility – Staying loose enough to deal with the unforeseen circumstances that inevitably crop up while maintaining enough structure to finish projects on deadline. “Someone asked, ‘What’s your typical day like?’ San Diego freelancer Louise Julig says. “I said, ‘What’s a typical day?’”
• Multitasking – Working on multiple projects simultaneously, a normal part of a freelancer’s life.

What strategies do writers use to stay productive?

Writers say they use a wide range of strategies to stay productive. Here are some suggestions they made during the chat:

1. Turn off distractions. Disconnect the phone. Don’t check email. Turn off the Internet. Don’t answer the doorbell. If you absolutely must stay online, close all but one tab on your browser.

2. Use a timer. Set an egg timer or an online timer for 30 minutes or another specific period of time and don’t do anything but write. Give yourself a short break, then set it again, and again until you finished what you’re doing.

3. Use a goal buddy. Some freelancers team up with a writing partner they check in with on a regular basis to keep them accountable for how they’re using their time. Some writing buddies check in with each other every hour, others once a day, once a week or once a quarter.

4. Set goals. Laura Vanderkam, a New York freelance writer and author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, says she writes out big priorities for week. It’s a short list, “but they have to all get done. Schedule ‘em in. Leave floater days open for flotsam,” she says.

5. Reward yourself. Many writers say they set daily or weekly goals and reward themselves for finishing tasks or meeting deadlines. Rewards don’t have to be big – a walk with the dog, an afternoon nap, coffee with a friend, a glass of wine. The point is to treat yourself for getting the job done. Other writers say the only reward they need is the one that counts the most – the paycheck that comes after they’ve filed a story.

6. Break your day up into chunks. “I try to block out my time and schedule 1-2 hours dedicated to each project, and not do work for anything else during that time,” says Denver freelancer Nicole Relyea. “I use a whiteboard that has sections for each day of the week,” says Portland freelancer Jennifer Willis. “I map out my daily activities for the week, and try to stick to it.”

7. Follow a formal productivity regime. Some writers swear by productivity regimes such as David Allen’s Getting Things Done, The Artist’s Way or Tim Ferris’ The Four-Hour Work Week. Others say they’re turned off, especially by Ferris, who suggests only checking email twice a day. “I felt like it was based on a faulty premise. Some emails DO require immediate answers,” Johnston says.

8. Use a to-do lists. Some writers swear by to-do lists (including me), and are hooked on the immense satisfaction that comes with crossing things off the list once they’re finished. “I stick with a to-do list that I accomplish in any order. I’m not restricted and feel accomplished at the end of the day,” says Florida writer Sakura Chica.

9. Work when nobody else is. Some writers get up early (me again) or work late, so they can write without interruption.

10. Work when you’re “on.” Use the time of day when you have the most energy to tackle the hardest tasks on your to-do list.

11. Tackle the hardest stuff first. Pick the one thing you’re dreading and do it first – getting it out of the way can be enough of a psychological boost to carry you through the rest of the day.

12. Hire help. Use a virtual assistant to take care of administrative tasks, or off load non-work chores such as housecleaning, yard maintenance, grocery shopping to carve out more time for work. “I hired a virtual assistant to handle some of my administrative tasks, freeing me up for big picture thinking,” Johnston says. “She proofreads, researches, formats guest blog posts, searches for images on Flickr, etc.”

Next up: tech tools for time management - In my next post, I’ll recap the different software programs, browser apps and other tech tools that writers use to manage their time.

You can see the entire transcript of the Feb. 23 WordCount Last Wednesday chat here, or look for it on Twitter by using the hashtag #wclw. For another take on the chat, read writer Amara Levine-Reich’s recap, The Wisdom of the Twitter-sphere.

What tips can you share for better managing your time? Please share by leaving a comment.

Today’s topic: Tips For Improving Your Writing

25 tips for better freelance writing – Never go into an interview cold. Don’t be afraid to ask dumb questions. Show, don’t tell. Use active verbs. Read the whole story for more.

Asking the hard question: top 10 interview tips – Don’t back down from asking hard questions. Here’s how.

A few words on writing short – 500 words on why every writer needs to master the 500-word story, and suggestions how to do it.

How to write fast – The faster you write, the higher your hourly rate and the better your earnings potential. Read how the pros do it.

To keep business, tech writing fresh avoid cliches – Like the plague. Ha ha.

How to handle rewrites without wanting to kill yourself – Nobody likes rewrites, but they’re a fact of freelance life. The best way to handle rewrites is to just do it.

Later this week:

Tomorrow: Best blogs for writers

Friday: Career development for freelancers

It’s not.

They may mean it’s easy to write fast when your editor stands up in his cubicle on the other side of the newsroom and glares at you because it’s after 5 p.m. and your story was supposed to be filed before 4:30.

Or it’s easy to write fast when you have to be out of the newsroom by 5:25 so you can hit the freeway before traffic backs up and leaves you no chance of making it to the day care provider’s house by 6 when she starts charging overtime by the minute.

In other words, it’s easy to write fast under intense pressure.

Most freelance writers don’t face that kind of pressure. It’s probably why we stopped working in newsrooms in the first place. We don’t have daily deadlines and we’re not bound to getting things done during normal office hours because most of us work from home. Our pressure is self imposed. We take assignments – probably too many because who can say no to work when it means extra income – and then it’s up to us to figure out how to get it done on time.

So freelancers have to device other ways to meet deadlines.

This comes up a lot in freelance circles. Writers have some pretty creative solutions for pushing themselves to finish work on time. Some set a timer. Others use the carrot method and promise themselves a reward when they finish – a cookie, glass of wine or long soak in the tub. Sue Poremba, a freelance writer and editor in State College, Penn., meets electronically with a freelance writer friend once a day to freewrite for 30 minutes as a way of forcing themselves to work on tasks they’ve been putting off. David Fryxell, author of Write Faster, Write Better, (Writer’s Digest Books, 2004), is a big beliver in outlines for articles, even short ones. J.A. Konrath, author of the Lt. Jaqueline “Jack” Daniels thriller series, advocates getting words on the page no matter how bad you think they are.

I’ve come up with a few tricks of my own:

Work when you’re on – I work best early in the morning, so when I’m on deadline I get up early and write. For me, a solid hour at 5 a.m. is as productive as two or three draggy hours in the afternoon.

Unplug – Turn off email. Close the browser. Log off the message boards. Do whatever it takes to eliminate distractions. This is especially hard for me because I often fact check information on Websites as I write and checking one site can lead to checking MyYahoo, my blog stats, my favorite bloggers. Just pull the plug.

Don’t let yourself be disturbed – When I worked in a newsroom, I put a sign on top of my PC monitor to keep people from bugging me on deadline. Other writers used headphones to listen to music. Now I work in my den and if other people are around I just close the doors.

Be prepared – It’s easy to start writing a story if you’ve finished all the research and reporting, reviewed your notes and made an outline – written or mental – of what you want to say. By that point the words are practically oozing out of me. But cut corners on the basics and the words just won’t come. It’s your brain’s way of telling you that you’ve still got work to do.

Got your own secrets for writing fast?