Have you ever been so busy, so overloaded with things that have to get done right now you didn’t know where to start?

I’ve been feeling like that as I wrap up some assignments I’ve had on the books for a while, take on a gigantic new one, and at the same time, juggle a stream of requests to do presentations, take part in panel discussions or give interviews.

It would be easy to turn down the latter because it’s not all paid work. But I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year immersing myself in all things social media and talking about the future of journalism, so I don’t want to pass up those opportunities just when my marketing efforts are starting to pay off.

So how do I prioritize what’s becoming a longer and crazier work week?

It’s not just me. As the economy picks up more freelancers are getting offers of new projects, and after what the recession did to our business this year, nobody has the heart to say no to work. So we’re all in the same busy boat.

Some writers set a timer and concentrate on one thing until it goes off. Others segment every day into specific parts devoted to different tasks. Freelance writer, author and blogger Leah Ingram is the master of this. Even if you read the Q&A I did with her some months back, it’s worth taking a second look just to see again how she’s able to produce magazine articles, books and a busy blog with aplomb.

I was thinking about all this when I walked into Starbucks recently. I was browsing through the store’s bookshelf waiting for my hot spiced cider when I saw a guide to getting accepted into the Air Force Academy. My high school-aged son is interested in the Air Force Academy, so when my drink arrived I sat down and started reading.

A few chapters in there was a section on what first year cadets can expect – lots of classes, little free time. In fact, according to the guidebook, first years are given too much to do on purpose, so they learn to figure out what’s most important. The thinking is that when they’re in combat situations they’ll always have too much to do and will have to be able to prioritize in an instant.

I couldn’t help draw parallels to how freelance writers and other self-employed people operate. We always have too much to do. The trick is to figure out which things demand your attention right now and do those first.

That’s sometimes easier said than done, especially when you have conflicting high priority tasks.

Lately I’ve put all my work and non-work to-dos into one big weekly list and picked off the stuff that’s feels most important first and let the rest sit there. Some things roll over week to week because they’re not that critical. I almost always have 10 to 15 low-priority items waiting to get taken care of (we will replace the ugly green couch in the family room some day, right after I file the piles of papers sitting in my office and hang the pictures we took down when we painted last February). When it’s the end of the day or a weekend and I’ve finished a big project but still have work time to burn, I try to knock a few off the list.

I’m also a firm believer in outsourcing household or work-related tasks to clear the decks for work. I use a travel agent to book business trips. I pay for house cleaners, a yard crew and to have groceries delivered.  I minimize routine chores by grouping them together once a day or once a week.

Still, there are times when even the best time-saving tricks aren’t enough.

So I’m asking: if your schedule’s gotten busier, how do you handle it? How do you prioritize?

While I’m away from my keyboard this week, I’m re-running a few posts that didn’t get the attention – or web traffic – they deserved the first time around. I’ll return with fresh insights on the business of writing next week. – Michelle Rafter

You can’t control the economy, or the price of gas or what magazine or newspaper will fold next.

In the face of so uncertainty, it’s easy to feel helpless. Especially when you’re an independently employed writer whose livelihood depends on the circumstances of others.

But between the choices of doing nothing and feeling helpless and doing something, I vote for doing something. So here are 10 things a freelance writer can do today to feel better about the economy and your place in it:

1. Update your resume. Ideally, it’s on your Website so the changes are easy and immediate.

2. Update your online presence. Make sure your latest clips are on your Website or blog. Revamp your profile on LinkedIn. Sign up with Facebook or Plaxo. Be sure to list any clients you’ve started writing for recently, writing groups or associations you’ve joined or classes you’ve taken to update your skills.

3. Submit expense receipts. Everybody’s got at least a few expenses that have been sitting around way too long. If you write for publications that reimburse expenses, that’s money in your pocket. What are you waiting for?

4. Send invoices. It’s easy to get consumed with the minutia of getting stories done and out the door. Just don’t forget to send an invoice along with them. And once those checks come in, bank them ASAP.

5. Send out a query. It doesn’t have to be the world’s best, or the world’s longest. The point is to send something and get the process going.

6. Go through your contacts. Look at your Rolodex, Outlook, LinkedIn connections or Facebook friends. Reach out to any who’ve taken a new job or moved to a different company to say hi or reconnect. Not every communication has to be specifically about work, but you never know when a simple “How’s it going?” could open the door to an opportunity.

7. Email every editor you’ve worked with in the past six months. Ask if they’ve got assignments that don’t have writers attached to them yet. Ask if they’re taking pitches. Ask if they know of other editors at their publication who are. In other words, ask for work.

8. Brainstorm. Read through old story notes or pitches from PR agencies for a nugget or conversation thread that you could turn into a query. Take a shower, go for a long walk or a bike ride – whatever activity you use to get the creative juices flowing. Bring a notepad along in case you’re inspired.

9. Clean your office. Go through files and throw away things you don’t use any more or don’t need to keep. Flipping through old papers might flip the old idea switch. Even if it doesn’t, a clean office is like a fresh start.

10. Commiserate. You might work alone, but you’re not going through this alone. There’s a world of freelancers out there in the same position. Talk to them. Share suggestions. Why reinvent the wheel when you can borrow great ideas from people just like you.

What suggestions do other writers have for things to do right now to feel better about the economy?

While I’m away from the keyboard this week, I’m re-running a handful of posts that didn’t get the attention – or web traffic – they deserved the first time around. I’ll return with fresh insights on the business of writing next week. – Michelle Rafter

Don’t underestimate the power of a good vacation. I just got back from one and the mental break was as beneficial as the extra physical activity I did while I was gone.

It’s hard for freelancers to get away. When we don’t work, money doesn’t come in. It’s especially hard to turn down projects in order to take a break at a time when magazines and newspapers are cutting back on freelance work and what they want to pay for the work they buy.

But it’s important to take a break, even if it’s to sit in a lounge chair in your backyard and flip through magazines and soak up the sun, or do those things around town that you’ve never gotten around to doing. Here’s why vacations are important:

1. You need to recharge your batteries. Weekends are wonderful, but every once in a while you need more than two days to rest up from the constant treadmill of pitching, interviews, writing and rewriting.

2. In the thick of work, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees. This thought occurred to me as I was literally walking through a forest, staring up at the Douglas firs and cedars in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington. It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of a daily routine and ignore the big picture of where your writing business is headed. Stepping away from it all for a bit can give you time to examine how satisfied you are with where your writing business is headed, and brainstorm ideas for moving it in new directions.

3. Experiencing new places, meeting new people and trying new things can generate ideas for stories. I’m not talking about travel pieces here. Different surroundings can sometimes have that “aha” effect on your brain that helps you come up with new ideas or inspirations, like Jonah Lehrer wrote about in his recent article in The New Yorker, The Eureka Hunt.

4. The big project/phone call/email you’ve been waiting for will arrive the minute you leave town. Call it Murphy’s law of freelancing. Inevitably, the week you’re away is the week you’ll be most popular with the editors you’ve been hounding forever. This happened to me – despite all of the precautions I took ahead of time to alert everyone I write for I’d be gone. The editor on the story I handed in weeks ago will finally emailed to say he liked it and wanted to run it on his Website ASAP, was I available for a couple quick questions? In situations like this, you have to decide how out of touch you want to stay. Is it worth it to answer a couple emails, or can things wait until you’re back in the office.

5. The people in your life are pretty cool – they deserve your undivided attention. We working parents are jugglers, constantly balancing jobs with taking care of kids, the house, the pets, groceries, sports practices, etc. So for one week it’s great to forget the juggle and concentrate on what’s really important, the people who make everything else we do worthwhile.

Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:

• The Editor Unleashed The Editor Unleashed Guide to Good Blogging - Good advice from the former editor of Writer’s Digest.
• The Huffington Post 13 tips for actually getting some writing done
• The Urban Muse I Said, He Said, We Said – Picking a point of view for your website.
• Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist Conflict of interest doesn’t apply to blogs (another reason newspapers are dead)
• Erik Sherman’s WriterBiz 6 lessons from using Twitter
• Blog Salad How to throw a Twitter party – Exceedingly detailed (and simple) instructions for using Twitter hashtags for “a conference, or a live guest lecture series, or just an exclusive conversation with a certain group or certain topic in mind.”
• Seth’s Blog Saying ‘no’ – To remind ourselves that sometimes turning down an assignment is the right thing to do.
• Bike with Jackie Embrace your supporters – Using social networks to give as much as you get.

It’s hard to jump straight from writing “The End” on one assignment to “Once upon a time” on the next. Sometimes you need a mental break in between, even if it’s a short one. Think of it as a palate cleanser between courses.

I recharge the old writing batteries by doing a quick activity between two deadlines that’s not related to either one. Depending on how crunched for time I am, it might be for 5 minutes or up to an hour.

To mentally recharge between stories I like to:

* Take a walk.

* Have lunch.

* Catch up on the news, online or in the paper.

* Do a load of laundry.

* Runs errands.

* Walk outside to get the mail.

* Take a shower.

* Send a contract or invoice.

* Pay bills or deposit a check.

* Answer email.

* Read message boards I subscribe to.

* File papers.

* Update my calendar.

* Send an editor a pitch or two.

What do you do for a mental break?

Is it just me, or does it seem like there’s a uptick in the stories and blog posts on the evolution of the news business and the role independents – writers and others – are playing in it? The sputtering economy is speeding up the pace of change.

Here are some developments of interest from around the Web in the past week:

Non-profit journalism isn’t the answer to bailing out money-losing newspapers, writes NewWest.net founder Jonathan Weber in The Trouble With Non-Profit Journalism.

Michelle Nicolosi, assistant managing editor of the Seattle PI website and an ex-colleague of mine from OC Register days, launched a blog to teach old reporters new media tricks called Print to Online.

The same folks behind the @mediaisdying, a popular Twitter feed on media closures, picked something decidedly more upbeat for their next venture. The @mediaishirin feed is a running list of available journalists and jobs. Looking for work? Ask them to add you to their list.

CBS Interactive is getting ready to launch a new personal finance website called MoneyWatch.com in March.

BeatBlogging.org compiled a list of journalists who use Twitter to report stories. Feel free to add how you use Twitter to the list.

HR consultant, professor and blogger Steve Boese compiled a list of 100 HR industry people to follow on Twitter, including yours truly. Follow Steve at @sbjet.

Speaking of Twitter, if you’re finding it hard to tweet and get work done, check out Celine Roque’s story on Web Worker Daily, How to turn productivity into a habit which includes helpful suggestions on time boxing, taking advantage of your body’s natural peak time and rewarding yourself for meeting goals.

This one’s not new, but it was new to me – a list of 100 killer WordPress resources on blog posts, pages, comments, categories, themes and a lot more.

A cautionary tale:

Of Twitter, beware.
Your free time it won’t spare.
All too soon, you won’t care
Of your life what you share -
And real work can’t compare.
Log on if you dare.

While I’m on vacation this week, I’ll be rerunning some of the best WordCount posts of the year. Look for new posts, including my predictions for the top digital media personalities to watch in 2009, starting January 5. Happy New Year!

Today’s reruns – Yes, it is possible to work smarter, not harder.

Squeeze more out of your freelance work day

Write fast

Organize your writing time

Fit blogging and social networks into your writing work day

Keep sources on topic in phone interviews

Procrastinate at work? Get over it

Get organized, it won’t hurt

For the second year in a row, Dec. 1 rolled around and I’m slammed with work. I’m not complaining. With the economy and the publishing business in a shambles, it’s a nice problem to have. And it’ll help me pay for Christmas.

But still, as a working parent, it’s a challenge to juggle the work with decorating, holiday shopping, gift wrapping, card sending, entertaining and everything else that needs to get done this time of year.

So in the spirit of giving, here are my 10 top secrets for meeting deadlines during the holidays:

10. Plan ahead. Make a list of what needs to get done – at work and home – and check it twice. A couple years back I created a “Christmas Plan” with exact instructions for things like how we set up the outdoor lights, where I stashed the Advent wreath, how many holiday cards I bought, and anything else I wanted to remind myself about after the holiday. I keep my Christmas Plan on a Note in Microsoft Outlook and read it when the season starts.

9. Be an opportunistic shopper. The next time you’re at an ATM machine buy stamps for Christmas cards (lots of bank ATMs dispense them). When you’re at the grocery store, check out what gift cards they carry. Last night I had to get an electronic gizmo at Circuit City and bought gifts for three people on my list (see tip #10) in 20 minutes.

8. Shop online. After using an online grocery shopping service for the past year, I am a true believer. I figure it cuts 2 hours from my twice monthly shopping expeditions, time I now use to work. I generally buy enough to qualify for free  delivery, so I’m not paying anything extra for the service – and it cuts down on impulse buys.

7. Go virtual. This could be the year we email Christmas cards. Or better yet, post our Christmas letter and family photos on the family blog my husband set up and then just email alerts to friends and family to see our card on the blog. Impersonal? Yes. But it beats not doing anything at all, which is what I did in 2007 when I got too busy to send cards and then felt too guilty sending them in January.

6. Share the load. It’s not my holiday, it’s everybody’s who lives in my house, so everybody helps. My son has taken over the job of hanging outside lights. Both sons helped pick out trees. When my daughter comes home from college she makes gingerbread cookies that we give to neighbors along with other goodies. My husband isn’t a shopper, but last year he ventured out with me on a last-minute gift buying expedition that was so fun I’m hoping we make it an annual event.

5. Do less. Ever since we moved to Oregon we’ve gone to a tree farm and chopped down not one tree but two, one for our entry way and another for the living room or kitchen. This year I’m strongly advocating for one tree – half the decorations, half the time to put it up and take it down.

4. Don’t aim for perfection. It’s hard to be a type A personality and not do everything just so. But around now, I’ll settle for just getting it done. If the ornaments aren’t on the tree exactly the way I’d hang them, oh well. The tree’s done and I’ve got extra time to write. However, this rule doesn’t apply to work: on that I don’t lower the bar.

3. Get up early. It’s amazing what you can accomplish in an hour or two before anyone else in the house is awake.

2. Negotiate. Got multiple work deadlines before Dec. 25? Talk to your editor(s) to see if you can get any additional time. I was able to extend a deadline on one upcoming story by 10 days just by asking – and since I’ve worked for that publication several times before, the editor knows the work will be in when it’s supposed to be.

1. Prioritize. What’s really important, work or family? If spending time with family means skipping an assignment, so be it. Work will be there come Jan. 2.

Got your own secrets for getting work done when you’d rather be baking cookies, sipping cider or holiday shopping? Let’s hear them.

It’s Cyber Monday, time to start thinking about holiday spending (or maybe not).

When you’re getting presents for everyone else on your shopping list this holiday, don’t forget to get yourself something too. Preferably it’ll be something to help you be smarter and more productive in your writing business but that is also cute and fun to use.

Smart phones like the Sprint HTC Touch Pro (pictured) and thin notebooks out right now are the very definition of smart and cute. Personally, I’d love a smart phone but I haven’t decided whether to wait until my current cell phone contract expires next summer or bite the bullet or upgrade sooner.

If you’re considering making some purchases this holiday season – or before Dec. 31 so you can take it as a tax deduction in 2008 – read what electronic gadgets other self-employed small business owners are treating themselves to in this gadget gift guide that I wrote for Inc.’s technology Website, IncTechnology.com.

Think of it this way, you’ll be helping yourself and the economy too.