Are my (always flailing) computers trying to tell me something?

I am the proud owner of two really crappy laptops: an old Dell and a Lenovo that was a lemon from the day it arrived last fall. I can't even estimate the number of hours I've spent over the past six months trying to get one of these stinking computers to work for me consistently. Thus, I find myself jumping back and forth between these metal rectangles of hell, transferring files to and fro in vain, constantly wondering which data resides on which computer and how to prevent the next meltdown (computer or human). This method of working will drive even the most calm and meditative Earth Mother into a hopelessly frazzled blob of misery. I won't bore with the details but let’s just say my productivity has been severely under the weather. Let's just say that I've had a few extra cocktails to get me through this. It's all part of the bane of having your own business: there's no IT shop, only patient spouses and liquor cabinets.

Tomorrow, I'm shipping the Lenovo back (again) to Lenovo, or India, or whoever the hell takes these things now and "repairs" them. [I'm picturing a technician casually surfing around on my laptop, changing a few settings while watching YouTube videos on his phone and then 5 minutes later chucking my “all fixed” laptop to a pile where it shall languish for at least a week before someone decides to ship it back]

I could write an entire post or two on the abhorrent nature of customer service from large software and electronics companies. But ick, who'd read that?

At a deeper level, I wonder if the sickly laptops are trying to send me an important, life-changing sign. Stop what you're doing, cuz it ain't working any longer, sister! It's true, business in the last month has been rough. And every time I get into a bad place with my work, I scratch my head and wonder whether it's worth all the trouble. I take a quick look at the dwindling bank account and decide: yes, indeed, it is.

Let's get something straight: I don't have a fall-back plan, and my family depends on the income. Secondly, I'm not particularly ready, mentally, to join the corporate world of cubicles, commutes, and meeting overload. But when you have your own business, particularly in the services space, it's a lot of ups and downs. How you ride those waves will determine how long you’ll be working for yourself. I've been doing this for five years now and have surfed my share of troughs. Yet, I'm not ready to give up. I do, however, often ponder what it would be like to do something completely different, something that might even require (heaven help me) some additional education.

I like to think that when bad things happen, something good is around the corner. Have these last six months of suffering over electronics and a shaky pipeline of work been merely a means to an end, a glorious rebound to the days of dependable, healthy revenue streams? Hmm… nice thought.

Regardless, as Michael J says, I’m looking at the (wo)man in the mirror and hoping she’ll change her (whining) ways. Or at least research a new career track that’s less dependent on a screen, keyboard and mouse. My computers have been trying to tell me something. Can someone please translate? Have you followed a sign lately, and did it lead you anywhere you wanted to stay? Do tell, while I consider my next move (to bed).

High-tech marketing: is content still king?

These days, as a home-based writing and PR consultant, I work with a lot of marketing teams. Most of them are in high-tech, and I am also working to build up a business involving green tech and health care. Marketing budgets have been slashed over the past couple of years. I don't have the numbers to show for it, only the anecdotal evidence and my own personal experience—enduring a 20% downturn in income since 2007.

When companies have marketing dollars to spend, they are ruminating long and
hard about how to spend it: what kind of messages and information will resonate
today?

Some people think that micro-blogging a.k.a. Twitter is a high-value activity for marketing when you have a tight budget. Yet despite all the hype it's unclear what tangible results most companies are gaining from social media, and there’s a lot of a palaver that's time-wasting and annoying. Behind the tweets and posts there has to be some useful, valuable content. I'm not talking about quick-hit promotions and spin but information that will help purchasers and decision-makers learn more about your products and services and their industry: research, analysis, predictions, and customer stories. It's about building a relationship, sharing information, and enriching a discussion with customers and other stakeholders.

In 1993, I began my career in journalism, and while I occasionally still write journalism pieces, the bulk of my work has evolved into corporate-sponsored writing and communications activities. I like to call myself an information broker. The same tenets that I learned at the American University M.A. program in Journalism in 1991 and 1992 still apply to my work today: research, relevance, and really good writing.

Sometimes however, I wonder if anyone really cares about that anymore. White papers seem to have gone by the wayside. Cases are getting shorter and shorter. The bulk of news and analysis publish exclusively on the web, which means articles must be tight, concise, and often lacking perspective. Blogging is hot -- yet there's plenty of blabber out there on the Web and it's hard to know what's credible and what's not.

I surveyed a few friends and colleagues for their perspective on the world of marketing content today, and here's what they said:

"Ultimately, I'm thinking the issue is less the mode of content delivery instead of the nature of the content itself," says Jason Gillikin, president of Gillikin Consulting which provides business communications services. “Material that speaks to the effectiveness of some new technology are going to play better than empty sales rhetoric, irrespective of the mode of delivery. So emphasizing the ROI will be a smart move. Show the customer how this new tech will make their lives easier or cheaper or reduce their carbon footprint. That, ultimately, will count for the most.”

Michael Schmier, VP of research and media at high-tech market research network Tippit, still believes in the power of white papers and case studies, as long as they are distributed widely on other sites. Blogging, if attached to a social media strategy, is another favorite of this San Francisco-based former marketing exec. And webinars on products can be very useful for customers, he says.

Michael: I agree wholeheartedly. I believe that diversity is paramount: technical people might enjoy spending five minutes watching a product demo while marketing-savvy execs can quickly breeze through your social media updates on their mobile phones. And, members of the media and prospects can get a better idea of the capabilities of your product or service by reading a well-written and engaging case study. Everyone knows such documents are always one-sided, but they can also offer a valuable snapshot into the real-life scenarios your company enables.

In the world of headlines and sidebars and video clips in which we now live, I sometimes mourn the halcyon days in which I could interview 7 or 8 people and spend hours researching a subject to pen a thoughtful and comprehensive 3,000-word piece. I hope that marketing folks won’t lose sight of the fact that not everything can be consumed in 10 seconds. Nor should it be.

What’s your take on the state of corporate-sponsored content? What do your clients and customers want?

When life gets rough, it's time to pamper

In the days before children, when life consisted of a small (yet very comfortable) townhouse in San Mateo, CA, my husband and I, and two very stressful jobs, we became quite adept at pampering. On Saturday morning we’d do the obligatory errands, then exercise, and then the remainder of the day (and Sunday) were committed to hanging out on our "deck" (the roof of our garage), reading, seeing friends, walking to dinner, and in the winter, enjoying a glass of wine by the fireplace. Weekends were bliss.

Once the kiddos arrived, pampering got lost in the diapers, bottles, and mountains of laundry. One lost all track of Monday versus Saturday…and when the small fries got older the weekends became even more busy and exhausting than the weekdays: errands, birthday parties, cleaning, outdoor adventures, play dates, bills.

Yet the fact remains: I still need to pamper myself.
For my husband, pampering consists of the Food Network, a beer, and/or ESPN. I love the simplicity and the consistency of that plan.

For me, on the other hand, I indulge in the following, sometimes even in one day:

1. Exercise. Yes, that's weird, but it is a form of pampering for me. Sometimes it's just a brief jaunt around the block with my dog. Other times it's a nice long run in the morning cool or a swim during the heat of the day. I feel completely rejuvenated when I’m done.

2. Chocolate. I don't have any rules about chocolate. When I need a square, I get it. Morning, noon or night. You’ve likely read about its antioxidants/health benefits but for me, it's that happy little feeling inside that does it for me. In my sedulous research over the years for the ultimate chocolate bar, I believe I have finally found it: Vosges Barcelona Bar.

3. Bath products. I like to say that I take lots of baths… I don't. I used to, but now, it seems to be impossible to find the time nor energy to fill up the bathtub again after I've already bathed and put to bed two energetic little girls. However, I do indulge in comforting lotions and bath gels. They don't have to be pricey. My personal favorite right at this moment is: Burt’s Bees Honey & Shea Body Butter. It's all natural and smells sooooo good. I also love L’Occitane bath oils, lotions, and shower products (for a few more greenbacks).

4. Wine. A glass of red wine in a beautiful stem: Oregon Pinot Noir, Argentinean or Chilean Malbec, Australian Shiraz, California Zinfandel, blends from Ridge. Paired with a commodious, cushioned chair, newspaper or magazine, and no children in sight— that's pretty much a spa experience for me. At about 1/10th the price.

5. Reading. History, biography, memoir, novel, People magazine, the Wall Street Journal weekend section. Those are my top picks. I'm sure that you have your own. On the couch or in bed, even just for 10 minutes—with a book I have successfully transported myself into someone else’s world. It’s magical.

6. Silence. This is rare, but if I remember to do it, I will shut my bedroom door before bedtime, warn my husband not to bother me for 10 minutes, and sit on the floor and just be still. We live in a quiet neighborhood right now so it's easy to obtain this blessed silence. I don't know which is better: the silence unbroken only by an occasional bird, or my immovable limbs. But it's a mini-vacation, for free.

7. Fancy coffee drinks. If I have a slow day I will go down to one of the many quaint little cafés in downtown Golden, order a mocha (with whipped cream, thank you), and sit down and read the newspaper or answer some e-mail. For just a few moments, I feel like an intellectual. And that's priceless.

8. Window shopping. I've gotten over the fact that I can’t spend much money on clothes and accessories these days. It's been that way for a while, and now I actually enjoy popping in to cute little boutiques or meandering through the shoe department at Nordstrom and just looking around at the latest styles. I might buy myself a lip gloss. Or not.

I would love to hear your top ideas for pampering: particularly, activities or items that don't cost a lot of dough. Now don't get me wrong: I love four-course gourmet dinners out, and I'd kill to go on a five-star resort vacation right now. I won't even be picky about the locale: beach, mountains, lakes, city, whatever. But that's for later. For now: it's pampering on a budget.

And you?

Ode to Friends

In these trying times, many of us have been forced to get rid of the extraneous activities in our lives. It pains me, for instance, when I can't exercise as much as I would like. Or, when I can’t work on my creative writing projects. (Actually, when have I done that since having kids?) And reading: the book is central to my genetic makeup. Yet when it comes down to it, here's what I can't and won't give up (aside from work of course): a minimal amount of rest and some semblance of a healthy lifestyle, time with my family, and my friends.

Maintaining friendships is especially paramount if you work from home. Otherwise, you'll find yourself having lengthy, and potentially embarrassing, conversations with the UPS person, the grocery store clerk, the Starbucks clerk, and when no one else is available… the dog.

On July 31st, we left the Bay Area for Colorado. Both locales are beautiful, unique places—no doubt. Both offer ample opportunities for outdoor fun. Now that I no longer live in California I'll miss easy access to the ocean, wine country, and the mild Mediterranean climate. Sometimes, I will even miss access to Silicon Valley, the heartbeat of the technology world in which I work. (Although admittedly, I'm happy to be out of the fray right now).

But what I ruminated about as we drove across the desert toward the Rocky Mountains was how much I will miss my closest friends in the Bay: some of these are women whom I've known since college and others are women whom I have had the pleasure of knowing through my daughters’ schools over the past couple of years. These are friends whom I have cried with, exercised with, laughed with, and sent text messages and Facebook updates all hours of the day and night for critical updates such as: "Why can’t I be patient with my kids for one hour of the day…. I can't find my car keys, again…. I need a cocktail…"

Spending time developing relationships with my friends is truly a “value-add” use of my time, even when I have absolutely none of it to spare. No matter where I am, and no matter where they are, my friends keep me grounded in life and help me to realize that I am not alone, I am loved, and that there's so much beauty in the world to experience. My friends help me realize my potential, and have given me so many gifts: perspective, insights, laughter, spirituality, motivation, love, caring and support. Without them I would be in a perpetual state of inanition. My husband and children are my rock—I’d be devastated without them—yet my friends help me to feel truly whole.

Some of my friends I talk to infrequently, such as my dear high school pal Janel, who lives in New York City and has a decidedly different schedule than me, the suburbian mom. Yet we chatted for 30 minutes as I drove on desolate highways through Nevada, and now that I am reconnected with her, I am complete again.

I will have to make some new friends now that we are living in a different town. It may take a while, but from experience, it will be worth every moment spent in the effort.

Esteemed client: your lack of planning is not my disaster

Professionally, I refer to myself as a "communications consultant." But in reality, sometimes I think clients and prospects view me as: "sucker who will do anything for money or the promise of it."

Clients expect a lot, especially today, and generally speaking I'm happy to try and satisfy those needs in return for challenging work and a paycheck. However, when you are a freelance writer/marketer/editor/illustrator/designer, it seems like some folks think you're just dying to take their project at any price, under any conditions, because you are a creative and ultimately love what you do and will work at any hour of the day, weekends included, to fulfill your urge to produce meaningful content and change the world. You will even do some pro bono work if pushed. Sometimes all of those things are true —but I still don't like the underlying notion that while the client has lots of boundaries, I seem to have none (in their eyes, anyway).

A few months back, I made contact with a man who owns a startup software company. We had a few phone conversations and he called me into his office for a meeting about a blog that he wanted to produce with my help: one hour to learn about his company seemed like a fine investment of my time. After the meeting, several e-mails and other phone calls ensued with more requests for (apparently free) advice. Finally, I said to him: I think you're ready to get going on this project, so would you please send me over a contract so that we can officially begin work together? No contract materialized. Later, another e-mail appeared, stating that he had to put the blog project on hold to work on some other marketing activities. In my mind, the client was gone—at least for the near term. It happens, c'est la vie. But then, about a month later, I receive an e-mail from the guy, stating: "What happened, are you no longer interested in the blog project?" I replied: "I am indeed still interested, yet your last note to me asked me to hold off for now." I received no further replies or e-mails from him.

What the heck?

I have a real problem with flaky clients —and it seems like they are in ample abundance right now.

I don't put together a strategy plan for free, sorry. I am, however, willing to offer a few getting-started tips— which I did for this guy, to no avail.

Then there's the problem of getting things in writing. It shouldn't be hard -- but sometimes, it's like pulling teeth. A consultant should always have a work contract stating project scope, requirements, and agreed-upon rates and payment schedules. It not only protects the consultant but also the client. A couple of weeks ago, a new client sent over several legal docs for me to sign and fax back immediately. When I asked when I would see a contract for myself, she replied by e-mail: "I've never had this type of a request from freelancers. What exactly do you need? Is this e-mail good enough?"

I don't know, is it? Not for you guys, apparently.

She then went on to say how upright and honest her company is, how everyone always gets paid on time, and so on and so on. That's very nice, but it won't hold up in court. Anyway, I just don't get the big deal here: we're talking about a simple work contract, 200 words or less.

Another new client had a super tight deadline for me to accomplish this week— which I agreed to do, somewhat reluctantly, before our move to Colorado end of next week. The work was supposed to filter into my inbox a few days ago but hasn't appeared yet. Now, I have half the time to complete the project -- and I just don't see how it's going to get done. So I've prepared myself for the next conversation: you're going to need to hire some extra help pronto. I have provided a few reminders about my schedule— as I dutifully should. But I don't see this project ending well for them or for me. To be fair: who knows what's gone wrong here, but I'm expecting that I'll be asked to pick up the slack and if I say no, guilt pangs will certainly attack me in the middle of the night.

And then there's the problem of getting paid on time— don't get me started. But I will, soon, very soon… I have loads and loads of tips from my own experiences and others about how to handle late invoices. Fortunately, this hasn't happened a lot in my career, but enough to make me wonder what I can do to prevent it altogether. Late fees are often in my contracts, but that doesn't usually push a negligent or cash-strapped client to pay me any sooner.

Esteemed client, may I ask: are you late on your rent and utility bills?
Doubtfully. So why can't you just pay me on time, too?

Don't forget: I worked super hard for you, am highly ethical, and have bills to pay as well. This isn't clothing and vacation money—we do actually need to eat around here and buy toilet paper.

At this point you are possibly thinking: wow, is she ever ungrateful. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. I am from-the-bottom-of-my-heart thankful for every piece of work that I get these days, and for good clients, I will do everything humanly possible to meet their needs -- as long as it doesn't adversely affect my kids.

There is, however, one thing I can say say with certitude: some clients are worth losing, for your own sanity. Know when to cut the cord, respectfully of course, and work even harder for the clients who treat you well. Because when it's all said and done, the customer's always right (even when they're not).

Something’s Gotta Give

Just for the record, there's no such thing as "work-life balance." But you already knew that. At the moment, I'm trying to improve my work-sleep balance, yet until we get through with this cross-country move, forget about it. (We are moving from the Bay Area to the Denver area in August, to be near extended family and make a change that we think will be better for our family for the long-term.)

Beyond working (or trying to), researching schools, packing up, seeing friends, and all the millions of details corresponding to moving your family to another city, my state of frazzledom is at an all-time high. Most working parents would agree -- and you don't even have to be moving to experience these feelings of chaos.

My good friend and work-at-home mom Joanna suggested I cover the topic of "what gives" which I have to say is always top of mind for me. We can't "do it all" even though we want to—so it's always a smart idea every several months to take stock of everything you have going on and to weed out a few things. And it's also an even better idea to prioritize how you're spending your time.

For me, here's what's most essential today in my life:

1. Three to fours hours of rejuvenating sleep per night during the week.
2. Spending time with my kids and occasionally even having a conversation with my husband.
3. Exercising rigorously at least 15 minutes per week to compensate for my chocolate habit.
4. Working at least enough to pay for daycare, girls nights, and miscellaneous items like groceries.
5. Reading at least 5 minutes, of any text whatsoever, before passing out in bed.

After that, comes the following:

1. Seeing friends.
2. Keeping the house relatively clean and with a walking path cleared at all times.

Here are the things that I no longer do, and possibly never did:

1. Shower every morning (ah, one of the lovely benefits of working from home).
2. Style my hair and wear cute, coordinated outfits (unless of course I'm actually getting out of the house to do something fun).
3. Make home-cooked meals every night.
4. Chat on the phone with friends and family (other than my mom).
5. Print photos and put them into albums.
6. Volunteer.


It's not that I wouldn’t like doing these things, but there's just no time at the moment.
And that's my message here: what must you keep and what must you get rid of to maintain your sanity?

Decide, before you implode. I'm always curious to know what other people have opted not to do any longer, or still do but in a modified fashion. For instance, I love to cook but most weeknights I am pulling something out of the freezer such as chicken tenders, fish sticks, veggie burgers, or throwing together a quick spaghetti and salad dinner, veggie stir-fry, or kitchen sink burrito. My husband and I don't use recipes too much anyway, but we certainly don't cook anything that takes longer than 10 minutes to prepare during the week. We still eat healthy, and buy fresh produce, but I can't beat myself up over the fact that my work day ends exactly when my kids are starving. There's just no patience for slow cooking around here.

I'm also fascinated by those people who are proficient when it comes to being highly efficient: making their kids’ lunches the night before, laying out their children's clothes the night before to avoid early-morning arguments about why a four-year-old cannot wear her holiday party dress to preschool, doing menu planning for the week and shopping on Sunday, having organic groceries delivered to their door, and a number of other strategies which of course I rarely deploy myself.

One thing I am excellent about, I must admit, is organizing my life on my iPhone. If I don't have all those tasks and calendar items right there at my fingertips, they will be forgotten, neglected, and my life will be in even a more hopeless state of disarray than it is now. Thank you, Apple, and thank you to my obsessive-compulsive, detail-oriented mother for those productivity genes.

What are your secrets? Please, write me and do tell.

I just have one final thing to add here, which is of the highest importance: if your spouse does not equally help with household and kid-related tasks, figure out a way to divvy them up pronto. In our house, I pretty much handle the playdates and social calendar, school details/tasks, homework supervision, doctor appointments, and a lot of the errands and shopping. My husband does a lot of the cooking, folds the laundry, helps clean and pick up, and does the hideous job of taxes and financial management. He also is a genius at playing tickle monster with the girls when I need a break. If your spouse cannot handle such responsibilities, I advise you to find a new one at your earliest convenience. And I'm dreadfully sorry, but mine is not available.

Are we overdosing on social media?

Social networking is the big buzz but sometimes it's just a big headache.

I signed up for Facebook perhaps 8 months ago. Linkedin has been a friend for a couple of years. And then after much procrastination, I joined Twitter one month ago. The other day, a respected colleague sent me an e-mail to join her on Plaxo. Of course, I did.

When does anyone have time to get any actual work done? I'm amazed, particularly when I go on twitter, to find some people posting up to 20 tweets a day. They're filling up my screen, and it's annoying. There should be a limit, don't you think? I'm also realizing, of course, that some people at corporations are actually getting paid to tweet as part of their jobs in PR, marketing, or customer service. Nice for them.

Here's my other gripe: Facebook is for mindless banter about personal life, IMHO. Must this also occur on twitter? I use twitter and LinkedIn for business. Twitter has become a newsfeed of sorts for me -- I can filter on topics of interest to me, such as healthcare, high-tech, and the environment. I wouldn't mind actually getting all of my news this way so that my e-mail inbox could be strictly about taking care of business tasks or messaging friends. So that's one good thing. But unfortunately, social media is all about narcissism and no matter where you go, people just have to talk about themselves in some fashion.

Now that I'm done complaining, I do want to tackle the issue at hand: have we gone overboard on social media? Is social networking simply consuming far too much of our personal and business lives, risking our human relationships and impeding productivity at work? Is there really any measurable and valuable return?

I watched a video briefly yesterday from a man (I'll call him Twitterstar) who has started a service to increase one’s twitter followers. He's now got 40,000 followers. Is that a good thing? Twitterstar certainly thought so, and bragged about his ability to gain nearly $20,000 in income from such followers. Well, that's something for sure. But how much time did he spend to get that $20,000, I wonder? His friend, who was on the video with him, remarked that Twitterstar had spent over 1000 hours on the site—which comes out to about $20 per hour. I wouldn't say that's a fabulous return.

There is a place for social media, but I think the smart business person has to be careful about how they use such sites and limit her actions strictly to business purposes. That's not including Facebook of course -- which is for late night diversion or a five-minute siesta from work in the middle of the day.

For all intents and purposes, social media is still an experiment and it’s still foggy, at least for me personally, how I am going to "monetize" my involvement in these various sites. However, I have pieced together a few basic rules for myself, as follows:

1. I share personal information about myself only on Facebook because I use that site to connect with friends, and friends only.

2. I do not accept friend requests from people whom I don't know well, much less can hardly remember from high school.

3. I do not accept LinkedIn requests from people whom I have never met or talked to on the phone or at least had a decent online conversation with and understand our common interests.

4. On working days, I limit my Facebook time to 10 minutes per day. I don't post everyday unless I have something somewhat useful or thought-provoking to post. (I try to put myself on the other side of that post).

5. I do not post more than 5 or 6 tweets a day, and I never tweet on the weekends.

6. I use any tools and methods I can to make my experiences with the sites more efficient. For instance, on LinkedIn, there are only a couple of groups I belong to that necessitate daily updates to e-mail – but most of my groups are set for weekly digest updates. On Facebook, my settings are such that nothing arrives in my inbox. I go to the site to read everything because I do not want more random stuff filling up my inbox. On twitter, I use an application called TweetDeck to interface with the site. I can do all of my posting and actions from there in a more automated fashion, and I love the way that I can create groups to organize my tweets. That way, I can read the most important stuff first and the other tweets only if I have time.

7. I make a point to use the phone for networking every week, and schedule at least one in-person meeting a month. I also attend a couple networking events every quarter. (See "Face-To-Face Networking Is Still Critical").


Everyone has to set their own rules and limits for social networking. The point is: make sure to do just that. Then you'll have more time for live human interactions, such as hanging out at the beach with your kids...

What are your thoughts on the intersection between social media and business? Are you making any money or deriving quantifiable business benefit from your time spent on these sites? Frazzled mom wants to know!

Frazzled Working Moms at Home: Forget Balance, Forget Recognition…Seek Inspiration

Whenever I talk to my friends and tell them that I am a stay-at-home working mother, they all respond the same way:
"Oh you're so lucky, I would love to do that!”

And for the most part, I agree with them 100%. And here's why:

--I don't have to dress up. Or even shower.
--I get to spend time with my kids that otherwise would be spent commuting.
--I can work a flexible schedule and always have at least one full day off per week to be with the -kids or take care of errands.
--During breaks, I get to walk my dog on a beautiful sunny day.
--When I'm not too busy, I squeeze in errands, or trips to the gym.
--I am my own boss, and most days, I really like working for me.

But there's a downside. Your time is completely your own (well maybe not, if you happen to have a real boss) but it also feels incredibly divided, distracted, and not always productive. Even though you're at home, you have the license (and wrongly, the self-imposed obligation) to do laundry, clean up toothpaste from the kid’s bathroom mirror, lift weights, comb through catalogs for the latest deals, read the paper, and on and on and on. Those activities can easily take up 150% of your work day if you're not careful.

There's also loneliness. Which means, controlling the urge to log onto Facebook 15 times per hour and texting your friends to find out what they're making for dinner tonight.

Thus, I'm going to write about the triumphs and travails of a working stay-at-home mother, and I expect to hear a lot of stories from my like-minded colleagues who are currently perhaps writing a report for a client while simultaneously feeling guilty about the fact that they've missed volunteering at their kid’s school two weeks in a row, need to get their youngest child in for her four-year-old annual doctor's exam even though her birthday was two months ago, and wondering why the dog just threw up again, for the third day in a row.

I work 25 to 30 hours a week as a writer, editor, and communications consultant to businesses and websites. The rest of my time is spent taking care of the kids, the house, and all those other duties that stack up to remind you that you will never be bored or have a free moment for the rest of your adult life.

I love my flexibility, but sometimes I bemoan my lack of respect. My general feeling is that moms who work part-time from home are not always seen as valuable contributing members of society, but hobbyists. We just do this to fill the time, right? Others who wear nice clothes to work and sit in air-conditioned offices listening to completely useless banter from colleagues during meetings may not always think that we are bona fide professionals. My definition of a professional is someone who is good enough at something—anything—to actually make money doing it.

And my personal opinion is, women who work from home are fearless, multi-taskers who will never waste time in a meeting that has nothing to do with their job. Unless of course, a client is paying you to attend. The fact of the matter is, if you can't be highly efficient working at home, especially if you work for yourself, with piles of laundry and chores tempting you like Godiva truffles, you won't survive. We are not hobbyists: moms who work from home are helping to support their families, maintain their sanity, and contribute to the world. We just do it on odd schedules and we often wear gym clothes and have unwashed hair.

So if you get frustrated when your colleagues don't understand why you can't have meetings on Thursdays, even though you have told them repeatedly that Thursdays are your day off to do errands and spend with your kids, you’re not alone.

To my fellow stay-at-home working mothers: keep up the good work, and remember, it's okay to feel frazzled, out of control and unproductive. That just means you have a lot on your mind, a lot to take care of, and a lot of goals to achieve. It's all good.

Next week: organizing your time. That doesn't mean you need to have a set schedule. It just means, with the hours you have without kids to take care of, make the most of them, and determine the proper balance between personal activities and work activities.

And please, please, don't feel guilty, about anything…aside from not taking care of yourself, or serving partially-hydrogenated, corn-syrup loaded snacks to your children.