How does your 'to do' list look each day?

Okay so what makes up the week of an online writer?  Well it depends on what kind of work you do, who you do it for and how much of it you do.

But regardless of that we all have set tasks we must do.  If I take a look at my typical writing day, I can tell you I have a number of jobs that figure pretty highly each time:

* Writing articles, blog posts and ebooks for regular clients
* Searching for new sources of work
* Submitting work according to deadlines
* Keeping my submission and business records up to date

Sometimes one or more of these items will take up more time than others.  So for example on a day that is heavy with work, I will focus primarily on that and only spend five or ten minutes looking for jobs elsewhere.  If I have a quiet day, I will make sure I focus more on my job search for new clients, as well as making sure all those boring paperwork chores are up to date.

But the point is that I plan.  I do this for all my writing jobs, and not only does it help alleviate the stress that sometimes comes with tight deadlines, it also gives you more free time.

Let’s say it is Monday morning and I know I have 20 short articles to write by Friday evening.  Okay so it’s time for some maths.  If I divide up the number of articles by the number of days, I know I have to write four articles a day every day to hit my deadline.

More usually I will build in a failsafe point as well.  What I would probably do is to try and write five articles a day and be finished a day early.  This has a two fold advantage.  First of all it gives me a spare day in hand in case anything more urgent comes up, or something else needs doing in any respect.  And secondly it means that if all goes to plan, I can submit the articles a day early.

Try it yourself and see how you get on.  Planning ahead for success as an online writer is actually very productive.  And once you get the hang of it you will be able to look at any new writing job that comes in and see how long it will be likely to take you to complete it.