February 2010 Monthly Goal Meetup

Lordy, it’s shaping up to be quite the month. Things at YourTango continue to get even busier (who knew that was possible?), and my ongoing copywriting project soldiers on. I’m also leading a team in Freelance Success‘s biannual Query Challenge, and I spent yesterday doing some market research at Barnes & Noble, and sending out query letters and LOIs. I’m loving my team. They’re so…motivated. It’s gonna be a trip to keep up with them!

But let’s hold off on February for the moment. How did I do last month?

1. Finish Phase 3 of this copywriting project with a minimum of angst.

The copywriting project goes on, and slower than I expected. Part of it is the tedium, though it’s a topic I typically enjoy (I’m feeling all sexed out, you guys). Part of it is the winter doldrums. And a huge part of it is the fact that I’m getting so into my part-time job — to the point of giddiness, really — that I’ve been allowing my responsibilities there to seep into my freelance hours. Still, the show must go on, and my client is thus far thrilled beyond belief with what I’ve turned in. In fact, he’s already suggested that we work together on future projects. Yay?

2. Make major headway with my new, professional web platform, and order me up some new business cards.

My husband has promised to squeeze this into his schedule of projects he actually gets money for. 🙂 For the moment, he’s designed my header and set me up on WordPress. He also put together my business card design and, last week, I handed out my first one at a soiree thrown by a book publisher that does business with YourTango.

3. Revive YourTango’s Love Buzz Twitter account.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on this one. First, I tried out a bunch of different web-based services that allowed me to manage multiple Twitter accounts, finally settling upon HootSuite. Then, I spent an awful long time (stretched across several weeks) trying to mass unfollow the dead weight in the LB Twitter feed. I wanted to be able to engage with the people I was following, but there was so much spam in the feed, mostly because the account was initially set up to automatically follow everyone back (ugh). Now I’m concentrating on interesting tweets, RTs, and good conversation.

4. Revive Inside YourTango.

I’ve only done up one new post, but I’ve collected a lot of new content for the blog, which I will start publishing slowly.

5. Start my career coaching practicum.

Aaaahahahaha. I am tired.

6. Achieve balance.

I’m getting better. I’ve stopped checking certain social media sites during the work day, and have also severealy limited the YourTango work I bring home. I’m also saying yes to life a whole lot more, and have lately been more social than I’ve been in…years!

So what’s in store for February?

1. Put together an intake packet for my career coaching practice. I figure that this is one of the things that held me back from starting my practicum last month. I was afraid to start looking for clients, because I wasn’t fully ready to take them on.
2. Run a contest on this blog that will both drum up interest in my coaching practice, and land me some practicum clients (who are willing to fill out feedback forms, and then allow me to excerpt their feedback as testimonials on my new site).
3. Make major headway on that copywriting project (I’m afraid to wish for actual completion).
4. Send out at least five queries a week. I don’t want to let down my QC team!

Fingers crossed.