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My dear friend Aurelia has inspired me with her Monday Motivation posts to get my mind focused, ideas organized, and to work more productively. While I meet my deadlines in time and have a planner for those projects, my own writing projects get shelved because I waste too much time on Twitter or blog hopping.
So, here is my effort to get motivated for this week (which will be difficult since the kids are on Spring Break):
Monday: Bill clients; write posts for my Surviving At Home blog; edit Wonder Years Radio interview; menu plan for the rest of the week; rake leaves out of mulch beds.
Tuesday: Edit Wonder Years Radio episode; get ahead with client podcast episodes; bring girls for their annual checkups; clean master bed/bath.
Wednesday: write some guest blog posts; visit forums; work on 30 Days to a Better Blog steps; meal plan for next week; organize/cleanup my scrapbooking stuff in the dining room (you don’t want to know what a disaster that room is)!
Thursday: More client podcasts due; formulate some project packages here; start writing that ebook that has been at the back of my mind for weeks now; ship the girls to their grandparents’ house for two days; bring our new puppy to training class.
Friday: Edit articles for Mom’s Talk Network newsletter; grocery shopping; 1st pedicure of the season.
Knowing me, I will probably skip around the list but so long as it’s all done by Friday, I’ll be happy!
In case you missed my Wordless Wednesday picture, here it is.
The star of that picture is my 6-year-old, who treats me to a Hannah Montana concert the second she gets the headset on. Sometimes I’ll be lucky and get some dance moves along with the singing!
But she loves to hear herself talk and really enjoys recording. I suppose it’s a novelty and pretty cool to hear your own voice. We have quite a collection of her stories, including original American Girl stories and even a touching song about our deceased dog. She has recorded a bumper announcement that I often use at Wonder Years Radio and she even cohosted one of the episodes in February.
Not sure if this means she has a career in radio or podcasting in her future but it sure brought back childhood memories of my brothers pretending to be disc jockeys, with our little 45 record player and a tape recorder, trying to imitate their “coolest” radio voice.
For the last 10 days or so, my mind has felt very muddled. Yes, my life was busy with lots of client work, after-school activities and school volunteering, but I just felt “off.” I couldn’t seem to concentrate for longer than 10 minutes at a time and didn’t feel very productive.
Since my work slowed down the last few days, I took a look around my office and realized that it was just too cluttered and I almost couldn’t catch my breath when I walked in. There was too much going on, I didn’t know what was in all those piles of papers, and I had too many projects going on with the pieces spread out all over my floor. It was a mess!
This weekend, since I’m spending less time on the computer, I’m focusing on cleaning this office and getting a sense of calm in here. So far, many piles have either been shredded or filed, books that I’m selling have moved to a different room, volunteer notes and info have been placed in 3-ring binders. Tomorrow I’m dusting, vacuuming, and rearranging the bookshelf.
Just starting this process has made a difference in my mindset. I wrote down some business goals for this week in my planner (among the client projects already scheduled) and I’m starting to think about repainting the walls and making it look more professional, or at least more cozy. We’ve still got the builder’s white paint from when we bought the house 8 years ago!
My friend Kelly McCausey over at WAHM Talk Radio has written several posts on her blog about focusing on your business and “trimming away the fat” in order to focus more on what works. While I agree wholeheartedly with that thinking, decluttering your business surroundings (rather than just what’s on your computer) can also help immensely.
The progress may be slow but well worth the effort! Now I just need to figure out a system to keep all this paperwork organized…
If you are podcasting, hopefully you know that you can’t just play your favorite radio tunes over the internet airwaves without having to pay royalty fees. Even if your best friend is your only listener or even if it’s just a snippet of your favorite Bon Jovi song as the intro, you WILL get in trouble…eventually.
It’s great to have music as an introduction and to use as segues between your show segments. The music can become your signature or brand, the tune that identifies YOUR show to the listeners. The trick is to find podsafe music, which basically means that the artist who created the music is willing to let you use it as many times as you like, without paying royalty fees.
By doing an online search, you will find many websites that offer podsafe music, which is royalty-free. However, the big mistake many podcasters make is believing the music on those podsafe sites are free of charge. There is a difference.
One of my clients was searching last week for some free of charge, podsafe music for her podcast. Being that she’s working from home, her budget was limited, hence the “free of charge.” She found three awesome tracks that would have worked perfectly for her show except she missed the rate card, which stated she would have to pay about $500 for a licensing fee. She was also fooled by the “free” in the company name.
Licensing music is basically paying upfront for permission to use the music for a certain length of time for a certain number of projects. If you are part of a huge corporation with a monster-sized budget, then licensing would be no problem. But for the home-based business owner who wants to start podcasting, keep looking.
What would have happened had my client simply downloaded the track and started using it? Presumably the company has a way of checking which IP address downloads files and whether they have a license. Which means eventually they would have sent a letter to my client threatening court action (which is stated very clearly in their terms of service). That’s not a risk any small business owner should be willing to take.
If you want podsafe music that is free of charge, check out Podsafe Music Network. It’s free to register and there are no charges for using the music. Check out the Terms of Service because I believe you are supposed to credit the song and artist on your website as a courtesy, but simply find your track and download the Mp3 file.
Music Bakery is another wonderful resource for music BUT there is a one-time charge for purchasing any track that is listed. This is a worldwide, lifetime license to use that track as often as you like. Many of my clients have found awesome music there but it’s not free of charge.
Now that you know the basics of podsafe music, have fun searching for your perfect theme song!
