No Pain, No Gain

It is very painful to say 'no' to new business. But sometimes you teeter on that edge between taking on one more assignment and potentially losing control of your house of cards, and gracefully declining so that you can give your best to your current projects. In all fairness, isn't that a position many small businesses would like to find themselves in? I suppose it is, but it doesn't make it any easier.

I am juggling a number of small jobs for a valued client and many of them seem to mushroom into more than I signed on for. This sends my precarious time management system into a tailspin. Just when I thought I was getting organized, the job that should have taken about 3 or 4 emails on an afternoon in late October, is STILL in progress because of one more screw up. I guess I'm choosing this venue to wail and lament because I signed on for the afternoon, not for two months. It's an example of how we can't predict when mistakes happen, and we can't control what others do. When all is said and done, the client will have a correct and updated version of a document for sharing with their distributors.

I need to remind myself that I am indeed in the customer service business, regardless of my illusion of being in the writing business. If the customer can walk away satisfied at the end of the day, I've done my job.