I attended an online chat yesterday relating to time management. As a writer, I’m pretty much on my own as far as accountability goes, and even though I seem to have more free time than almost anyone I know, often my priorities take a back seat to other things.

Yeah, okay, I know – checking message boards for a moment during a mental block is not conducive to productivity. Neither are compulsively taking Facebook quizzes, or obsessively watching contest leaderboards. But still. Most of that is done in the evenings, when I should be “off” anyway. Really, it is!

At any rate, I’m up at 6:30 every day, but it takes me awhile to feel coherent; basically, I don’t want to talk or be talked to until about 8-ish. Today, however, I tried an experiment: I actually answered a couple emails BEFORE I finished my first cup of coffee. Okay, so it’s not actually conversation, and I’m not convinced that I made much sense, but I did do it.

And guess what, it’s not that painful…and I seem to be a bit ahead of the game, so far anyway – I’m blogging before noon, how’s that?

So, like I said, I’m up at 6:30 every day. Ha – my husband will tell you that HE gets up at 5:00, but then, he snoozes for a bit before dinner, and spends most of the evening in his recliner. Whatever. My day typically doesn’t end until about 9:00 or so. Especially now that I broke down and bought a shiny new laptop!

Normally, there’s a couple hours of waking up, checking email, message boards, reading the papers, and so forth. Then I have to add to my to-do list, make sure my son is awake and moving and has breakfast, and so forth. Usually I’m fairly presentable by about 9:00 a.m., which is when I seriously start to work.

Like I said, different tack today, and it’s paying off. Here I am, before noon. Yes, I already said that, but it bears repeating: a heck of an accomplishment!

In fact, so far I’ve edited about 25 articles, answered a dozen emails, cleaned up my computer files – a daily thing – and entered data on a couple websites. Alright, alright, that’s just a fancy way of saying “I tracked my Weight Watchers points” and “I Tweeted” and “Of course, I’ve been on Facebook, duh!”

But I did add a couple RSS feeds this week, and updated some more networking sites; which just means I now have less work to stay connected, and more time to write. Twitterfeed, too, is something everyone should try – you can have a continuous updating of your newest articles, blogs, etc., automatically posted on Twitter – it’s awesome! And try Google Reader for Facebook, same thing really, but since FB only allows one RSS feed, this is a way around that.

So that’s where I’m headed now.

So today I’m taking a different tack and branching out a bit – I wanted to mention two very different people here and touch briefly on their respective businesses.

MJ Joachim is a colleague of mine at Helium, and a very prolific one too, I might add. She has published well over 300 articles, blogs religiously – no pun intended, but hey, there it is – and is an educator and a mother as well. Of course, we all know which job is the toughest….

MJ is also one of the nicest folks I’ve ever met, virtually, of course. And hey, she said I wrote a “great article”, so I’m all for returning the compliment. You really should check out her work – here, I’ll make it easy: http://mjjoachim.blogspot.com/.

Another good friend of mine, Denise Hegger, has recently started a new business, air purifiers. Yeah, I know what you might be thinking: MLM, overpriced, not worth your time, etc.

Well, you’re wrong – these things are AMAZING. I had one here for five days and let me tell you: I smelled nothing, not dogs or the litter box, or fish cooking, or stinky shoes – nothing. And I’ll admit I forgot to run a couple of those “tests” they suggest, like an onion rubbed on the back of your hand and how, in ninety seconds, the smell is GONE.

But you know what? I miss the darn thing! It just seems stuffy in here, not smelly, exactly, but…different. I’d highly recommend one to almost anyone – and, here’s the best part in my opinion: it covers up to 3000 square feet! Not one of those dinky things that barely removes odors from your office, although it’s a nice, compact size. It really does cover the WHOLE house.

Oops, forgot to mention – doesn’t just remove smells, but actually takes out dander, dust mites, all those pesky allergens. And NO filters. And, it has a remote, and it runs quietly….

So, don’t just take my word for it – go check out her website, http://www.freshairliving.com/dhegger, and use the password “guest”. It’s a heck of a machine!