From Here to Autonomy

The Disappearance of Downtime

Before becoming an entrepreneur, I set out to write for a living. This sounds like a fantastical existence, but it was actually hard, even if joyous, work. I woke up early in the morning, walked to a coffee shop, and started reading--anything. It didn't matter what I read; the process of focusing on something unrelated to my writing task and caffeine constituted the formula required to tap my creative well. After 45 minutes or so thoughts would bubble up, and my only job was to collect them. Editing would come later in the afternoon, when my mind was tired out and drained of inspiration for the day. I knew to give myself the entire morning for the creative process, even if it yielded only 100 words. Looking back, this process was a pure luxury.

Later, when my company was new--no employees yet, just us founders--I used to plan my day around optimizing productivity, and gone were the mornings that I dedicated to creating. Since much of my work involved communication with sponsors and partners on the East Coast, I reserved the mornings for "busy work"--calls and email primarily. And creative tasks that required more uninterrupted focus time, such as writing proposals or blog posts, I reserved for the afternoon. We didn't have an office, so if I wasn't meeting with my partners in person at a cafe or one of our houses, I did my busy work primarily at home and my uninterrupted work at nearby coffee shops.

Of course, as the business grew, this separation between busy and focus time became much more difficult to maintain. People--God forbid--would occasionally call me back in the afternoon, in the middle of my focus time. Increasingly I found I always needed to speak with people when they called, and I de-prioritized my focus time to the free crevices in my afternoon, which didn't really exist. I tried to schedule in time for creativity like I did appointments--in a short and specific timeframe. I could no longer wait around for ideas to percolate in my mind. I had to force them to come during the period I'd designated to briefly focus. Creative ideas were stifled, deprived of the air they needed to be really great. This bothered me for a long time, but, I reasoned, most professionals have to deal with the pressures of meetings and deadlines. If I was going to grow my business effectively I had to be more productive. I had to back away from things like writing blog posts and reading to stimulate creative thought.

When we received venture funding and hired employees we moved into an office, taking away the change of scenery that normally signaled my uninterrupted focus time, and new activities--meetings, and normal face to face interactions with people--began to fill in. I found pockets of time to sit and think, usually during my hour-long commute to and from the office, but as our East Coast staff grew that time was increasingly used to touch base with clients and colleagues. I would get to our office parking lot not even remembering the drive to work.

As I traveled more I realized that there were built-in periods of disconnectedness when no one could reach me, and I could not reach them even if I wanted to. During these times I finished presentations, sketched out strategies, caught up on business trades, perhaps even wrote a blog post or two. Having this time was what made traveling constantly for the past five years bearable. I knew that once I got off the plane there would be no time to focus anymore; my life would consist of a brief and intense series of trains, taxis, meetings, working lunches, and periods of "downtime", in between used to catch up on email and make calls.

Every year at this time I look at my schedule while it is only marginally complicated compared to how it looked at the end of the previous year, and I ask myself the same question--how do I build in more uninterrupted focus time? And why, during the holidays when I make time to relax and reflect, do I find it so difficult to focus? The blog posts that I expected to ooze out of me have more like sputtered out incoherently. When I have periods of crucial time, like now, I think of all the small quickie tasks that I could be knocking out instead. I check email, my Facebook page, my Twitter feed, my calendar. I realize that I am out of practice.

And I realize that there is an ongoing argument occurring in my mind--the more eloquent side sharing that the multitude means of communication that exist today are not only personally convenient and enriching, but justify my work in social media. I've succeeded because of this shift in the balance of downtime and our obsession with being always on. And I've been plagued by it--the time that I used to take to allow creativity to manifest has evaporated into busyness. Will we, as a society, have a decreasing capability to create because we've erased unplugged reflection from our lives?

Pico Iyer wrote in the New York Times this week:

In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.

He shares how a premium has been placed on opportunities that allow us to unplug--fancy spas, even moves to rural areas. But ultimately we have an inability to sit still.

In the early days of my company we had the challenge of proving to sponsors and advertisers the value of social media. While we suspected that recommendations by digital influencers were valuable, there was no tangible proof for years that social media could move the needle for marketers. Now they are convinced. How, similarly, can I make the case for unplugged reflection time? How can we show that it ultimately makes us more productive?

 

Do Nice Girls Self-Promote?

I got to see a ton of bloggers I haven't seen in a long time at the BlogHer Holiday Party. One, in particular, inspired a post.

She's one of the "old-timers", meaning she's been blogging for more than five years. And like many of the women I met in the early days of BlogHer, she sticks to her knitting--posts a few times a week, uses Facebook and Twitter as tools, is adept in audio and videoblogging. And she considers herself a "professional who blogs," not a professional blogger.

There's a big difference here: Some bloggers put a good deal of their energy into monetizing their blogs and are successful at it--those are professional bloggers. Others use their blogs as a means of building opportunities, but by no means make their living off of them, or are known for them; those are professionals who blog.

My friend falls into this latter group. She earns her living as a consultant, who often helps others build and even monetize their blogs, and her blog content is useful in helping others develop professionally. But her blog itself isn't a revenue driver. And therein lies her problem--she wants it to.

"I see so many blogger/guru types who are successfully building their businesses by selling their books and eCourses on their sites," she said. "I don't think I'm capable of talking up my work in that way."

She was referring to bloggers who have no problem posting requests on their blogs,

"Go check me out here!" …

"Sign up for my teleclass!"

"Go see my piece in Parenting magazine…"

And they have no problem sharing their good news --

"I just made Babble's Top 50 Moms list…"

"I just got a TV deal …"

I understood my friend's dilemma. Her mojo was much more "talk about others' great work" not "talk about my great work." And yet she cannot deny that self-promotional birds get the worm. And she's a media skeptic, like myself. She knows too much about how the promotional sausage gets made to want to serve it up to her beloved readers. Earlier this week I learned that I was included in Working Mother Magazine's Most Powerful Moms in Social Media list (Note: I don't actually provide a link, proof of my neurosis). Normally I don't care for lists; for every one I make there are dozens that I don't, so I maintain any sense of self-worth by not investing too much stock in them. And as a general rule we stay away from them at BlogHer, as some can drip with link-baiting intention meant to inspire more debate than appreciation. But shucks, I knew that my family would get a kick out of seeing my mug up there. And I actually agreed with their inclusion of some of my favorite bloggers, even if not all of my favorites were included. After bullshitting with myself that I was doing this for the love of Momblogging, not out of any self-interest, I posted a link to the story on my Facebook and Twitter page; it took restraint the next morning, when I saw a list of congratulatory comments on my Facebook wall, to not write back to each FB friend personally and apologize for gunking up their update feed with my business. I had to say to myself, "Wait--what the hell is social media for, if not to share your good news?"

So yes, even though I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to build OTHER bloggers' and brands' traffic to insane levels, the thought of applying some of these tactics to my own platform embarrasses me. And if I get a "hit" in the form of a spike in traffic or a congratulatory note I will immediately question whether I provided enough content value to deserve it.

In fact, I, too, have sat with this question around self-promotion. While it's absolutely critical to promote your work and accomplishments to garner recognition and more opportunities, how much self-promotion will have a diminishing effect on your credibility with your readers and community? How much of this concern is really just my issue with feeling my work is not worth promoting if it's about me?

As someone who tends to gravitate toward personal and professional development blogs, I know my share of gurus, through their work and personally. Most of them have embraced the requirement of promoting their work, much the way an actor embraces the need to show up to an audition. It ain't glamorous, but it's a necessary part of sustaining a living. "Here, folks, is a link to my new book. Now back to our regular programming…"

Others have taken the self promotion to a different level. Their accomplishments have become the content.

A subject of their latest blog post may be their latest dilemma: Guys, should I change the focus of my book for the fat deal with Random House?

Or a situation: I was sitting with my friend who shall remain nameless (@Oprah)..."

Or promotion as a favor to someone else who can promote your work later: My pal Magda is the BOMB! Take her teleclass now, tell them I sent you, and get 50% off!!!

This sort of copy always appears in my brain in bright red letters and huge exclamation points, even when it's done tastefully. It's like noise to me and, rather than be alienated by it I tend to tune it out.

I said to my PR-averse friend, "You know, maybe YOUR readers aren't as interested in special offers and announcements."

She didn't buy it: "But I still see plenty of people who fall into the more audacious camp, and they have tons of readers, and they actually make money off of their various projects. I have to wonder if I'm in denial about what it takes to be successful in this increasingly expert-saturated space."

Honestly I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps the challenge isn't learning to become more comfortable with being self-promotional, but rather learning to play within the range of what your community considers acceptable (defined by your own bullshit meter).

That means if you tend to feel uncomfortable promoting your work, endeavor to squeeze in a bit of personal PR thoughtfully and remember: There are some real freaking crazies out there who actually want to read your stuff, see the pics of your trip to LegoLand, take your teleclass. And who are YOU to not deliver?

You see? It's really not about you.

On being a content creator

Due to a confluence of blogging events of late, I've been around a lot of digital influencers, online platform builders, content creators, call them what you will.

"What is your blog URL?" I'm asked, and I reply with my boilerplate response.

"My blog is old as the hills; I never write anymore. The irony, I suppose, of having co-founded a company by and for bloggers." This is meant to somehow prequalify me as a card-carrying blogger without actually being one.

A friend's wife started a blog and sent me a link to promote, which I was happy to do--she wrote a great piece about traveling with babies on airplanes. It came at just the right time, as we were trying to determine whether to pre-pack Liv's milk or wait until we got past security. I could't help but notice how gorgeous this woman's site was. Not bad for a newbie. Time was, you needed to get some serious help to have a site that professional looking. Now bloggers are building them on their own.

Naturally this got me thinking that I should probably rethink my blog design. My design isn't bad--it's just not what I would call optimized. No newfangled features or optimization. I worked within the templates TypePad gave me--no offloading. I started to plan what I needed to do to re-professionalize. After all, maybe if I had a good looking blog, I would find more time to update it.

But I realized something--a personal truth. The business side has always been easier for me. I can always reach out to people, insert links, optimize for the search engines, establish co-promotion partnerships, pitch myself for syndication, make my site more advertiser friendly. This mode is my default. It helps to distract me from the hard work of getting back in flow.

So this blog will remain boring, er, simple. I won't distract myself and consider what I do manage to write to be wasteful because it wasn't given the ultimate SEO send-off. I need to continue to rev up and not slow down to seek out which parts of my text are linkable, or which posts are visual and need pictures. I need to keep my focus on the foundation and just write.

At some point the bells and whistles will come.

 

Something

The other day I was in NYC for a new conference BlogHer launched for writers named, well, BlogHer Writers. I had learned to disassociate myself with the content of our conferences long ago, back when I sensed frustration at having to run, versus attend, my company's events. While I very much wanted to sit in and enjoy sessions, I knew that more realistically I would be running over to a sponsor to make sure they were pleased with their investment, or run back to the press room for an interview. After a few years, it just became understood, or rather, assumed, that I would be doing things other than attend the conference.

BlogHer Writers was built for bloggers seeking to publish. Yes, these people exist. We haven't sucked every vestige of traditional media into our vortex just yet. But publishers like Penguin have become smart to the ways of the new, new writer, who oftentimes now came to print via blog success first. There were many familiar faces in the room--women I'd come to know over the years who had slowly built a platform and who, over time, came to call themselves writers. There were other faces in the room as well, faces of people I'd known even longer, who hardly recognized me. After all, I hadn't stayed for very long. I was 21 years old and had moved from the Midwest to work at a book publishing house--Penguin, actually. My goal had not been to be an editor, or even to work in New York. It was to become a writer.

"Nice company you have here," one of them told me.

"Amazing to see things come around full circle," I said back to her. And I meant it. So many times we see life as a series of lost opportunities, or failed attempts. And yet my attempts, while being short of the goal I had set for myself of supporting myself by writing, had sparked a fire elsewhere, causing that original trajectory I used to look up at, wanting to realize, to melt and warp in my direction. The worlds I had wanted to become a part of had somehow come to me.

In the morning we hosted panels of experts in the publishing world--agents and editors--who could speak to how to get a book published, what they looked for, how to have your book stand out. Agents attended to meet writers. One told me, "I have to be here to meet writers. You all have PLATFORMS! That's half the battle." I recall a much bigger battle being waged five years ago, when I tried to sell my book and getting a contract if I could accept changing my target audience. I recall another publisher saying that they wish I'd gone more Cosmo and made my stories more how-to. I recall a publisher sharing with my agent that I didn't need to write a book so much as see a therapist. After founding BlogHer I recall an agent who came to speak who left a stack of business cards on a table before leaving--she didn't want to be mobbed by a bunch of bloggers wanting to get published.

I recall waking up in the morning and going to a coffee shop with no wireless by design so that I would not check email as I hammered out pages and pages of copy. I had no job, I simply wanted to write and get a book published.

Things have changed.

"You are at an advantage," one of the speakers from the publishing side said at the conference, "you all are in the habit of writing every day."

I look at the date on my last blog post and wonder how that happened. The sad reality is that it wasn't hard not writing. I knew how encompassing writing could be. I knew how when I got into writing everything else tended to fall away. Where would I start? What if  had nothing to say?

One friend offered up a nice metaphor: Creativity is a muscle. When you go running for the first time, you feel like shit. But keep going every day, and slowly it starts to feel good. You start to run faster and more efficiently. You know how to inspire your creativity. You re-learn how to call it up.

"Just write short," friends have told me, "just get something up there." That's what I tell other people. But I'm really not very satisfied to do that.

I saw a friend this weekend when I was out in the neighborhood with my one year old.

"You inspired me to blog," she said. She's been actively blogging and consulting in the social media space now for five or six years. "It makes me sad to go over to your blog and see nothing there."

She challenged me to write a blog post while on the plane flying home from business trips.

"I've tried that," I said. "I have a lot of stuff I need to finish. I don't know if I can commit to that."

"Just write something she said."

Today I saw an email she left in my inbox. The subject line: It's Blogging Day!

Glass ceilings hardly matter when you've left the corporate building

Many well-intended people are compelled to ask why aren't there more women running Fortune 1000 companies, or getting VC funding, or taking our companies public? Surely, ambitious women would want to do these things, yes?

Of course women have something to offer companies. Of course we can add diversity to small businesses. Of course we can add perspective.Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson point out that we often ask this question under the assumption that women in corporations want the same things as men do. And this isn't likely the case. In researching the reason for why women aren't well-represented in high corporate positions:

Our conversation kept returning to a phrase that each of us had heard from women who had either left high positions or were considering doing so: “I decided it just wasn’t worth it.” ... What does this mean? It means the women we spoke with did not perceive the tradeoffs their companies were asking them to make—in terms of time, stress, lifestyle, relationships—to be adequately compensated by the rewards offered in return. It does not mean that the women were unwilling to sacrifice their time or live with the adrenaline rush we all experience when we’re over-extended (or thrillingly involved). It does mean that they did not find their company’s traditional reward system sufficiently compelling."

 

I've stopped asking where are the women in these various "corporate" roles. While I'd like to hear about how any high-achieving woman broke through the glass ceiling, I've become more interested in hearing stories of women who don't have a ceiling. These women don't all run companies, or even work for themselves, though many of them do. Some of them maintain a thriving yoga practice while building their consulting business. Some work around carpool hours. Some quit their corporate jobs and are feeling their way around work that moves them. Some reserve an hour to bake cookies during business hours. Some don't have "jobs" in the traditional sense, but are creating empires of influence. They have managed to circumvent what we once thought was the only way to professional relevance.

You may think that the je ne sais quoi that impresses me is an ability within these women to multitask or take risks, but it actually goes deeper than that. These women have identified certain "must have" aspects of their lives and have built their work around them. These women are autonomous.

While there are women who reach the upper echelons of (typically) male dominated industries, far more reach the OUTER echelons of "corporate" work, finding our own unique niches for ourselves and then marketing back into these companies as consultants, suppliers, coaches, etc. What they want is not a space at the top so much as a space of their own.

Yvonne Divita recently wrote a spot-on piece about business media's obsession with addressing women in business via their proximity to the glass ceiling, and power lists like this one that focus solely on women in corporate roles.

The Women of the Fortune 500 are women of worth. There is no disputing that. They deserve our appreciation. They’ve proven that the glass ceiling is a window into tomorrow, not a limiting factor to success. Their hard work is worth congratulating, and yet… I can’t help but wonder what the average woman business owner has in common with them? I skim articles about these women and sometimes catch their TV interviews and other than the fact that they represent an ideal to work towards, I do not find their experiences or their advice helpful. They are as far removed from me and my needs as a college professor is from a kindergarten teacher. Both are educators, but in vastly different classrooms.

I would never turn away an opportunity to be recognized as a powerful woman, but I do question the value of these "Power" lists. At best, I can learn from them how women maneuvered in male-centric industries. What I'd really like to know is how women discovered their unique niche in the world and built lives that sustained their vision.

In his book Drive Daniel Pink identifies AUTONOMY as a primary motivator in the workplace. We don't all need to be starting our own businesses, or not working for others, to be happy, but we do need to be self-directed in our efforts. This is why we hate micromanagers, and why we glorify flex time (though even flex time does not guarantee autonomy if we cannot dictate how we use our flex time to complete a job). And while money is a factor in deciding to take a job or project, all things being equal, we prefer work that allows us to do a job on our terms.

Autonomy is really the key to unlocking the potential of women in business, whether they be in a board room or in their home office. Where are the women in business? Ask instead, how may we promote autonomy?

Pregnancy Journal, Week 36: Working with my feet up

A friend of mine called me from New York. We talked for a while about his new job--I may be one of the few people who enjoys discussing with my friends the intricacies of their day to day work.

He asked me, so how are you?

I had to preface my response with a disclaimer,

"Nothing's wrong," I said. "But things are different." My friend probed to determine if I was unhappy.

"Nope," I said. "I'm just getting used to this change." I felt inarticulate, like when I had nightmares as a kid and my mom came into my room and asked me what I was afraid of, and I didn't know. One time I told her, "I'm feeling something skinny; a skinny string." I still get the sensation, but I don't know what it means.

By "change" I think I mean all that has shifted since becoming pregnant. For years I've been told about how the focus of energy shifts when you become a parent. I've held off on my decision to have children knowing this shift occurs. 

But even knowing that I am supposed to slow the centrifugal force that has tied me to a grinding schedule for so long, I find that I still give myself a spin or two to stay in motion, even during times of physical exhaustion. I wonder if I do this out of habit; being in motion is all that I know. Or because the slowdown scares me; all this momentum, what would it take to start up again? What if I fall in love with slow? What if slow feels like a skinny string?

A trusted friend--a powerhouse, even to other powerhouses--tells me that her desire to work, to achieve, didn't change when she had her son, but her reason for working did.

"I did everything because of him," she said.

Some might bristle at that thought, especially since working women are encouraged to have their careers "for themselves". But some of us have been working "for ourselves" for a very, very long time, at the risk of having no perspective and losing the meaning behind what we do. For me, the thought of working for someone else is liberating; it opens possibilities. It bends the rules I set in my mind of the way work must be.

Still, the rules run deep. My business partner said to me last week that if I may not want to bother commuting these last few weeks before the baby is born. Makes sense: an hour-long commute (on a good day) is hardly safe or desirable should I go into labor a few weeks early. After five years of working together (two of those virtually) she knows the work will get done anywhere. But I struggle to take her up on her suggestion. I've always valued physical, tangible presence. Presence is being in motion.

Another co-worker suggested that I use the couch she has in her cube--something she's integrated into her space for extreme back issues. I thanked her and wondered, when would I think to put my feet up? My first job out of college, when my boss traveled I'd sneak cat naps in her office. Why was it so much easier to acknowledge exhaustion when I was 21?

At the BlogHer conference I promised my colleagues and husband that I would put my feet up regularly. It took my husband physically guiding me back to my hotel room 14 hours after I started the day to do what I'd promised. As I sat there, propped by pillows, feet up against the wall, tired and restless, I lamented that it was still so early--I was leaving first thing in the morning and still hadn't seen or done everything I'd wanted to do.

I am hardly a sadomasochist or born with more energy than others. I just don't know otherwise. I suppose I will learn. And I will learn how to channel that energy where it needs to go. And rather than look upon these offers of support suspiciously, I will learn to put my feet up and note that there are moments that we work and moments that we work FOR.

And that skinny string that keeps us tethered to a life in which we've done very well won't break.

Women's work?

Part of my experimentation with my new neighborhood involved trying a new place for a mani-pedi. This didn't come with a small amount of apprehension; a good mani-pedi place is hard to find.

I got comfortable in my chair, settling into the warm pool of water at my feet. An Asian man--not older than 35--lifted my right hand.

"What shape?"

"Short and square," I replied.

"This color on your hands and feet?" he asked, holding up the bottle of deep red that I had picked out when I walked in.

"Please."

I watched this man study my cuticles and start trimming away at my nails. This was most certainly a first for me--having a man give me a mani-pedi. I've seen more men come to salons to receive services, but never had I seen a man giving them before.

I noticed my judgements: Can this guy do a good job? Will he bungle the polish? I watched him work, when normally I would sit back and zone out.

But why would a man who's trained to give manicures do a bad job? This incident made me think about work, and more specifically, women's work versus men's work. What kind belongs to whom anymore?

____________________________________________


I hand H-band a piece of notebook paper with a list of tasks.

"For the week," I say to him, dubious that he would internalize my requests.

"Yep, thanks."

"What are you doing today?"

"Got some work out back, some shopping, and a call at lunchtime," he says.

I'm uneasy with his answer, "But what about the list? When will you get to the list?"

I wonder if, since leaving his company, he'll be efficient with his time, or productive. When we both worked full-time we divided tasks accordingly: He did household tasks like the dishes and most of the cooking. I paid the bills and planned things like travel and dinner parties. I gravitated toward things in the future; he handled things as they came up.  Now he was taking on everything at home: the immediate, the planned, and, when the baby comes, the primary caregiving.

I remind myself that he's good at this. I come home, and he's made dinner. I know that with our daughter he will do what comes naturally and keep her safe, fed, and loved. But I can't help myself: I plan.

"When will you call the insurance people?" I ask. "Will you hang the pictures today?" "Who are you meeting with today?" I want to make sure he really wants to do this. And I have to ensure he's structured, that he's in movement, that he still thinks of his future.

I need to watch him work because I question his instincts in this realm, even when they are more highly honed than my own.

 

 

Preggers

I saw a line, and a lighter line next to it. I read the box again; negative would be just one line. Any second line, light or equally dark, meant yep--with child. Or with embryo, or multiplying cell mass, whatever you want to call it.

"What's taking you so long?" H-band said, walking into the bathroom. I'd been taking longer than usual to get ready for our Saturday morning stroll for coffee. I handed him the piece of plastic I had been studying.

"We're pregnant." I said, perhaps too casually. I'd said that one time before, and devastatingly it didn't stay true for long.

That was January. I'm now just starting to believe the results. After paranoid judgments that I wasn't feeling sick enough and just didn't look pregnant enough--there couldn't possibly be a baby in there while I could still button my jeans--I'm starting to believe. Perhaps when I went in for the second trimester ultrasound and saw a skull and a spine.

"There are the arms," the lab tech said. I had no idea what she was talking about, I couldn't make out any extremities, but those words helped me loosen my grip on H-band's hand. I had no idea I had been holding it so tightly.

"Two?" I confirmed.

"Yes."

She then confirmed two legs, two lungs, and a four-chamber heart. I was almost back to breathing regularly at this point.

"How about the sex?" I asked.

"The baby's legs are closed," the tech said. I would later learn this is commonly said at second trimester ultrasounds as a CYA mechanism, "I'm pretty sure I can see labia...ninety-five percent sure."

I looked at the mass of white on the screen. "If you say so." I turned to H-band. Perhaps it was because a number of our friends were having girls lately that I had been so sure it was a boy. Or perhaps it was the illogical presumption that I had more Y chromosomes to offer up than X--I always felt like I had a lot of boy in me, despite the boobs and other anatomical indices.

"You happy?" I asked H-band.

"Yep," he said, not very convincingly. He'd told me that he didn't care what sex the baby was, but I could tell he felt a twinge of worry, just like I had over the prospect of having a little boy; a question of whether or not he would be able to understand her. I wasn't concerned; though I felt a little guilty. I grew up in a house of women--we take over.

I'm in the "honeymoon trimester". I feel like myself, though I find it more difficult to pick up things from the floor. My fitness instructor has to give me different instructions when we get to abdominals. People who don't know me just think I have a gut and am naturally well-endowed in the chest. Oh if they only knew.

The first trimester was difficult. I was hardly sick and not nearly as tired as I was warned I would be. But I traveled throughout and felt that the 20-30 percent less that I could bring to things was glaringly obvious; my insistence on a cranberry and soda at cocktail parties an admission. I wanted to say, "Not getting my hopes up too much yet," then I shushed myself. I didn't want to manifest the devastation I encountered last summer. I would do things differently this time, whatever that meant.

I came back from business trips and crashed over the weekend, too tired and icky feeling to get up off the couch some days. Still I was only sick-sick one weekend, during a trip to Mendocino. I'd puke and buy myself some hours of reprieve. I called my friend Lissa and my sister-in-law--both doctors--to ensure things were OK. Both said the symptoms sounded indicative of standard morning sickness. It must be something else, I told them. I just didn't feel sick enough.

I harbored a bit of a complex over not being "Mommy" enough. Moms get ubersick when they are pregnant. They look abundant. They drip with, I don't know, Momminess. But during the first trimester waiters still asked me if I'd have a glass of wine with dinner; no one insisted on helping me with my bags on airplanes. I wondered if I was fooling myself.

The few who knew early on asked me, "How will you do it?" I know people wonder that. I've not exactly been one who has lived with visible boundaries between my work and life. The past five years have been all-in. There was a point where I had to stop asking myself that same question. It had become an excuse to not try for something else.

A year or so ago I began practicing creating more space--nothing glaringly obvious. While traveling, I'd stop working before I passed out from exhaustion, taking in a TV show or reading a book before I fell asleep. I came home earlier from work, knowing full-well that I'd get back on email later that night, but at least making it home for dinner. I stopped cramming things into the periphery of my day and letting the things I chose to do stand on their own, without having the less-important accomplishments lean against them like tchotchkes from some garage sale, unnecessary bulk.

Yesterday, after a long day working at home--after two weeks of on and off travel--H-band started in,

"You need to start talking to the baby," he said. "She can hear you."

"I've been on conference calls all day," I said. "She's heard me plenty."

He's been insistent on providing stimuli for the baby, just lately playing this game with my gut, poking my side three times and then waiting for the baby to poke back. She isn't exactly a counter yet, but she's responsive.

"One, two, three."

(pause)

"(Thud)"

"One, two, three."

(pause)

"(Thud)"

H-band gets a kick out of this; it's an indication that she'll be responsive to us outside of the womb. We both want that reassurance that the story we're building in our heads--the one we keep repressing--will, in fact, come true.

No promises, I keep saying to myself, then saying more quietly, but why the hell not?

Where did all my hobbies go?

My business partner, Lisa, passed along a questionnaire from a blogger who will be writing about the working habits of female entrepreneurs. Both Lisa and my other partner, Elisa, had responded; I tried not to read their answers as I approached the questions, but I couldn't help but notice that our answers were eerily similar--with the exception that, as a parent, Lisa spends about 1/3 of her time parenting. Elisa and I try to eak in workouts, books/TV and the occasional cooked meal when we're not working or sleeping.

What amazed me about all of our responses:

--Our hours worked: We tend to put in similar amounts of hours, getting up early to address email, getting in a full work day, and jumping back on our computers to address email/reading after our dinners and activities with friends/spouses/children.

--Our time on email: It's an ever-present thing, even when we're traveling or "offline".

--Our dwindling hobbies: Elisa is a theater buff, and Lisa used to ski a ton. I used to go to yoga class religiously and write creatively. These pursuits were not in our answers, or they were mentioned as rare activities squeezed in while on vacation, or with the words "try to" preceding them, as in, "I TRY to catch a show once a month."

As I was typing my responses to these questions about what I did outside of work--working on a Saturday morning, as I tend to knock out reading I didn't get to during the week--I looked over at my husband, Jesse, embarrassed.

"Jeezus hun! I don't have hobbies anymore."

"You think?" he said, with no small amount of sarcasm.

I love to read profiles of other entrepreneurs, with the voraciousness many have while reading People, In-Style, or some other publication detailing the lives of the rich and famous. I love to hear how they spend their time, down to their commute routines. There's a column in Inc Magazine that showcases a different entrepreneur every month, detailing his/her typical work day. And I marvel at those who do such things as cycle religiously for two hours before sunrise, or who are competitive flamenco dancers on the side. How do they do it and run a business? I wonder.  

I think back to early in my career in New York City, when I worked at several media conglomerates and made it a goal of mine to hit all of the new plays, films, and hot spots I could afford that were listed in Time Out NY magazine. Going through old boxes this past month as I prepared for a move, I found an old collection of Playbills and matchbooks--proof that, once, I did stuff that was not work-related. I found old manuscripts and magazine clips and was amazed at the consecutive hours of creative time it must have taken to write it all. Though I wanted to pare down all the random detritus I'd collected over the years, I couldn't get myself to throw this stuff away.

Jesse and I stole away for a bagel this morning, and I bragged to him that every Saturday, back when I lived in New York more than 10 years ago, I used to walk to a local bagel shop, order one with one of three of my favorite shmear flavors, then stop over at the coffee shop across the street to read The New Yorker or a book I was reading with my book club. I didn't have a mobile phone or a laptop; it was a purely analog pursuit. And I'd spend hours there, enough to get my thoughts swirling. I'd go home and write up a storm.

I used to regularly host friends for dinner, planning the menu days before and often prepping food most of a Saturday afternoon. Or I'd endeavor to bake something I'd never made before.

I used to take classes on such things as fiction writing, winetasting, boxing, or improvisational acting, and attend book readings after work.

I feel slightly wistful, but hardly regretful, of the changes; I'm more mindful of them. On the other side of the coin, 10 years ago I yearned for more adventure out of my work, and to do more than read manuscripts and edit articles eight hours a day. I wished I could travel more. I wished that I could work for myself and maybe even support a family with my work. I wished that the time I did have wasn't spent wishing for more.

I may have no hobbies, but in that last respect the grass is most certainly greener today.

Death of an Entrepreneur

Somewhere around age 45 my father decided he didn't want to work anymore. He didn't tell anyone this; he may not even have told himself. He'd started his own business about ten years before and had worked like crazy. Dad's experience was in automotive print advertising sales and he'd developed a client base among local car dealerships. When he left the corporate world he had a network of clients ready to hire him to promote their dealership sales events. Some people say my Dad could sell anything.

Dad was successful initially through sheer force of will. Though his job was primarily in advertising and promotion, he personally touched every piece of the sales funnel--placing ads in the local papers, orchestrating mass mailings, being the voice of God in local TV and radio ads, donning his tuxedo on Saturday mornings and welcoming people into his clients' dealerships, and even at times selling the cars. At night, he'd come home exhausted, usually not having eaten all day. He'd loosen his tie and fix himself a drinkie winkie. Mom would ask, "How many?" Sometimes it was a number in the twenties, sometimes it was more.

For several years Dad sent out these massive mailings for his clients. He wrote and designed the materials; picked them up from the printer and then personally dropped off boxes of mailers, envelopes, and reams of names and stamps at the homes of my mom's girlfriends. They would hand-address, stamp and stuff, making maybe 40 bucks per job. For particularly big jobs my Dad employed his kids. It took a while before I was allowed to write on the envelopes--Dad wanted the writing to look professional--but eventually I got my own lists. I felt proud being trusted enough to help.

After several years Dad became more efficient. He printed labels for the mailers, which saved time and looked better. Still I think he did things the hard way. His business didn't have nearly the scope of one that would necessitate funding, but I don't think Dad thought along those lines anyway--of borrowing money to make more money, or of hiring staff in order to free him up to do more high-level thinking. His only "employee" was his unpaid bookkeeper, my mother, who admits her only qualification for the job was an ability to balance a checkbook. My father was a quick learner, but I do wonder now if things would have been different if he'd consulted others as he grew.