Today I hopped over to Deb Bailey’s Secrets of Success blog and talked about how self employed people can be authentic and how they can stay on track by setting good business boundaries.

• How to use hashtags Ever wonder what the # sign means?  It is a way of letting twitter know that your post is part of a specific conversation so people can follow.  For the Labor Day Tweet Up – just put #selfemployment at the end of your tweets and we’ll know you are talking to us.

• How do I follow the conversation? You can view all the tweets in the conversation by going to http://tweetchat.com and entering #selfemployment as the hash tag.  If you follow along in the chatroom -you can just see the posts that are part of our conversation – and hopefully make some new friends.

• What to tweet about and when? We’ll be tweeting discussion questions from 2pm to 10pm (Eastern) each day.  Just answer the questions or post about #selfemployment.

• Why Should I Play? Not only is the Self Employment Telesummit Labor Day Tweet Up a great way to network and make some new friends – one lucky participant will win a free gold ticket to the Self Employment Telesummit.

Check out my latest virtual blog tour appearance on Kandy Cross’s blog. . In my post, I talk about how you can listen to what your clients are saying to help determine your ideal price.

My next stop on the blog tour was Tammy Vitale’s blog:  Women, Life and Art (Weaving it All Together).  Tammy asked about setting realistic goals yet still leaving room for growth and expansion.

Check out my answer here.

According to The New York Times, entrepreneurship is on the rise, in part in response to rising unemployment. But then, we knew that, didn’t we?

Graphic designers and layout people will tell you that white space is what makes it possible for us to register text on a printed page or a computer screen. White space gives order, context, and emphasis to what matters.

White space facilitates delight: it makes it possible for the contents of a page or of a life to be arranged in a pleasing way. It requites and allows artful choice. Without it, everything seems equally urgent, similarly important.

Because it is empty, it is tempting to fill white space when the pressure is on. If you’ve ever tried to read an email that isn’t broken up into short paragraphs, you know what happens when too much content squeezes out the white space. It is hard to track meaning, hard to isolate key points, hard to know how to respond.

The same thing happens when there is not enough white space in our lives. When we steal time from the white space to make another meeting, start another project, make another call, we end up distracted, confused, and reactive. Depending on our individual styles, we may get irritable, weepy, bossy, or simply forgetful, none of which saves time, makes money, or engenders effective collaboration. In an ironic turnabout, we may start saying “no” to things we’d like to say “yes” to and vice versa. Play feels like work, work loses its charm, work life balance quits us.

However, if we expand or maintain white space in times of great challenge, we will often notice that unexpected opportunities and solutions arise. When a problem is too big or complex to be solved with available resources, we have to go to another level to solve it. White space helps us find that other level and bring work life balance back, when pushing harder and moving faster won’t work.

When you are self employed, it’s important to make time for hobbies and recreation, maybe even for an afternoon nap. This is not self-indulgence. It’s not even self-care. It’s cultivating the white space you need in order to maintain work life balance, show up, serve, and prosper in every aspect of your life and work.