Balancing my professional and personal life has been pretty tricky lately. The work seems never-ending, which is a good thing, right? Well, yes and no. I know there are a whole lot of people out there that are struggling to find just ONE client or just ONE job. In fact, I see these people posting and considering job auction sites like elance.com, undercutting others, and doing the work for a song if they end up getting it at all.

Well, that’s a post for another day. Today’s post is about BALANCE, which I have little of… but I do try, or at least I want to start trying! Right now I’m juggling a full time job that “encourages” me to stay late; a lucrative freelancing gig; an online Ajax class; and time for my wife, friends, and, of course, me. Honestly, I just feel there are not enough hours in the day!

So what am I doing right and what am I doing wrong?

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I must admit, I’ve had a pretty good year. And despite the recent recession, it’s still the best since I became a freelance web developer almost 10 years ago. In a minute I’ll talk about all the new tools and ideas I have for 2009 to continue my success, but I want to take a moment and list all the things I did differently in 2008 that made my business more lucrative.

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If you go to your local Staples store today (December 22nd), you can get a FREE copy of Quickbooks Pro 2009. The retail is $199.99 with a $40 instant rebate and a $159.99 mail-in rebate. I already got my copy at lunch. Go on and get your copy now!

Those of you that follow me on Twitter may have read that I had a job interview for a FT web developer position. It was offered to me, but I ended up not taking it for various reasons: security and compensation being the 2 biggest. That, and I wasn’t sure if life as a .Net code monkey was really for me. Yes, I enjoy development—mostly in PHP though—but I think I enjoy the XHTML and CSS aspect of sites more for the tech-meets-artist in me. Anyway…

Today Josh Catone over at sitepoint.com posted 10 Essential Tips For Landing Your Next Job, which I found timely and relevant. Especially considering the current state of the job market. He made some great points you should consider before applying to a job… like not using the same cover letter for every job. My wife taught me this one a few years back. I do keep a cover letter template which contains the “guts” of my letter. However, I usually rewrite the first and last paragraphs for every job I apply to.

Some other ones in his list I try and follow are blogging (which I’m getting better at these days), Networking Offline (I ALWAYS have business cards with me, and it pays off), and Don’t Stop Learning (I enroll in online classes constantly).