It's a sultry summer morning--the bees, birds, and butterflies are doing that thing they do, buzzing, twittering, fluttering. They're hard at work, but I'm not.

As I do every summer morning, I've gravitated to my back patio. For the next hour or two, I'll read the paper, pinch petunias, and generally delay getting to work. Usually, I'm comfortable about taking as much time as I need to ease into my work day.

Today, though, I don't dawdle guilt-free. Due to circumstances completely within my control, I've allowed myself to become "swamped."

I don't like being swamped and neither do many of the small business people I know. Most of us have moved into this netherworld of working for ourselves precisely because we wanted to take time to, oh I dunno, smell the roses, quilt, read, play with our kids, cook gourmet meals, and take naps.

But the fear of never getting another gig is a real and constant companion. To compensate, we take on too much work. To pull us back from that slippery slope, many of us develop coping strategies.

Lie downs and loose ends

An unapologetic proponent of the one-hour lie-down--as I am--my friend Pat (names have been changed to protect the guilty) says she hits the couch in her office whenever she senses a work-related panic attack on the horizon. Napsters like Pat know that even though it may be counterintuitive to quit when the going gets rough, taking a nap makes her more productive in the end.

My friend Kevin, a fellow journalist, daily juggles several projects, all of them carrying relatively short deadlines. "To me, stress comes from the unknown," he says. "To get rid of that feeling, I start identifying things in my projects that I feel unsure about and start fixing them. With fewer loose ends around, I can relax."

Loose ends drive me crazy, too. They're a major source of that sensation of having too many balls in the air and not enough shot through the hoop and notched on the scoreboard.

I've discovered that when I finally settle down to my desk, it's extremely helpful for me to spend the rest of my morning attending to what Kevin calls "the little things." That quick phone call to clarify one point, an email check-in (or two or three...), a web search (or two or three....). "After I take care of stuff like that, I can devote the majority of the day for things that require heavy lifting," Kevin says, agreeing with my strategy.

In order to identify tactics like this that will work for you, you first need to determine your own strengths. I'm not a morning person, so I'd rather not conduct an interview or start writing until after lunch. I'm also very organized, so administrative tasks don't daunt me. I can attend to them even though I may still be at half-mast.

Keep the client list short

The much-ballyhooed power of organization is, of course, another useful tool in avoiding the feeling that the day has slipped by without you accomplishing much. When I think of organized people, I think of my friend Rachel, who's so well-organized that she's made a profession out of her skill.

But it's the methodology behind her business that I like. She's determined that her personal life and self-fulfillment (Rachel's a great taker of classes and a tireless community activist and volunteer) are more important than chasing a buck.

Still, Rachel likes nice things. Her modus operandi, then, has been to develop long-lasting relationships with a few affluent clients. These people hire her for everything from registering their kids in private school to putting together dinner parties.

The fewer clients/better-paying gigs equation works well for small offices, too. My husband, Ray, and his partner have used it to great advantage in their 10-person web consulting business. They've realized that small clients demand just as much time and energy (and sometimes more) as bigger ones. So they've instituted a key policy: just say no to projects that don't seem right. Something better will come along soon enough.

Prepare for vacation

Small business owners like Ray and independent contractors alike agree that the stress of preparing to leave on vacation requires special coping skills.

Even Rachel, the pro-organizer, says she's frequently overwhelmed at those times. I saw her before she left for a two-week vacation and she confessed she hadn't yet packed because she'd been running around attending to client needs. As vacation approached she was feeling more tense than ever. "I'm not ready for this trip," she moaned, "and I won't be until I'm on the plane. It's always that way."

I was surprised that Rachel hadn't yet learned to put into effect what's turned out to be my greatest weapon, especially in connection with vacations: stretch the truth about when you're leaving your office and when you're returning to it.

I strive for a two- or three-day buffer zone. This way, I get no last minute phone calls from harried clients and, what a bonus!, I get a few extra days to perform last-minute catch-ups like looking for trial-size toothpaste. Coming out of my extended holiday, I get precious decompression time before the real world intrudes once again.

Which coping strategies work for you has a lot to do with where you draw your boundaries, I guess. In a traditional 9-to-5 job the boundaries are decided for you. As an independent contractor or a small business owner, you draw your own. Yes, that gives you a lot of freedom, but if you're not careful you can end up working way more than you'd really like. You can literally end up working against yourself.

I chose this independent life in part because it gives me the freedom to not be swamped. That's why I don't answer my business line after hours or on weekends. It's why I always take a lunch-hour (or two). And it's why I try to take a mini-break after actually completing a project. In fact, I'm going to go do that, now. You'll excuse me, won't you?

JoANN GRECO can be reached at jphila@aol.com. She'll get back to you--when she gets a sec.