The commercials on television tell me it’s time to start thinking about Christmas. Because of this and that in my personal life, my immediately family and I are not exchanging gifts, but I didn’t make the same kind of deal with my clients.

The first decision I have to make is about my Christmas cards. Last year I searched everywhere to find a notable card made with recycled paper. I settled on cool Bloomin’ Flower cards, which include a paper ornament. The homemade paper contains seeds, so you plant the ornament and watch the flowers bloom. Well, that’s the theory, at least. I have about 6 of those little scraps of paper with seeds, and I’ve never planted any of them. But I feel too guilty to just toss them into the recycling bin.

Last year, my first Christmas as the owner of Avenue Z, I bought a Hurricane Katrina Mercy Kit from MercyCorps. In the Christmas cards to my clients, I wrote that I had donated the money on behalf of the clients of Avenue Z. This year I’m torn. Over the summer I sent several of my larger clients a package of fantastic Dancing Deer cookies (love the cookies, love the company!). My clients were much more excited about getting a box of cookies than they were about reading that I had donated to a charity on their behalf.

This year again I’m searching for the perfect recycled holiday cards. I briefly explored Etsy (the best, best, best place for unique and hand-crafted everything) and discovered Stelie Designs and this card. The Craft Pantry’s holiday collection looks cool, too. I like these from annacote as well. Too many good choices.

But what about the gift? With all that’s going on in the world, should I donate to charity again or offer another consumable? What are your ideas for a thoughtful but meaningful expression of gratitude to my best clients?

Late last month, Copyblogger published a post called Where Have All the Freelance Writing Jobs Gone? Frankly, I’m not really feeling the heat of the economic chaos yet. Any dips in income have more to do with my personal life than the number of customers. I’m a pretty lucky chick, all things considered.

That being said, you can bet my clients are getting nervous. I know at least one “Beth Budget” has dried up completely, and other clients are really thinking twice about how much work they farm out. Everyone’s kind of hunkering down, and I need to stop thinking about the work I have today and start projecting into the future.

One of the best ideas from the Copyblogger article came from the 2008-2009 Freelance Writing Jobs Report by Yuwanda Black from InkwellEditorial.com. She outlined great markets for freelance writers and concluded with a very helpful list of tips on how to recession proof your freelance business.

Yuwanda suggested that freelancers examine their rates during this tough economy, so that’s what I did. In the last week, I’ve offered a retainer package to a number of my clients, promising up to a certain number of hours of work a month for a flat fee, which represents about a 25 percent reduction in my rates.

Four of my clients have taken me up on this offer, each with commitments of 3 months. This allows them to know they can count on help when they need it from someone who knows their business. And I’m excited because I don’t always have to be prospecting regular clients and new leads. I can depend on a certain amount of income and work a month, so I can rest a little easier that everything won’t dry up next week.

Did I have to do this? No. Like I said, I’m fortunate enough that I have clients who count on me and steady work for the foreseeable future. But this allows me to not have to wonder as much if I’ll have income after I finish the next project.

I’m always looking for free and low-cost tools that will help my productivity. The other night I looked for software that would keep me from blog surfing, news reading and other “screensucking” activities.

I discovered Zihtec’s Internet Control for Business, a handy little computer babysitter that promised to help you “regain the productivity currently lost due to employees frivolous and inappropriate online chatting or non-business related surfing and shopping.”

I downloaded the free trial.

I’m still reeling from the computer carnage that ensued.

During the initial install, I didn’t get a setup wizard which would have let me establish an admin password. As soon as I installed it, I saw it was a little rinky-dink program with bugs and a not-too-professional appearance. I tried to uninstall. It said, please disable the program first. I tried to disable. It said, please enter the admin password. THERE IS NO ADMIN PASSWORD.

This clever little program was designed to be completely unremovable by naughty employees who don’t want corporate big brother software on their personal machines. I downloaded uninstallers, consulted technology experts on my favorite listserv, tried to revert using Windows System Restore, left three messages with Zihtec’s help desk (no response)…. I actually was able to remove most of it, but a little remnant is still here. And the kicker — the remnant blocks some of my other programs and prevents me from being able to use Windows Task Manager to stop cranky programs. It even broke my Jing!

Thus, yesterday I spent the entire day rebooting, downloading utilities, consulting with experts, cursing and finally coming to the conclusion (with the experts) that I’d have to format my computer, wipe everything off, and rebuild it.

Now, getting back to the purpose of downloading the software to begin with: I did it to INCREASE productivity, and I wasted all day!

Yeah, I had a cookie with dinner. And I think I deserved a cupcake as well.

The good news is that I did find a very nice program to do the same job. I downloaded a trial of Internet Access Controller, and it allows me to restrict certain URLs during the day (like Twitter, for instance) so that I don’t have the option of getting caught up in social networking instead of work. I’m going to buy this one for $14.95.

More good news: Thanks to the tech experts, I found a bunch of utilities that would allow you to find and destroy a NORMAL icky program. This Zihtec thing, though…. it’s like The Terminator.

PS — Today’s little extra for my email subscription folks is going to be a list of the utilities. Subscribe to Avenue Z by email if you want the inside scoops!

PS again — if the Zihtec folks read this, I’ll be very, very happy to print an updated blog post about how you came to my rescue and solved this problem!

I wasn’t going to post anything today, but someone sent me this video. Watch all four minutes, forty-six seconds of this important message, then pass it along.