Children are overjoyed to be staying home from school – and perhaps being outside sledding, having snow ball fights, and building snow men.

Moms and Dads might not be quite so happy.

I’m sure some are figuring out ways to make it to work, and for them it’s a problem with finding someone to stay at home with their kids.

For others, it means not going to work – and rattling around the house wondering what to do with themselves. Funny how an unplanned day off can leave you not knowing what to do with yourself.

But don’t waste it sitting in front of the TV! Come up with something more beneficial.

You may seize the moment to do some self-pampering – like a long soak in a bubble bath (if you have power and hot water) or curling up with a good book.

You may grasp the opportunity to just play with the kids – that’s always a wise choice for any parent. Or maybe it’s a good time to call your Mom, or Dad, or Grandparent. What about a good friend you haven’t talked with lately?

Or… if there are no kids at home to brighten your day, and no one you really should call – and if you are an independent business person – you might choose to figure out how to make the day count professionally.

Of course you can get on the phone to past clients, current prospects, and people in your sphere of influence. That is always a worthwhile undertaking.

You can also work on your marketing to get new clients – you know that task that gets shoved aside when you’re super busy taking care of current clients.

Maybe it’s time to check all the links in your website – or to read every page and see if it needs updates. Maybe it’s time to add some new content pages.

You could create a dozen new blog posts to have on hand for those days when you don’t have time to write.

You could work on your contact files – bringing them up to date with your most current past clients.

You could set up a drip campaign on your website – using letters you’ll write while the snow is falling – or pre-written letters that you’ve purchased. I offer several sets of pre-written real estate letters ready for you to load into your autoresponder. They can be working for you within an hour or two.

You could think about all the people who have helped you lately, and write a whole pile of thank you notes.

Pick one of the many ways to spend a snowy day – and make it count!

Installing live chat on my website seemed like a really good thing to do – and fun, besides. So… I spent a few hours getting it installed, only to learn that while I had it running, other things would NOT run.

Even when it was turned off, just the fact of it being there caused all sorts of problems. Internet Explorer wouldn’t open at all (which isn’t terrible, because I use Firefox), but my tweets on Twitter wouldn’t load… and it may have played some part in not being able to use Constant Contact. Although I don’t think so, because I tried that from a different computer too.

Talking to Constant Contact today I learned that they’re having difficulties with some ISP’s – and Hughes Net is one of them.

The slow speed on Hughes Net is probably why I couldn’t use chat, too – and there’s some reason why every time I send an e-mail I get a “connection terminated” notice.

Anyway, I finally did get one ezine uploaded and sent out, and then I went back to my website and took away all the chat code. That was after uninstalling the software.

So… what is there to learn from this? If you don’t have high speed – don’t try to do anything fancy – like installing live chat.  You’ll just waste precious hours that you could be spending doing something productive – or even playing.

My last two days would give a time management expert fits, so don’t follow my lead.

By the way, February 28 is also “Sleep in public” day – and Ive been wondering about the best way to celebrate that. Once when I had the real estate office a customer came in and stretched out on our couch – maybe I could find a nice warm office with a soft couch?

No – guess not. I think I won’t celebrate that at all – since I already celebrated inconvenience yourself day.