Yesterday, I woke up in a panic in Barcelona.

Did I forget a deadline on the overnight flight? Did I leave all thoughts of clients across the Atlantic? IS SOMEBODY MAD AT ME?

With this month-long trip, I’ll accomplish a core part of what drove me to choose the freelance life — I will have traveled four months out of the year. Without having to ask permission, I’ve roamed from Seattle to New York, New Orleans to San Francisco, Key West to Spain.

Here’s the thing though: travel induces chaos.

Chances are, the wild dream you have for your writing life is also a bit chaotic. Maybe you want to make time to be with your kids more often. That means finger paints! You want to hike while no one is out there. That means planning and packing! You want to take summers off. Logistics!

The more wild your dream, the more solid your structure must be.

I’m here in Barcelona, actually, to work with the developer of the web app that’s making it all possible for me, The Writer’s Mission Control Center. After two years of working together from the confines of Zoom-land, I get to work in person, in Spanish plazas, with my genius developer, Rafa.

And thank goodness, just this week, we finished the long-awaited Project Manager.

I got out of bed, opened my computer, and navigated to the spot where I had all my projects, color-coded by due date, statuses labeled, the days left to complete calculated for me.

I checked each one, scheduled the necessary time in my calendar, then enjoyed a sense of calm easing through my chest. I put on my boots and my sunglasses, and walked out into the Barcelona day to get a cafe con leche.

Psst: This site uses affiliate links.

The Writer’s Mission Control Center is what I built for myself, because nothing else helped me organize both my creative and my professional writing the way I needed it to. Whatever you use, make sure you have a way to view an organized, top-level summary of all your projects at once, so you can make your wild dreams happen with calm and confidence.

Here’s how it works:

First, you pick the kind of project you’re working on. This gives you custom options.

Then, you name it use the Status to keep track of how far along you are.

The Writer’s Mission Control Center keeps track of how many days you have left, so you can keep the most important work front and center.