Cross posted at casabona.org/blog
As a freelancer, I don’t have an office, or employees, or all the extra stuff that one might have as a business. I work from home, with my laptop, my cell phone, and if I need to offload some work, I have a group of subcontractors I can call. This of course makes it harder to separate personal and professional life, especially if I’m giving people my cell phone number as a means of contact. That has changed with Google Voice.
The final piece in the Backpack for Freelancers Series is on collaboration. After talking about managing your projects and managing your clients, it’s not too far fetched to think you might want to share your notes, screens, to do lists, with a client you’re working with. As it turns out, collaborating is very easy with Backpack.
Last week, I talk about the project management aspect of Backpack, which I feel is the most obvious use for Backpack. However, a big portion of what I use Backpack for is management my clients- their projects, follow-ups lists, notes, and reminders to call or meet with them. Today, I will be talking in-depth about managing my clients with Backpack.
What seems like ages ago, I posted the first in a series of posts I’m doing called Backpack for Freelancers. The series will cover the merits of using Backpack for managing your freelance (and possibly personal) life, and will be broken down into three parts. Today is the first part: Project Management.
The tool I use most to keep organized is Backpack, an online organizational tool by 37signals. I posted it earlier this year as a resource, but since I’ve been busier, have found myself relying on it more and more. In this mini-series, I will take you through some of the things I use Backpack for, and how it can be beneficial to you as freelancer. Today, a brief overview.
I came across this story in the September 2009 issue of .net magazine on pricing, in an article titled, Be the boss: deciding how much to charge by Mark Boulton:
Legend has it that the artist Pablo Picasso was once sketching in a park when a woman approached him and asked him to draw her portrait. Of course, she was going to pay him, so after agreeing they sat down and- after a few moments of study- Picasso used a single pencil stroke to capture the woman’s likeness.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “You’ve managed to capture my essence with one stroke, in one moment. Thank You so much. How much do I owe you?”
“Five thousand dollars,” Picasso replied.
“What? But it only took you five minutes!” she sputtered.
“Madame, it took me my entire life,” he answered.
It’s a great story, and a nice reminder that when a freelancer prices, it should take into account our experiences, not just the amount of time we spend on a project.
Freelancing the Net is a blog dedicated to giving advice and tips to other freelancers or those looking to freelance. It is the first hand account of how a freelancer got to where he is, from the beginning up until now.
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