Smashing Magazine has a nice little list of how freelancers can increase their productivity. While all of the tips are very good, I find Making a Plan really helps, and I need to limit the amount of time surfing the web. Seriously, I do that entirely too much. It’s a good list that is definitely worth checking out!
(link to post)Visit 6 Ways Freelancers Can Increase Productivity
As a designer, you will likely be asked to do comp or spec work; that is, work for free to see if a potential client wants to hire you. This is a big no no for designers for several reasons. I’ll write up my own post next week (keep an eye out!), but for today the site No!Spec has Ten Reasons to say to No. You should check that out, as well as the rest of the site as it has reasons, horror stories of doing spec work, and more.
Cross posted on my personal blog.
It used to be the case that Sunday truly was a day of rest. Shops closed, people went to church, had an early dinner, and called it a day. Then stores started to stay open on Sundays. The hours got longer. Now some places are open 24 hours, 5 days a week. Some 24/7. It used to be the case that once you left the office for the day, you were done working. How could you work? All your stuff was at the office. How would anyone reach you? Now we have cell phones, IM, email on our phones; we are reachable all the time. “Open” 24/7. And that’s what people expect now. Our culture is moving towards a 24/7 work mentality to be more productive, and make more money. That needs to change.
It’s more coincidence than anything that I started to have these thoughts before, but on the same day that, I started reading The Four Hour Work Week. I’m just into it, and this post is not a book review, but Ferriss does talk early on about some of the stuff that spurred these thoughts. I wrote a while back about not responding to email right away. It’s not to be rude, but to set a precedent and draw some boundaries. If people think you are always available, they will expect you to be on call all the time. This isn’t healthy for you or them. And it’s not just with email.
I’ve had clients call me at midnight because they ‘needed’ to talk to me. I get calls on the weekend, and people who want to schedule meetings on Sundays. And it’s not that I’m lazy that I don’t want to do that; people can’t work all the time. It’s not physically or mentally healthy. So how do we solve this problem?
Don’t be afraid to draw those boundaries. Tell your clients or co-workers that you’re only available during business hours. Don’t answer business email on the weekend. Take the weekends for yourself. I took the 4th of July weekend completely off. From Friday to Sunday I did no work- I even put up an email auto-response. It was the first time in a long time I did that because I have the same mentality others do- I work a lot. Usually I take the weekends for side projects or small rush jobs I want to get out of the way. But it’s that mentality that causes a lot of people to burn out hard and fast.
Maybe it’s that we are in front of a computer anyway, or we think, “Well I’m not doing anything now,” that we take that call or work on that project. But we don’t have to produce all the time. It’s ok to do nothing. Having a lazy day is perfectly acceptable, and in some cases, needed. So far I like The Four Hour Work Week because Ferriss talks about how to be more productive in less time, and how to take time for yourself. I’ll post more about it as I read it, but remember this: Working 24/7 is NOT a good mentality. I think we should remember the days when Sunday really was a day of rest.
Every freelancer has a set of tools that help them get through the day. No matter what your trade (web developer, photographer, copywriter, etc.) you have a few essentials that help you do your job more efficiently and more effectively. I am no different; I’ve got software and tools that help me manage my accounting, projects, and of-course, aide in developing websites. Below are the big five in my arsenal.
About two weeks ago I posed my question sheet for clients as a resource for thise who might find it useful. Today’s resouces comes from Smashing Magazine, who posted a list for 45 Lists and Questionnaires for web designers. They range from client focused stuff like the question sheet I posted to checklists about the design process. Definitely a set of resources that are helpful throughout the entire process of web design.
Way back in March I started using FreshBooks as my bookkeeping tool of choice. This was the last time (hopefully for a while) that I changed my method of bookkeeping. Since high school I knew I wanted to keep my books and general accounting organized but when I was new to the game I wasn’t quite sure how. I did what made sense to me and used Excel. This actually went on for quite a while- well into college- because it worked for me, I wasn’t making that much money so I didn’t have a whole lot to keep track of, and it wasn’t costing me money. Then I switched because I wanted something more sophisticated- it was more of a need based thing. Whatever it is you’re looking for, really think about it so you’re not switching software or processes when it’s least convenient- information can get lost and you don’t want to have it in several places as opposed to one. Whatever you choose, it needs to work for you.
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.
Read More…
© Joe Casabona, 2008-2010. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by: WordPress, cForms, Twitter Tools, and several other WordPress Plugins. Special thanks to Photoshop Guru for the Post-it Note tutorial and Dave Shea for his Chalkwork Icons.
