Freelancefolder

10 Top Tips to Combat Procrastination

Posted March 18, 2011 in Inspiration, Lifestyle

Procrastination can be dangerous for a freelancing business.

If you put critical tasks off for too long you may find yourself without enough time to get them done properly. This is important because rushed work tends to be sloppy and less desirable for clients.

Procrastinating may even cause you to lose a client, or worse, your business. Yet, many of us put off necessary tasks every day without even realizing it.

In this post, I’ll tackle some of the reasons why we procrastinate and provide practical steps that you can easily follow to overcome it.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Keeping Up with the Joneses of the Web

Posted March 2, 2011 in Design, Lifestyle

You’ve heard the saying “Keeping up with the Joneses,” right? It basically means that whenever your neighbor (or friend or family member) buys some new shiny toy, you have to buy one too. They have a bunch of big screen TVs, trucks and Sea-Doos, so you have to have them too.

But have you heard about Keeping up with the Joneses of the Web? Every day there seems to be some new cool trend out there than can be accomplished with CSS3, HTML5 or a bit of Photoshop trickery. Five minutes after one person accomplishes this, it seems that it somehow has made it on to everyone else’s site. You know, things like gradients and drop shadows were once just on one or two sites on the web.

Keeping up with the Joneses online is just as dangerous as it is offline. Yes, you may have something shiny and new, but does it really help your business? Does it hurt your customers? What do they think when they see on your site the same thing they’ve seen on 300 other portfolios?

[Click Here to Read More...]

Confessions from Inside of a Freelancer’s Own Family

Posted February 27, 2011 in Freelance Stories, Lifestyle

“Honey, I love you but….At times you really @#&% me off.”

At least that’s what one freelancer’s family member recently told them.

Did you ever wonder how your own family members feel about your freelancing? This guest post takes a look at freelancing from the perspective of a freelancer’s own family member.

[Click Here to Read More...]

10 Tips for Saving Money as a Freelancer

Posted February 21, 2011 in Accounting/Bookkeeping, Lifestyle

Now that I’ve been freelancing for well over a year, I’ve dealt with my fair share of expenses, taxes and other terrible money sucking things we have to deal with as the self-employed. There are several ways to manage these of course, and ways to save money doing so.

Unfortunately, just because we stay at home it doesn’t mean that we save more money than someone who works outside of the home. Yes, we have to pay for less gas, we don’t have to pay to eat out, nor do we have as many car expenses. But if you’re not careful, you can actually spend a lot more than someone who does drive 30 minutes away to work.

Here are ten of the ways I’ve found to save money for everything we deal with as business owners.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Are Freelancing Expectations Keeping You from Your Ultimate Success?

Posted February 17, 2011 in Inspiration, Lifestyle, News

No matter what your freelancing specialty is, I think it’s fair to say that we all entered freelancing with a certain set of expectations. Of course, your expectations were most likely different mine.

If you’ve been freelancing for any significant length of time, you probably already realize that there are some differences between your expectations before you were a freelancer and your actual experience as a freelancer. In the past, we’ve done a really good job at comparing common freelancing expectations with the reality of freelancing.

In this post, I’m going to do something different. I’m going to explain why your freelancing expectations may be keeping you from success and why you should let those old expectations go.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Learning When to Refuse Your Community

Posted February 9, 2011 in Lifestyle

Aside from your clients, your community is the second most important thing to have as a freelancer. The community includes your Twitter followers, blog commenters, Facebook fans, or any other website where you interact with fellow freelancers who often do something similar to what you do. This can also include your physical community like the business events or conferences you may attend.

To be seen as an expert in the community, it’s important to take the time to help others out. This can be done by helping them with issues, supporting one of their causes or just giving them some advice. People will remember that it was you who helped and will be more likely to return the favor and even to refer clients to you.

But what happens when the community asks for too much? When one person in the community is too demanding or rude? When your schedule is genuinely filled up? Sometimes you’ll find it necessary to decline the requests for help, and it isn’t always pretty.
[Click Here to Read More...]

How Many Personas Do You Maintain Online (and Why)?

Posted January 7, 2011 in Lifestyle, Social Media

In the not too distant past people often defined themselves by saying they wore several “hats.” One could wear the mother hat, the nurse hat, the wife hat, the lover hat–and switch them off and on with no one thinking anything of it, because they could still see that it was really just you.

It’s different now, and instead of switching hats–you switch personas, which, for Internet users, is more like switching skins.

As a freelancer, do you wear different hats, to allow you to show different parts of your personality without jeopardizing your image?

[Click Here to Read More...]

RSI Injuries: What They Are and How to Avoid Them

Posted January 5, 2011 in Lifestyle

As freelancers, we don’t often worry about work hazards.

After all, most of us work in the comfort of our homes, doing what we enjoy and love. We don’t operate dangerous machinery, or get exposed to toxic chemicals.

So unless you’re a freelance journalist, which is one of the most hazardous occupations, you probably don’t think freelancing could cause you harm.

However, there is a health hazard freelancers should watch out for.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Six Things to Do Instead of Working Today

Posted December 29, 2010 in Lifestyle

Some days are just not good days for working. You’ve got a million things distracting you from your work: the dogs are whining, the kids are crying, you’ve got too much on your mind, or you’re so eager for a package coming in the mail (that’s me) that you simply can’t drag yourself to your desk.

Fortunately for us, we’re freelancers which means we don’t have to work Monday thru Friday, eight to five. We can take off on Tuesday at 11 am. And you should–you deserve it.

Instead of feeling guilty for it, enjoy it, there are a ton of other things you can be doing today instead of client work that will not only be enjoyable and fun, but will actually help you along as a freelancer. See, you can have fun and grow your business at the same time!

[Click Here to Read More...]