Freelancefolder

Selling Yourself On The Value Of Your Time

Posted July 28, 2007 in Productivity 19 Rockin' Comments »

There’s one inherent advantage to being a full time, salaried employee that the self-employed rarely talk about: Even when you’re unproductive, you’re still earning money.

If you’re a full time employee, you probably just laughed to yourself. If you’re a freelancer or a self-employed entrepreneur, that knot in your stomach is the realization that you’re the one paying the price for less-than-productive days. When “actual results” directly drive your paycheck, you’re the one to lose when you’re unproductive, distracted, or working at less than the peak performance that keeps your rates high (and growing, right?).

And yet we all waste time. And we all pay for it. Until now. Here’s a freakishly simple way to sell yourself on the value of your time so you can focus on the things that are going to boost your bottom line: [Click Here to Read More...]

The Perils Of Working At Night – Should You Rent A Space?

Posted July 27, 2007 in Productivity 11 Rockin' Comments »

You’re a freelancer and you work from home, or have your own business, you work odd hours, probably long hours, and if you’re just getting started, you can expect it will be like this at least for the next couple of months.

It takes time to build a profitable business, have everything up and running, find contracts, gigs, and actually make ends meet. Chances are you’ll have to work at night, after the kids are asleep (if you have kids, of course). ;)

But if you can afford to rent a space and work during the day, provided you don’t have a day job, I’d suggest you go ahead and do it. Let’s see.

It’s 1am And You’re Still Working

You make yourself another coffee, hoping it’ll help you stay awake, because there are some last minute details you need to check. Now it’s 3am, and you’re still working on that project. You told your client, everything would be ready by tomorrow (which sounds more like “today” now). Someone has to do it, and that someone happens to be you. You go to bed at 4am. [Click Here to Read More...]

Keep Your Batteries Charged – How To Minimize And Manage Stress

Posted July 24, 2007 in Productivity 7 Rockin' Comments »

It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, chances are there are times where you find your work stressful. Even worse, if you are like most Americans, the line between your work and “home” has been invariably blurred due to changing demographics and improvements in communications technology.

The NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) report cites the following statistics relating to work and stress:

• 40% of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful.
• 25% view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives.
• 75% believe that workers have more on-the-job stress than a generation ago.

A Gallup Poll conducted in 2000 entitled “Attitudes in the American Workplace” found that 80% of the workers surveyed felt stress on the job with nearly half of those saying they needed help in learning how to manage stress. [Click Here to Read More...]