Freelancefolder

5 Easy Ways to Finish Your Day With A Bang

Posted September 17, 2009 in How-To, Productivity 22 Rockin' Comments »

Getting a lot of work done at the end of the day can be really tough — especially if it happens to be a Monday, Thursday, or Friday.

Time seems to slow down, motivation slowly seeps away, and I’d swear that work becomes exponentially more difficult. Something about late-afternoons just isn’t good for productivity.

With a few tricks, though, it’s possible to turn those sluggish afternoons into something altogether more productive. Not only that, if you can take an incredibly productive morning and then finish it off with a productive afternoon, you’ll be on track to hit life-changing levels of productivity.

With that in mind, here are 5 easy ways to finish your day with a bang:

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Working Under Fire — Do You Like Stress, or Not?

Posted August 19, 2009 in Lifestyle, Productivity 26 Rockin' Comments »

Some freelancers insist that stress helps them get their work done. I’ve heard freelancers claim that they actually work better and have more creativity when they are stressed. Not only do they survive, but they seem to thrive when they are stressed.

Other freelancers see stress as something to be avoided. They go to great lengths to avoid people or projects that could be considered stressful. If asked, they’ll tell you that they do their best work when calm. They may have even left a traditional work environment to get away from stress.

Whichever category you fall into, it’s good to take a step back and examine your situation. Too much stress can be harmful to your health; but, on the other hand, it’s very difficult to avoid stress entirely. Here are a few ways to manage your stress and stay healthy and productive:

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Are These 5 Mistakes Holding You Back from Freelance Success?

Posted August 18, 2009 in Business, Productivity 23 Rockin' Comments »

There is a lot of great freelancing advice out there, both on this site and on many others. Anyone who wants to make it as a freelancer has many resources available to help them with what they need to know — everything from dealing with problem clients, to finding them in the first place, to organizing taxes and so on.

In fact, there is so much good advice about what you should be doing that I think it’s helpful to look in the opposite direction — at things that might be holding you back.

In this post, I’ve created a list of 5 big mistakes that could be holding you back from freelance success. Make a little progress with these, and your freelancing will see some definite improvement.

Let’s get started…

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The Life Cycle of an Idea: From Concept to Reality

Posted August 12, 2009 in Inspiration, Productivity 9 Rockin' Comments »

Ideas are an important part of every freelancer’s world. Some ideas become reality, and impress clients or and make it big time, and other ideas just get buried deep into the pile of bad ideas.

How exactly do we make an idea into reality? How do we decide which idea we should act upon and which one’s we should let go? What is it that we need to do to make an idea take the leap from our brain into the world?

As freelancers we have to be creative. To be creative, we need ideas. This post will highlight some things that might help do just that. Call it the life cycle of an idea, which starts from the generation phase and ends with its completion in reality. The following steps are simple, but we often fail to recognize and use all of them to the full potential.

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3 Simple Methods for Discovering Your Purpose

Posted August 11, 2009 in Inspiration, Productivity 15 Rockin' Comments »

Being an entrepreneur is in a lot of ways similar to being an explorer. We set out on a long journey, regularly pushing our minds and bodies, and often have little or no idea of where the road will eventually lead us.

As an entrepreneur, though, it’s important—critical, even—to at least know the next few steps of your journey. You might have no idea where you’ll be in 5 years, but you’d better have a good idea of what you’re doing in the next few months — if you don’t your productivity and motivation are almost guaranteed to plummet.

In fact, the stronger your sense of purpose, the more you believe in yourself and what you’re doing right now, the more motivated and hard-working you’ll be. Think about your own experiences — when have you worked the hardest: when you were apathetic and not sure of direction, or when you were certain that your current project would make a big difference?

It’s that sense of purpose that is the primary driving force behind freelancers, entrepreneurs, business people, athletes, and many others — and in this article, I’m going to outline 5 simple methods that you can use to help refine and strengthen your purpose, passion, and direction.

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Why Every Freelancer Should Slow Down and Brainstorm

Posted August 7, 2009 in Business, Productivity 27 Rockin' Comments »

As freelancers, we tend to get in a rush. We get busy. We’ve got deadlines facing us. We don’t have time to waste… but we end up getting stuck in an efficiency rut.

I love to save time as much as the next person. One of the ways that I save time (and you’ve probably read about it here on FreelanceFolder) is by using templates and other automated time-saving methods.

Automated techniques can really help a freelancer become more efficient with his or her time. If you’re repeating a similar task very frequently, it really pays off to create templates or systems to help speed things up.

I have one client that likes to see their work formatted in a very specific way. To save time, I’ve created a blank template especially for this client’s projects. Using the template reduces the time that I spend on this client’s work by over 30%.

There are drawbacks, however, to relying too much on templates and other time-saving tools. While you may be saving time, your work could be losing out in innovation and creativity — and that’s where scheduled brainstorming comes into play.

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Open Thread: What Type of Computer Do You Use?

Posted July 31, 2009 in Business, Open Thread, Productivity 89 Rockin' Comments »

For most freelancers, particularly FreelanceFolder readers, work involves sitting in front of a computer.

Writers, designers, developers, and even many photographers use these magical boxes for just about everything they do. I personally average at least 8 hours per day on mine.

Like most other major choices, though, it seems there is no real consensus among freelancers on the best type of setup. Laptops are portable, but desktops are more powerful. PCs are cheaper, but Macs are much prettier (gross generalization). The point is this — everyone has their own personal needs and preferences, and choosing between the variety of options can be very difficult.

In this open thread, let’s try to help out anyone who is new to freelancing or in the market for a new computer. With all of our collective knowledge we might be able to provide some consensus on the best types of computers for various situations. Or, in the least, we can compare notes and provide some food for thought.

So, try to answer the following questions in the comments (or feel free to ask some of your own):

1. Desktop or Laptop?
2. What Operating System? (XP, Vista, OS X, etc…)
3. Why do you like or dislike your current setup?
4. For what situations would you recommend this setup?
5. Any other advice?

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15 Useful Twitter Tools For Web Workers

Posted July 29, 2009 in Productivity, Tools/Resources 45 Rockin' Comments »

If there was a popularity contest between social media platforms, I am sure Twitter would be the winner. Networking, trends, and search features all On its own, twitter is a great service, but without third party applications it wouldn’t be what it is today.

With this in mind, there are hundreds of third party applications to make twitter easier and better to use. But who has time to try them all? In an effort to streamline the list to only useful apps, I have created a list of 15 apps that should do the job, at least it does for me.

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Ten Tips To Stay Motivated — Even When You Really Don’t Feel Like Working

Posted July 27, 2009 in Inspiration, Lifestyle, Productivity 35 Rockin' Comments »

It’s a beautiful sunny day. The temperature is just right, and there’s a slight breeze blowing. You’d love to go outside and enjoy the sunshine, but you can’t. Once again, you’re stuck at your computer because you have to meet a deadline.

(Of course, you could take your laptop outside, but you’d still be chained to work and not really free to enjoy the outdoors.)

As a freelancer, you’ve probably experienced those times when you just don’t feel much like working. Personally, I know that there are times when staring at a computer monitor is absolutely the last thing that I really want to do.

It’s normal to lose your motivation for work from time to time, even if you totally love your job. Giving in to a lack of motivation, however, can lead to missed deadlines and lost clients. To run a successful freelance business, you have to stay motivated.

What’s a freelancer to do when there’s work to be done, but work is the last thing that he or she feels like doing?

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