Freelancefolder

Five Tips to Help You Protect Your Greatest Freelance Asset

Posted July 16, 2010 in Lifestyle, Productivity

What’s your greatest freelancing asset?

Many would argue that a freelancer’s biggest asset is their time, and to some extent I would agree. It’s very important for a freelancer to use their time wisely.

But, I would argue that an even more important freelancing asset is actually your health. The truth is, you can have a lot of time on your hands, but if you’re too sick to work then all of that free time is not going to help your freelance business.

Worst of all, freelancers don’t have paid sick days. So, for a freelancer being sick usually means a loss of income.

What can a freelancer do to safeguard his or her health? In this post, we’ll share a few tips that you can protect your health.

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Seven Days of Freelancing Tips

Posted July 9, 2010 in Getting Started, Productivity

How quickly can you improve your freelancing business?

As freelancers, we tend to think that improving our business is a huge effort that will eat up tons of time that we could be using to work on paid projects for clients. As a result, a lot of things that we should do to help ourselves and improve our freelancing business never get done.

It’s true that if you set out to do every single thing (or even most things) that you could possibly do to improve your business at once it could take quite a long time. But, I’m a big believer in breaking things down into small, manageable chunks.

So, how quickly can you improve your freelancing business?

Can you spend a few minutes to an hour on improvements every day for a week? In this post, I’ll list seven simple tips to help you improve your freelancing business. These tasks will be manageable because you can do one task each day.

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Why You Should Let Your Project Cool Off Before You Turn It in

Posted July 8, 2010 in Managing Clients, Productivity

Before you really dive into this article do me a favor. Open up your freelancing weapon of choice, whether it be a writing, designing, or development program. Go ahead, get it going (if it’s not already running in the background) and open up a recent or current project. I’ll wait…

Okay, now quickly hit the save button then open up your e-mail and fire off whatever work you have completed so far to yourself. Don’t stop. Don’t check your work. Just e-mail whatever you have so far. Please enjoy this process as much as you can, because if I have anything to do with it this will be the last time you ever get a chance to… ever!

Is this process a familiar one to you? Is this how you deliver projects to a client? If it is, then quit it! Stop it right now!

Look, I understand where you are coming from. You want to get your finished comps and final products out the door and to your clients as soon as possible, right? As a freelancer, it builds up your rep to have a quick turnaround. A quick turnaround is a great thing right? You get paid faster, clients get happy faster and life gets better faster!

Well, fast turnaround may not be as great as you think it is. Moving too fast can be a detriment to your reputation and your work, but maybe not entirely in the way you might think. In this post, I’ll explain the dangers of turning your work in too quickly.

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8 Ways to Get the Most Out of Summer

Posted June 25, 2010 in How-To, Productivity

Well, summer has officially arrived in North America. In our area, most kids are out of school. The neighborhood pools are open. And, it seems like everyone’s on vacation or mentally checked out.

For many freelancers, summers can be tough. With so many clients on vacation, projects get put on hold. Tracking down prospects can be difficult. It also seems like no one wants to make a decision because “Pam is out for two weeks, and once she gets back it will take her another two weeks to catch up!”

So, what’s a freelancer to do with the idle time?

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How to Take a Vacation–Even If You’re Too Busy Or Too Broke

Posted June 18, 2010 in Lifestyle, Productivity

Everyone, including freelancers, needs regular breaks. Vacations are important for our productivity. Taking frequent breaks keeps the mind “sharp” and protects us from the dreaded burnout. Health considerations also require us to make room for more physical activity and adequate rest.

But, freelancers typically use one of these excuses–or both–to work without interruptions, until either illness or a nervous breakdown forces us to stop:

“I’m too busy”

“I can’t afford it”

Even if your project schedule and personal life are both full, and even if your income is barely enough to cover your basic necessities, you can and should take a vacation.

With this post, I’d like to convince you that you CAN afford to take time off. In fact, you can’t afford not to.

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How to Overcome Freelancing Stress

Posted June 17, 2010 in How-To, Productivity

There’s no doubt about it. Freelancing can be stressful.

If you’re busy, then there are deadlines and demanding clients to deal with. If you’re not busy, then there could be financial worries and the stress of finding your next paying project.

Add the administration tasks of your business to all of that, and you can see why most freelancers face a good deal of stress. Of course, most freelancers have a personal life too and sometimes that can be a source of even more additional stress.

While some freelancing stress is probably inevitable, fortunately there are some steps that you can take in your freelancing business to reduce the amount of freelancing stress that you must face.

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The Freelancer’s iPhone

Posted June 10, 2010 in Productivity, Tools/Resources

Freelancers can never totally disconnect. We’ve got to be around for client emergencies, constantly keep up on social networking and email, and get some work done while away from the computer.

There’s no better portable tool for handling all these things than my beloved iPhone. I would sooner leave the house without pants than without my iPhone, and it’s become one of the most important tools in my arsenal for productivity and efficiency.

In this post, I’ll share some of my favorite iPhone apps that help to make my iPhone so important to my freelance work. I’ll give you the chance to share your favorite apps too.

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Freelancing During an Illness

Posted June 7, 2010 in Lifestyle, Productivity

The problem with freelancing is that we don’t have paid sick days! When we get sick, we risk missing deadlines, having unhappy clients or even losing income altogether.

As a number of us joked on Twitter, we freelance writers have to keep writing, even from our graves.

We’re only human… which means illness and death are inevitable.

What’s a freelancer to do?

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11+ Computer Security Apps to Keep Your Freelancing Business Safe

Posted May 23, 2010 in Productivity, Tools/Resources

As a freelance professional, you depend on your computer for your livelihood. More than any other kind of computer user, you need to make sure that that computer (and the information on it) is safe and secure.

Unfortunately, in the online world where most of us do our work there are a few threats to our livelihood. I’m talking about those threats that come in the form of computer viruses and malware, which we might download automatically from a site or through an email attachment.

If you’re working on a machine with an MS Windows or Vista operating system, that threat is particularly likely. Depending on how active you are online, it may not be a question of whether you’ll ever encounter computer malware, but rather, a question of when.

Fortunately, there is a wide variety of software available to protect your computer, and your livelihood. In this post, I list eleven of the most popular antivirus packages and provide a brief description of each. Many of these packages also include a free version, a trial version, or other free services. Although, to get maximum protection you’ll want to purchase a full application.

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