Freelancefolder

Distractions: What They Really Mean

Posted May 17, 2010 in Productivity

Distractions are a big problem for the self-employed, self-managing freelancer. Because of distractions, we waste our precious time. Our productivity is diminished. Rushing to meet deadlines means we enjoy life less. Ultimately, distractions reduce our profitability.

We don’t like that. Freelancers want to squeeze the most work from every minute that we’re working.

Therefore, the sooner we can become the bosses of our distractions, the better for us.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Using Zen Practices to Increase Your Organization & Productivity

Posted May 13, 2010 in Business, Productivity

There comes a time in every freelancer’s business that they realize the sad truth–that we spend more time answering emails, talking on the phone, sending estimates and invoices and doing generally everything but what we actually went into business for.

I hate, absolutely hate, the management part of projects and of business in general. If I had my way, projects would beam down from the sky on to my desk with perfect budgets and perfectly detailed specs. I would never again have to answer 100 emails about why you can’t do a full site in Flash or why it’s not OK to hand me 100 mockups when they paid for three.

Unfortunately though, that will never happen. So I’ve spent a considerable amount of time reading up on different practices to decrease the amount of time I spend doing something other than development. I’ve found that you can actually apply the basic principles of Zen living to your office to reduce up your management time.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Ten Terrific Apps to Help You Keep Track of Your Time

Posted May 9, 2010 in Productivity, Tools/Resources

Have you ever run out of time working on a project? Are you unsure of exactly how much time each project takes you?

If you answered “yes” to the questions above, then you understand my problem with time. In fact, understanding where the time went is the problem of most freelancers.

Earlier this year I began a quest to find a way to track my own time better. I’ve been using a spreadsheet for years, but I was ready for something better. I’m finally ready to share what I’ve learned.

[Click Here to Read More...]

How to Never Miss a Deadline

Posted April 23, 2010 in Productivity

I’m going to let you in on the secret to keeping clients for years and getting more referral business than ever. Stellar portfolio? Sure, that helps, but no. That’s not it. It’s simpler than that. Here it is:

Never miss a deadline. Ever.

One of the most common complaints that clients have about freelancers is that they’re not reliable. What is this complaint based on? You can bet that missed deadlines had something to do with it. The project took twice as long to complete. Or you met the deadline, but it wasn’t tested for bugs. Perhaps this complaint was due something simple like failing to reply to an email in a timely fashion. These are all variations on the same key element of reliability. That is the ability to deliver a finished product, on time, every time.

I certainly have first-hand experience with this. Over the course of my freelance web design career, I often need to sub-contract other freelancers to help out with time-sensitive pieces of my client projects. The sad truth is that more times than not, the job isn’t done on time. I end up picking up the slack myself, or doing damage control with my client who expected their website to launch a week ago. Will I re-hire a freelancer who missed a sensitive deadline? Chances are, the answer is no.

[Click Here to Read More...]

How to Get More Work Done In Less Time

Posted April 16, 2010 in Productivity

Productivity is essential for freelancers. The more work we can accomplish, the more income we can earn. And the more time we have to enjoy with our family and friends. Therefore, time management is an important skill all freelancers should have.

One way to manage time is by time chunking. (We’ll define that in detail later.) There are many variations of time chunking techniques.

For example, copywriter Eugene Schwartz’s method is to write for 33 minutes and 33 seconds. Take a short break, then start all over again. Productivity gurus recommend working in 20- to 45-minute chunks of time and then taking a 10-minute break in between.

This post is about another time chunking technique. It’s called the Pomodoro Technique. In this post, we will provide a simplified overview of this innovative time management technique.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Set Up Your Desk to Maximize Productive Web Development

Posted March 29, 2010 in How-To, Productivity

I get lots of questions about how both my desk and apps are set up and about how productivity can be improved. This is a very important topic for many reasons, yet it isn’t discussed very often on the web.

Properly setting up both your physical and virtual desks can make you more productive while also helping you avoid serious injury like frequent headaches and carpal tunnel syndrome.

While I’m no ergonomic expert, I’ve spent several days over the years tweaking my setup to be the quickest it can be. I’ll show you my own setup and give you some tips for your own.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Spring Cleaning for Your Freelance Biz

Posted March 22, 2010 in Productivity

It’s spring!

Whether or not you launch into annual spring cleaning your home, consider spring cleaning your freelance business.

It will refresh your biz, re-energize you and help you become a more efficient freelancer.

Here are seven ways you could do it:

[Click Here to Read More...]

The Slippery Slope of Creeping Scope

Posted March 9, 2010 in Managing Clients, Productivity

Uncontrolled scope creep costs you money.

When a client asks you to do something that wasn’t part of the original agreement it’s called scope creep.

Some scope creep is relatively minor and doesn’t really make much difference to your freelancing business. Doing a little bit of extra work for a client can be a good way to build up some good will.

In other instances, however, scope creep can drastically increase your workload and negatively impact your bottom line. These are the cases of scope creep that can really damage your freelancing business if they are not addressed.

In this post, we’ll explore some options that a freelancer has for dealing with scope creep.

[Click Here to Read More...]

Making Your Code as Beautiful as the Design Itself

Posted March 2, 2010 in Productivity, Programming

A website’s design gets all the glory. When someone visits a site, you’ll hear them talk about how awesome the design is–but, do you ever hear someone talk about how awesome the code is? Never!

Regular people can’t see code, nor do they care to see it or what it looks like. It’s precisely this reason that there’s so much ugly code in the web world today. People don’t see it so developers don’t believe that clean code is important, but it is.

It’s quite rare to find a clean coded site, even from huge companies who should have the budget to pay for a good developer. However, it’s just as important to have beautiful code as it is to have a beautiful design.

[Click Here to Read More...]