If you’re a Mac based freelancer, you’ll be interested to head over to our sister blog Mac.AppStorm where David’s run up a list of 12 Mac Apps for Running a Freelance Business:

Running a freelance business requires you to be an expert at everything – from communicating with clients to meticulously tracking your time and expenses. Doing all this manually can be dramatically time consuming, and it’s easy to make mistakes – nobody is perfect. Fortunately there are a range of Mac applications which can lend a hand and assist in the day to day running and organizing of your business.

Continue Reading at Mac.AppStorm

Also on the same subject, be sure to check out Noupe’s list of 15+ Useful Mac Apps for Freelancing Web Designers. Between those two lists, you’ll have a plethora of apps to help you with your freelancing!

Photo by Paul Worthington.

We’ve all said the words “I’d really like to…” followed by some personal or career ambition that often doesn’t get done. “I’d really like to write a book”, “I’d really like to be able to add illustration to my design skills”, or “I’d really like to learn to cook Thai food.”

And, of course, these statements are almost always followed by “if I had the time.” Here are five really easy things that are guaranteed to get you a lot closer to your ambitions (lets face it, if we didn’t have lofty ambitions we wouldn’t be reading this blog).

Continue Reading

Photo by shimelle.

Freelancers in every field face a constant challenge to achieve and maintain a high level of productivity and quality in their work. One of the ways that you can improve your results is by development of systems or routines for various aspects of your work. Most likely you do some of the same things day-after-day and week-after-week. Having a proven system for getting these things done can bring several positive benefits. In this post we’ll look at why you would want to develop you own systems and some areas of freelancing life that lend themselves to systematization.

Continue Reading

Photo by Kekka.

“I want you to feel like you’re going to die.”

That’s what the woman on my TV tells me every single day. Then again, I’m the one who’s putting her there.

It’s my workout DVD, and the scary yelly woman puts her hands on her hips and hollers at me to jump and kick and push and crunch and I cannot believe I paid eleven dollars for this.

As a freelance writer, this is often the beginning and the end of my physical movement for the day. Sometimes there is trudging up and down the stairs for water or gum or alcohol or other major sources of sustenance; sometimes I actually exit the house. But mostly, it’s me and Yelly.

Continue Reading

Photo by LifeHouseDesign.

WAHFs (Work-at-Home Freelancers) have it tough. Sure, there’s freedom of work schedule, not having to sit in traffic or otherwise commute, eating a home-cooked meal and being able to watch soap operas or Oprah everyday. But for some of us it gets darn lonely working at home all day, every day. Combine the state of the economy, the Holiday season, or the start of the winter blues and the feeling of loneliness right now can be magnified manyfold. If you’re single, it’s even worse because working at home means it’s that much harder to meet people, even for casual conversation, weekly drinks or whatever. Here are some tips for weathering that “lonely freelancer” feeling that sometimes visits.

Continue Reading

Photo by ninjapoodles.

Maximizing productivity is a never-ending task for most freelancers. There’s always some way that we can improve or some area that’s lacking the attention it deserves. This post serves as a guide and a reminder for ways that we can get more done and make better use of our time. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

Continue Reading

In the last few years we’ve seen an explosion in new awesome tools for freelancers including project management apps, invoicing apps, time management apps and to-do lists. One type of app that I think is particularly awesome is the collaboration app. These services allow you to upload images, documents and in some cases videos and flash, and then you, your client and anyone else working on the project can discuss and annotate the work.

When it comes to sharing concepts, particularly for freelancers working over the web, this is literally a revolution in feedback. There are 9 apps listed below, half are extremely feature packed with a few slimmer (cheaper) options and one coming soon app.

Backboard
getbackboard.com

Get feedback on documents (Word, Excel), Powerpoint, images (including Photoshop PSD files), webpages and free-form text. Backboard also features multiple versions of a project, email integration – just send an email with the file for review attached, desktop upload and SSL encryption.

Plans ranging from Free for one non-commercial account (unlimited "backboards") to $49 p/month

Continue Reading

It’s hard to believe that in 1993, Adobe first released Adobe Acrobat for the Mac. Within a few short years, this new “.pdf” format became the standard. Although there were many who provided free and always interesting ways to create Portable Document Format files, Adobe continued to improve the technology, adding capabilities along the way that still had businesses and freelancers alike purchasing the original application. And now, in 2008, Adobe has released Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro. Quite different than it’s humble origin, we’ve taken a close look at the new features and present our thoughts and findings for you.

Flash of Brilliance
While the feature list is extensive (check here for the full matrix), the one feature that really catches the eye is the new native Flash support. Now you can insert .flv or H.264 video for playback. Not just as attached files either. Part of the new portfolio feature includes the ability to use Flash as the welcome header. Personally, I can’t wait to see how this changes .pdf documents in the future (in both good and bad ways).

Thankfully, all the new functionality hasn’t caused a speed degradation. In fact, Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 is faster than ever. Continue Reading

Photo by frozenchipmunk.

What’s one of the worst things that can happen to you as a freelancer?

Besides a lull in contracts, it’s possibly a lull in creativity that can have you wondering why you gave up salaried work. Sometimes the work just doesn’t want to be finished, whether you write, design, code or do some other type of freelance work. You’ve tried exercises to get your creative juices flowing, but maybe the flow is just not coming. That’s when it’s time to battle your creative blocks.

Continue Reading

Photo by visualpanic.

These days the idea of a design team is usually wide open to location. Your creative director could be in LA while the designers work in New York, and the client lives in Texas. To keep in sync and get all the work done on time, I’ve found that I can’t work without certain tools. Here’s a small list of applications and websites that aid collaboration over long distances that and are either free or very affordable.

1. Google Site Apps

Many of you with your own domain may not realize the amazing potential of Google Apps for domain owners. If you run a team or just freelance yourself, you could gain tremendously from setting up a free account. First off, instead of that horrible web mail your host either provides for or charges you for, you could get Gmail and its storage for free. Yes, thats right, and it’s personally branded. There are different options, but if you’re under 100 employees, its straight-up free.

You also get a useful start page (such as start.mydomain.com) that you can use as a login point for clients or employees. Like iGoogle, you have widgets that can be added to the page. Your far left-side is locked for things you want all those logging in to see. For example, a calendar to keep track of deadlines and meetings, or the RSS feed of a production blog. You can even have your inbox on the startup page.

Continue Reading

Photo by Sanzalone

Einstein once said something to the effect of, “you cannot solve problems by thinking within the same framework or mindset that discovered the problems.” The implication is that you need to step into another mindset, another level of thinking. So how do we step into another mindset, as Einstein implies we should? One possible method is mind-mapping, which arguably triggers a much more natural way of thinking and problem solving.

Overview

Mind mapping has of late become a very hot topic, with an increasing number of converts to this method of thinking, brainstorming and problem solving. It’s likely that many–if not most–of you already know what mind mapping is, in general. Do you know how powerful it can be for an endless number of creative, entrepreneurial, freelance and management uses?

Continue Reading

Photo by net_effekt.

While having a regular freelance writing gig is nice, can you keep up with the ongoing need for fresh content?

Can you balance the workload with other projects?

Say you have a client who has you blogging weekly or even daily. Have you found it easy to come up with simultaneously original and useful content each and every week or even every day? In some saturated niches, it’s not always easy producing regular content.

Here are some tips you can use to to blunt the edge of writing dry spells, if they happen–or prevent them altogether.

Before starting this post, I had not completed a single article or post in over four weeks–my longest dry-spell since I started to take blogging seriously in 2005. This was mostly due to recently getting into non-writing and long-term writing projects. So while I did earn some income, my concern was for what would happen when those projects ended. A creative dry spell has a habit of perpetuating beyond control if you don’t do forcibly do something to get out of it.

Continue Reading