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Freelancing, by definition, is a solitary existence. You probably sit at a computer most of the day, writing, designing, drawing, networking, and have little face to face interaction with peers who work in your industry.

I don’t know how you write, but I need it to be quiet to be productive. Deathly quiet. I have never been able to listen to music—even the classical stuff—while doing homework, working on a paper, or writing a magazine feature or blog post. If it’s rowdy outside my office, I shut the door, and people know not to bother me. When the phone rings, I groan unhappily. A ringing phone is my nemesis.

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Something every freelancer has to face is the sense of dread when things start to go south in their freelance life. It happens for so many reasons: unexpected emergencies, clients backing out, or the Bill Monkey on your back wanted to remind you they were still around. Regardless of the scenario, you feel panicked, and begin to reconsider your efforts to freelance.

Instead of letting this bring you down, try to use it as a motivational tool to complete tasks and re-align your freelancing career! Today, I’m going to list and explain some of the ways I’ve been able to achieve this; and hopefully assist anyone who’s channeling a certain captain when they say: “It never goes smooth. Why don’t it ever go smooth?” Let’s keep that freelancing train chugging smoothly down the tracks, and running at full steam.

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Continuing with the theme of time efficiency in practice sessions, in this post we look at the best ways of tackling new repertoire.

If you’re following a balanced musical diet in the percentages that I suggested last month i.e., warm up, scales and arpeggios, study and pieces, it might be that you only have a half hour a day available to prepare for performance, auditions and competitions.

While it may seem a tall order, particularly when it comes to learning new works, success can be yours providing you maintain consistency in your sessions. Little and often is always far more efficient than blocks of several hours a couple of times a week.

Look on repertoire practice as the musician’s apple pie and cream reward for eating the meat and vegetables, rather than the centerpiece of the meal!

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Editor’s Note: Every Tuesday, we ask freelancers to talk about skills specific to their field, whether it be design, programming, or music. Today Marion Harrington shares how she breaks up her practice routine to stay a freelancing musician!

How many roles do you assume in an average day? Here are few of mine: spouse, musician, pet sitter, writer, runner, editor, cook, internet entrepreneur…the list goes on.

Looking back to my years as a music student, at the time I didn’t realize quite what a privilege it was to be able to spend all of my waking hours breathing, thinking and making music. Finding time to practice was never an issue.

After graduating, it’s a different story. Each passing year inevitably brings with it a new series of responsibilities both musical and non-musical.

The game then bizarrely changes from striving to be the scholar ranked #1 for the most practice hours logged in a 24 hours period to bragging about how little tooting of your flute or blowing your horn is required for your playing to remain at a professional level!

In the real world, finding time to practice can be challenging as this very necessary activity does not generate income in itself. If you’re to maximize your income streams as well as juggle all your other commitments, you have to learn how to make every available practice minute yield results – a skill which is often not taught during training.

It’s not how much time you have available that matters but what you do with what you have that holds the key to efficient practice on a very tight schedule. Continue Reading

credit: WTL photos on flickr

The holiday season is one of the best times to be a freelancer. Setting your own hours means steering clear of the malls come 5PM – the time when stores become filling with tired cube-dwellers anxious to shrink down their to-do list.

But on the flip side, stepping out to shop during the day can snag your productivity. Just how to balance the two? Continue Reading

Over the past few months, I’ve been finding all types of new and exciting clients, with new and exciting projects.  One of the things that I’ve noticed is the variety of projects that are out there.  From quick projects – “The easiest $50 you’ll ever make” – to longer term projects, with multiple sections spanning a few months.  FYI – the $50 project was completed very quickly, the payment – still waiting!

For some reason, I’ve always felt the need to compare my results with those around me.  It’s not to be competitive, but more to ensure that I am not leaving anything on the table.  I want to ensure that I am providing as much value to my clients as possible.

So my question to you, dear freelancers, is what is your average project time to completion?  Not including the initial negotiations of what will be done and what will be paid, but the actual time you spend working on a project, from the moment you start until the final file is sent to the client.

I know it’s not summer for everyone reading FreelanceSwitch right now, but up here in Canada it still is.  And one of my favourite things to do in the summer is to camp, but this year it was a little bit different, since this was my first summer as a fulltime freelancer.

Sure, I could have gotten way ahead of my projects, but where’s the fun in that?  Instead, I figured it might be possible to tether my iPhone to the laptop, and keep connected while everyone else was making smores.  We’re back home now, and other than a slight campfire smell coming from the laptop, it’s pretty hard to tell that I was not at my office all week.  The clients were communicated with, the articles were uploaded, and the invoices were sent – all while enjoying way too much junk food, liquid refreshments, and beautiful hikes through an amazing forest.

Funny, I think I showered as frequently at the camp as I have been at the home office.  Might need to fix that for the future…

Sitting at a picnic table and putting the final touches on a new website helps your spouse realize the possibilities that freelancing can provide.  We’re already thinking about finding a trailer and cruising through the US.  I promise to shower before we stop in for a visit.

Where is the best place that you’ve been able to freelance from?  Any tips and tricks to make it seamless to your clients? Continue Reading

A friend of mine had an interesting post on her blog recently.  She shared the soundtrack of her life, with each part of her world arranged by an individual tune.

As a freelancer, I’ve been trying to figure out if I am more productive with the music on, or with the only sounds in the room being the clicking of the keyboard and the snoring of my dog.

I’ve tried a few different audio stimuli:

• Hard rock – no, not screamo, but good old classic rock and roll.  AC/DC, Stones, and sadly, Nickelback.
• Talk Radio – maybe it’s just me getting older, but I am starting to appreciate some of the content on NPR and CBC
• Binaural beats – Could be that this is psychosomatic, but if I need to maintain intense focus (read: get it done before the pressing deadline) I put on some good headphones and click on the binaural beats.  Something magical about theta waves or something like that – but, it hasn’t failed me yet.

Nothing is a clear winner yet, and each seems to be more useful for certain tasks.

What do you use? Are sounds, or lack of sounds, the best tool to help you pump out quality projects? Continue Reading

As some of you might have noticed, I am Canadian.  It’s apparent in some of my writing – color/colour, humor/humour, affluent/effluent – but for the most part, it really doesn’t matter.

This past Monday was a statutory holiday in my province (that’s Canadian for state), but because I have many American clients, it wasn’t much different than any other Monday.  The kicker – the rest of my clients are Canadians, so I can’t take the American holidays off either.  Ohh, poor freelancer.  No more long weekends.

So, I’ve figured out a few ways to create my own stat holidays, and give myself a few long weekends. Continue Reading

One of the benefits that many freelancers with families cite is the ability to stay home with the kids: you can save a fortune on daycare if you have kids just by working from home and not sending the kids elsewhere. But there are situations in which having the kids at home all day may not work out. Trying to take client phone calls or multitask between watching the kids and working just don’t always work out perfectly.

I grew up in a work-at-home household and, whether or not you’re comfortable with the situation as a parent, from the kid’s point of view, it’s not always a picnic. Having my mother home every day was nice, but the fact that I was banished to the basement when she worked with client made the situation a little less pleasant. I couldn’t have friends over at certain times and I’m sure there were days that I’d have loved to have gone to daycare. I could tell that it wasn’t exactly the perfect situation for her, either: she would mark off the days of summer break, barely able to wait until my sisters and I went back to school. What are the options for a freelancing parent? Continue Reading

Have you ever had one of those days where everything was going wrong?  You missed a deadline, you lost a good client, an oft-promised cheque still hasn’t arrived, final notice on your cable bill came today, the client isn’t buying into the concept, your spouse is upset, your dog has fleas, and to top it all off – you just dropped your bread, and it landed butter side down.  Worst Monday ever.

Here are 5 tips to help you blow off some steam before you climb up to the bell tower.

• Me Time – Go for a walk, go have a coffee, get extra sprinkles on an ice cream, whatever.  Take 30 minutes for yourself.  You’ll be amazed at how hard it is to explode when you’re halfway through a peanut buster parfait.  Unless you’re allergic to peanuts.
• Buddy up – Before you get to the worst day ever, find a friend/coworker/distant relative and make an agreement to allow each other to vent – occasionally.  Having someone that can listen and understand can help you refocus on your priorities.  And hearing someone else whinge and whine about their piddly problems can be cathartic.
• Shout it out – Find a safe and quiet location – quiet as in no one can hear you, not quiet as in your local library – and then let it out.  Hoot, holler, yell, cry, scream, speak in tongues.  Say what’s on your mind until you can’t say anymore.
• Write it down – Write an email to yourself.  CAUTION – write it to you, and to you alone.  Make sure your name is the only one in the “to” field.  Pour everything into the email.  Construct cohesive thoughts, and organize your frustrations from terrible to horrible.  Read this email.  Do not save this email.  Delete  this email – do not send this email. If your email client has a self destruct option, blow up this email.  This can be applied to any of your favourite communication channels – but like Thursday says in her recent article – be careful of burning bridges.
• Take inventory – Sure, everything sucks today.  But you still get to live in a nice place, and you’re going to be able to find more clients.  Make a list of all of the great things in your life.  Like reading FreelanceSwitch every day – does it get better than this?

I’m sure exercise works for many of you, but I think I’ve been clear on my beliefs around that topic. What do you do to blow off some steam?

Sometimes being a freelancer means finding ways to get the most out of your 168 hours each week.  This probably applies to everyone, but it seems that freelancers have to worry more about self promotion, client billing, finding clients, and having a life.

To get more done each week, some will:

• Sacrifice sleep
• Give up on family life
• Let your work standards slip
• Employ a virtual/physical assistant
• Use plug-ins and extensions to turn off internet distractions
• Use available tools to maximize productivity while maintaining creativity

What are some of the tricks that you a have learned to help you get the most out of your week? What do you do with your hard-won free time?

I’m still struggling to find the right work/life balance, so I’m hoping I can learn a bit from the great minds here at Freelanceswitch.com.   Thanks for sharing! Continue Reading