Sorting Through Information on Freelancing
The number of blogs and websites offering up information on freelancing has exploded over the past couple of years. In a way, this is a good thing: the more information freelancers have access to, the better decisions we can make and the more money we can earn. But in other ways, it makes things harder.
Not only do we have to spend time deciding how reliable a particular site is, but we also need to spend at least a little time working, rather than just reading how other people are doing it each day.
Taking Control of Your Freelancing Education
There are plenty of great resources on freelancing out there, but there really is an upper limit to the blogs, forums and other sites you can read. If it’s feeling overwhelming, it’s time to sit down and decide how much you can comfortably go through in the amount of time you’re willing to dedicate to learning more about freelancing and other subjects that will help you earn more money.
While the system that works best for you may be very different from what works well for other people, a good starting point is deciding how much time you want to spend on that sort of reading. Maybe an hour a day seems reasonable to you… or maybe fifteen minutes is all you want to schedule. Either way, time is likely the deciding factor in what you do. From there, it’s a question of identifying the best sources of information — and how many of them you can go through in the time you’ve allotted.
Figuring out your personal rankings can be tough, and they’ll probably change over time. You need information that is correct for the type of freelancing you do, as well as how long you’ve been freelancing. If you’re just starting out, you may need more information than a freelancer who’s been working for a couple of years.
It’s also best to get at least a couple of different viewpoints in your regular reading material. There is no one best way to freelance, and having access to information on how different freelancers are working can help you find new solutions for your own business.
Stop Bookmarking Resources
Not too long ago, I stopped bookmarking articles and other information. I had thousands of bookmarked sites that I wanted to read, but knew I would never get around to. If I don’t read it when I come across it, I’m not going to ever read it. I’ve found that it isn’t a big loss. Since I set aside time that is dedicated to reading blogs and other resources, I can usually read what’s worth reading without having to rely on bookmarks.
It doesn’t hurt that I’ve found those articles that are really worth reading tend to get my attention through multiple sources. I’ll see links on a couple of different sites, telling me that a particular piece of information is worth having.
It really is okay to delete those hundreds of bookmarks that you’ll never get around to reading. There may be some real gems in there, but if you really need a particular piece of information, perhaps something like how freelancing affects your taxes, you can always run a search on your favorite freelance sites later on.
However, there may be some resources you’ll want to keep, like lists of common deductions or facts and figures on business structures. If that’s information you’re going to need down the road, turn it into a resource you can use. I have a document that is essentially an operations manual for my freelance business: I cut and paste information into it so that I can easily find it when I need something on a particular topic.
I needed the permission to kill my back log of unread: emails, bookmarks, newsletters (email and printed). And letting me just get on with doing what I do.
I can suddenly breath again, oh, and find things in my bookmarks folder! Thanks.
I recently cleaned my bookmarks/tabs out. It turned out that I’d absent-mindedly collected nearly 100 tabs (the 10 or so displayed, plus having to SCROLL down the side of the menu!)
Needless to say, Twitter Apps, RSS feeds etc., are time savers. I’ll only view something if i see it referred to at least three times, and then i’ll skim over it quickly before deciding to read it in-depth. Usually save to a PDF, and create a collection of them. When I get a printer that will shoot through them, I’ll create a hard-folder full of usefully collated documents, with post-its, highlighters, pages turned, dividers………….
I think I have a problem when It comes to being organised…
So true. 283 bookmarks
Kill me please. 729 browser bookmarks, 256 delicious bookmarks, 453 unread RSS feed messages.
and I can’t stop bookmarking…
If I do not have time to read an article right away I place the link in a calendar appointment & schedule it for myself. I leave time first thing every morning for reading articles and keeping up to date. The calendar appointment reminds me to go back to a previous article.
Excellent article! I definitely need to clear out my “design” bookmark folder.
Such a great point. Just like the world in general, we freelancers are being inundated with information these days.
I’ve just moved all of my RSS feeds over into Twitter. Now everything comes into one place, and only if the title is something I’m really interested in will it even get my attention. Plus the mass of tweets coming in means I will miss some posts – not necessarily a bad thing as you noted.
I to have needed to decalre RSS and bookmark bancrupcy. It was such a relef to kill off those 3000 items and you’re right, if it’s really worth knowing, it will come up again and again!
If I’m low on time I bookmark interesting sites and articles in the unsorted folder. It doesn’t take long, since it’s just one click in firefox. I’m not sure how it works in other browsers.
When I have a moment (anything around 5min or more) I check the links I have unsorted and go through them. After a quick read I can tell whether or not I want to save some information for later. Most of the time reading it once and deleting the bookmark is good enough. Like you said, a quick search will bring up the information I need, when I need it.
This means that the bookmarks in the organized folders are sites I found worth bookmarking. The more valuable resources aren’t littered around a long list of sites I’ve never even looked at. I find it effective.
Good advice, Thursday. I recently created a list of my favorite resources. I keep it on my bulletin board and make time every week (2 – 3 times a week) to go through that list to see what’s new.
For me, the key was creating a manageable list and having it handy so I remember where to go and avoid surfing without a purpose. Then, carving out time every week to go through those resources. Doesn’t take a lot of time to do so because my list is short.
Love your idea of an “operations manual,” BTW!
Freelance switch and freelance folder blogs, cover most what I want read about freelancing and I like to put more time aside for speciality articles like coding tehniques.
I use Google Search to bookmark sites. I search for something I liked with my keywords and then up vote it to bring it to the top of the search results.
Next time, when I want to get back to the article of the matter, I just do a search with my keywords
I’ve found this to be a problem for many freelancers. Reading and content aggreagating is both my business and my hobby.
I recently started a site as an offshoot of my blog that takes a variety of articles on freelance, social media, and productivity, highlights the most important information, tags them by subject, and links to the original article. I was frustrated by a lack of home base articles, so I started a home base myself.
It’s a work in progress and doesn’t have nearly the information I plan on inputting, but the site is http://socialmediamercenary.posterous.com/
I deleted all my bookmarks, fired up Google reader and then downloaded a reader client to my phone. Now I do whatever reading I can fit in on that day whilst commuting or other such time sinks.
Plus it’s so simple to click into a reader, scan the first paragraph and decide whether or not it’s worth continuing. And, if I have something I need to look at in depth, I favourite it and then follow it up at my desk. Simple.
This is so true. I find myself trying to sift through so much information about freelancing, that it’s hard to get to the actual writing part. Thanks for the helpful tips about how to deal with the huge amounts of info out there.
This is a great article. Takign control of what you know can be very helpful. Whenever I have extra time i try to fo tutorials and learn new skills to expand my knowledge and capabilities.