50 Ways for Writers to Find Article Ideas
One of the joys (and frustrations) of being a freelance writer contributing to multiple magazines, newspapers, and websites is the need to come up with a constant flow of new ideas for articles.
This is not always an easy task by any means—often it seems downright impossible—so we’ve compiled a list of ways to find articles almost anywhere. Continue Reading
More Tips on Managing Multiple Freelance Gigs
In a previous article, Managing Multiple Freelance Gigs With Mind Maps, I covered how to use a grid/ mind map to track your freelancing projects and tasks. In this post, there’s a bit more detail about actually working on tasks, not just tracking them. ( See bottom of article for a free MindJet MindManager 8/Pro 7 map template of my work grid, as per some requests in the comments of the last article.)
The freelance task management process is best demonstrated by an example. Since my work is mostly freelance writing, that’s what I’m using here, though you can extrapolate for other types of work. Assume that you have a big writing project and several smaller ones for a given week – possibly with some of the larger projects spanning several weeks. Here’s what you do to manage and work on your tasks.
Managing Multiple Freelance Gigs With Mind Maps
If you’ve been freelancing for a while, you probably already know that you often have to juggle several projects at a time. That’s not to say that you necessarily have to multi-task, but simply need to manage overlapping task schedules. The more successful your freelance career is, the more likely it is that you’ll have to manage multiple tasks simulaneously. They might be part of a single big project or parts of several smaller projects.
5 Ways to Battle Creative Blocks
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.
Why Should Freelancers Use Mind Mapping?
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?
