14 Essential Tips for Meeting a Deadline
Your reputation as a freelancer is pretty much the only thing you have to go on — your bread and butter.
And your reputation is generally based on two things: the quality of your work, and how well you meet deadlines.
Today, we’ll focus on meeting deadlines, as that’s the area that many freelancers have problems with. Sure, you can do great work, but if you don’t turn your projects in on time, you won’t get many repeat customers.
1. Care about deadlines. This is the first step, as many people are very lax about deadlines. You have to be very serious about meeting them, and make them a priority. And make breaking a deadline a cardinal sin in your freelance book. Once you’ve done this step, the rest is just logistics.
2. Keep a list of projects & deadlines. If you care about deadlines, you’ll write them down, and have one place that you check often to make sure you know what’s due and when. I use a simple online list, but you could use paper. Which tool you use doesn’t matter, as long as you use it. Continue Reading
How Kids Fit Into Your Freelance Life: Part 2
Rachel Bell's three children.
Working from home and caring for your children is a power struggle. Many stay at home freelancers want to be there for their children but also want to be their for their clients. It’s a delicate balancing act that can go on for years.
Many starry-eyed new parents think that working from home will solve all of their childcare problems. They can be there for their baby whenever they need them while still getting things done for their career. Many find that it’s not that easy.
Last week I posted a blog post where I interviewed new mom and writer Rabia Mughal on how her career changed with the birth of her son. She found that even though she wanted to give 100% to her full-time job and 100% as a parent, she wasn’t feeling fulfilled in either. She decided to switch her role at her company, and become a 32-hour a week contractor and work from home. Luckily, her company allowed her to do this. Other people aren’t so lucky.
Today we’re hearing from photographer Rachel Bell. The wedding and travel photographer works around New England and across the globe. A mother of three, Bell, once a fourth grade teacher, became a stay at home mom for several years to take care of both her children and her dying mother. She knew she didn’t want to be a stay-at-home mom forever, and when her children became more independent, she decided to finally start her own photography business. Continue Reading
How Kids Fit Into Your Freelance Life: Part 1
Rabia Mughal and her son, Mikail.
Many work from home freelancers (especially moms) have to juggle caring for their families as well as their clients. It’s not easy! The great myth that freelancers who work from home can save oodles on child care while running a successful business is just that—a myth.
Depending on how old your child or children are determines how much time they require you (or a caregiver) to spend with them. A newborn baby sleeps a lot, but they also need to be fed every few hours. Try working on your computer while breastfeeding. It’s impossible.
When children get older and go off too school, you have a chunk of time during the day that you can devote to work—but afternoons are busy with after school activities for your kids. Depending on when the kids go to bed, you have some time before you hit the hay—but what about your spouse? Your friends? There never seems to be enough time in the day.
I decided to find out how other freelancers with children make the most of their time. Rabia Mughal is a journalist who lives with her husband and 19-month-old son, Mikail, in San Francisco.
Before Mikail was born, Mughal was planning on keeping her full-time associate editor job after her maternity leave. And she did—until Mikail was 7-months-old. She then decided to work less hours from home as a contractor for the same company.
Q: How has your mentality changed since working from home and raising your kids?
I initially thought it was an all or nothing situation where one could either be a stay-at-home parent or a working parent, so it was great to find this perfect balance. Having said that, I also realized that in order to be a more hands-on parent it is almost always necessary to sacrifice certain ambitions and goals in life. I have made my peace with this fact by telling myself that I will get to all that later. Right now it’s wonderful to have the luxury of seeing my baby whenever I want and being there if he needs me for anything. Continue Reading
The Benefits of Working in Short Time Blocks: Part 2
Yesterday I began to discuss ways in which freelancers can tackle projects using a list and short time blocks to reach your goals.
To reiterate, here’s what my example list looks like for a day of work:
Tasks
- Transcribe tape from Interview X
- Start writing feature story on Y
- Edit freelance stories for health section of magazine
- Work on calendar of events for next month
- Find stock photos to go with story Z
I allow myself 30 minutes for each task. Once my 30 minutes are up, I get out of my chair, stretch, use the bathroom, get something to drink, answer some emails, and get ready to sit down and tackle another item on my list for 30 more minutes.
Take Action
Choose to make progress on one (or more) steps on your list. But don’t aim too high. The story that was the inspiration for this post, published on The 99%, suggest that you “just tackle a small amount of work that you know you can actually complete in that time window.” If you know you can edit 15 photos in 30 minutes, aim for 15 photos. If you do more, great! If not, that’s OK too. At least you started and made progress.
While you were working, did you realize you need to add another item to your list? Wait until your time block is over, and do just that. Stay focused on the task at hand—you have a limited number of minutes to use. Continue Reading
The Balancing Act of Working Two Jobs: Case Study
According to an article in the Indianapolis Star, nearly 5% of the workforce in the U.S. held multiple jobs in November, up slightly from the same time last year.
For some, working two jobs has become the only practical way to get by. Some who take on extra work do it to pay off debt, cushion their savings or provide a fallback in case they lose their primary job. Others take part-time work hoping it turns into a full-time position, despite typically low wages and few, if any, benefits —Indianapolis Star
Holding two jobs for many freelancers is a way of life. Let’s take a look at a few case examples of how this can work well, and a few pitfalls to consider!
6 Efficient Interview Techniques for Freelance Writers
Credit: Yuri Arcurs on Photodune
The art of interviewing is just that—an art. Writers can spend an ungodly amount of time conducting interviews, which in turn costs them money. Here are some tips you can implement to make the process smoother, faster, and even more enjoyable.
1. Do Your Homework
Before you even head out the door for the interview you should be prepared—especially if you are interviewing someone who is in the public eye. Don’t waste your time fishing for answers you could easily find somewhere else. Being prepared is one of the most important interview techniques.
Perhaps the person has a bio online or has been featured in other articles. Find out, and read everything you can find. Do they work for a company that has a media relations person? Ask them to send over any information they have on the person. You then want to create a list of questions that fit your story. If you ask yes or no questions you’re going to get yes or no answers—craft your questions in a way that elicits a thoughtful response.
Don’t waste your time fishing for answers you could easily find somewhere else.
If I am looking for specific facts and figures, I’ll send my subject these questions ahead of time so they, too, can be prepared. It’s tough being in an interview and having the person say, over and over again, “I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head, I’ll have to send them to you later.” If they’re a busy person, they might not get you the statistics you need in a timely manner. Ask your subject if they can have this information ready for you on the day of your interview.
Making Side Projects Work for You
In his book, My Startup Life, Ben Casnocha offers a 30-day plan for becoming a better entrepreneur. I’m not going to rehash Ben’s plan – you’re better off reading the book than hearing about it from me. But I am going to elaborate on the task he assigns for Day 28:
Have multiple side projects going. Diversify your portfolio of interests and activities.
This begs the question: What is a side project?
I like to define them as projects that we usually aren’t paid for and are done in our non-work hours. Here are three examples:
Brinking
My youngest nephew, Will, is on the cusp of two years old—that adorably maddening tipping point between babydom and full-functioning Big Boy. Sometimes he struggles to communicate his needs, at which point he defaults to a full-throated, full-fake cry; sometimes, he’s clearly and efficiently out-sentencing most reality show contestants.
And sometimes he switches from one to the other within no interval between the two. Recently he was struggling to open a toy, and, seeing a facsimile of an Official Adult nearby in me, he wailed aloud. I bent down to unfasten the latches for him. I might not be willing to endure labor, breastfeeding, and adolescence, but I can unlock the plastic stops on a Fisher-Price barn. Most of the time.
Holding Yourself Accountable, Part Three
In this article, I’m going to talk about how you can hold yourself accountable on a monthly basis. The first two articles in this series covered:
The focus of the first two articles was on things that you can do with words – evaluating your day and your week. When we move up to the monthly level, the focus shifts to numbers. Which means that it’s time to talk about accounting software and your business. Yes, I know that this is a sore spot for many creatives. It was for me for many years, but I got over it.
How Much Time Should You Spend Working Each Day?
Recently on FreelanceSwitch, I talked about attaining a good work-life balance. In that article, one of the methods for attaining a better balance was making a clear-cut decision about when you’ll work and how many hours you spend working each day, and sticking to those hours. We throw work-life balance off by creeping past those hours to get “just that bit more” done.
5 Techniques for Guarding the Sanctity of the Home Office
Undeniably, one of the most difficult things about working at home is keeping people from perpetually distracting you during the workday, simply because you’re right there and they have nothing better to do. Or want you to take the trash out right then and there (hey, it has happened to me!).
To get anything done, you’ve really got to guard the home office and its status as a distraction-free zone. You’ve got to guard it so fiercely, you might even call it guarding the sanctity of the office. Here are five methods I use for keeping distractions at bay.
Reslanting and Reselling for Writers
It was one of the most brilliant article ideas you’ve ever had. You sat down and wrote up a beautiful query letter, tailored it perfectly to the publication you were targeting and sent it off. Now to sit and wait to receive the assignment from the editor.
The reply comes faster than usual but instead of containing a word count and a deadline it’s…the form rejection letter.
It wouldn’t normally be a big deal except the article was about a niche topic and this was the perfect magazine to publish it.
Time to toss the idea and move on, right? Wrong. It’s merely time to re-examine it and consider other ways it could be written.
