What Kind of Freelancer are You?
How many times have you heard the old fable, the tortoise and the hare? Slow and steady wins the race. Right….
From what I’ve read here on FreelanceSwitch, it seems like most freelancers are hares – but they are frequently running more than one race at a time. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m in this camp, and I know that this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Whether my deadline is tomorrow or next Tuesday, I find a way to hit it, and sometimes I think it might be the panic factor that promotes the creativity.
But I doubt that this is the only way. I’m sure it’s not the best way.
Kristen has shared a few tips here on how the clients can get quality results on rush projects, and Joel posted a poll to find out how the readers on FSw handle their deadlines.
What I would like to know is, what works best for you – slow and steady, one client at a time, or fast and furious, racing to the deadline? What tools do you use to keep yourself on track, without worrying about your ever-escalating blood pressure?
Interesting Jason, I personally take a unique approach to each project … however at the end of the day I am always waiting for content, I rather be head then behind.
good plan Jayson – and good to see another Island freelancer!
#yyj
I prefer focusing on one project at a time, i.e. if I had to come up with 3 mockups, I’ll just sit down and do nothing but these mockups until I get them done… I find myself more productive this way, rather than keep switching between projects.
… but in the end I’m always waiting for content from the client side too! Heh!
@kent that’s exactly why I started a coop web design company, I try and include a copywriter with every quote… then there’s no excuse for delays.
Great points! I’d love to say that I’m one of the more “slow and steady” types, but the truth is that I’m so much more effective at managing my time when I’m swamped with work than when I’m not. So I’m at my most productive when I’m busiest–I end up allocating specific times to specific projects, instead of going about it in an unorganized fashion when I have more free time.
One tool I’ve been using lately is TaskTime4 for Macs. I use it to track my time, even on flat free projects, so I can make sure that I end up getting my desired hourly rate from it. It also helps me to know what to charge for similar projects in the future, in case I need to adjust rates down the line.
I know this is weird, but I prefer working to not working. Even before I was freelancer, I was a workaholic. I now have to be more specific about down time, but I still prefer lots of projects to just one. I think it’s important to stay organized so that you’re not flying by the seat of your pants with your hair on fire. If you stay organized, I don’t see why having multiple projects should be more difficult than having single ones.
True – and I like the flexibility of jumping from one project to another when one of them gets stale/boring/blocked
Balls to the wall…get it done..test test and test.
My biggest slowdown is waiting on content.
The same with me. I can do things pretty fast (app developer), but I always end up struck waiting the content.
I’m a hare all the way! Couldn’t be a tortise if I tried! I think it’s really hard to make a living in this business one client at a time–at least that is my experience.
make priority list store in the mobile…try to complete as much as possible that particular day with no overlaps to the next day
I tried the “slow and steady” way…waiting to long for client side content (in one case more then 2 monts) make me try the “fast and furious ” way, more clients at one time .However at the end of the day I am still waiting for content.
Slow and steady is preferable for my mental heath but client demands, emergencies and sub-contracting priorities demand fast and furious at times. I would love to be able to schedule my work load but I’m just not allowed to stick to any schedule I set up. I just attempt to schedule and then occasionally have to make apologies to clients. I hate that.
Agree with first post, always better to be ahead with your work than behind with it.
Between the tortoise and the hare, I’d be.. the eagle with a jetpack, fast and steady
Even if having a single project would be easier to manage, I usually can’t do otherwise than have several at once, which is fine because I can often transfert skills between them: for example, recently for one contest I had to use an authentification API I never used before, and last week, a customer project had to use this same API, so I was able to get to speed faster than if I had only one project.
Also, jetpacks are cool
jetpacks are very cool!