My five golden rules of freelancing

My five golden rules of freelancing

I find I come across a lot of freelancers who don’t enjoy their job as much because of a variety of different things. They aren’t living by a set of golden rules as I do, so I thought I would share the rules that I live by whilst freelancing in order to benefit future and current freelancers a like experiencing problems in their day-to-day work.

Golden rules are simply something that you stick by, they are your code of ethics and they are how you conduct yourself in day-to-day business.

1. Keep it interesting

Working the same job over and over is always going to get boring eventually. That’s why I tend to diversify what areas each job is in and the specifics of those jobs. Occasionally I’ll see a job which is completely out there and send a message about it on the spot. This will either allow me to meet somebody new or just experience what it’s like to work with that area of the web.

It’s all about breaking the routine that every freelancer drops into from time to time. It shouldn’t feel like your copying and pasting what you did last week for a new site and changing the name on top – it should be that your adding something to your skill set, experiencing something new and dealing with different people on a week to week basis.

2. Don’t work with people that you don’t like

There’s nothing more aggravating than working with people you don’t like. It demoralises you, makes work a chore rather than a passion and basically makes you question why you do what you do.

Always be sure to save up your money in the background and have a backlog of pay stored away. This gives you a position where you can turn down clients you aren’t sure about and pull out of deals that are making your life hell.

The last thing you want to do as a freelancer is to break a relationship with a client by pulling out of a deal. But I feel that if it’s no longer fun or interesting to work (or even aggravating to work) with that client then you should be moving on and finding work else where.

3. Know when to escape

Knowing when to take a break and when to stop working is a key part of freelancing. Otherwise we’d all be doing 12 hour days every day and just get burnt out all the time.

Take weekends off, read a book, get some DVD’s, join the gym, walk the dog, visit the local shops to get a sandwich … all of these things you can do to escape working.

(This is all of course outside of work hours and during breaks.. not to avoid working in the first place.)

4. Treat every job as if it’s your first

Don’t get comfortable with a long term client, your standard should be as high as it was when you first worked for them. The day you decided that if you did a good job on the first project there may be more in it for you. This should be how you treat every job – as if your out to impress in a job interview and need that job to survive. That hunger to impress the client and keep them happy is how you deliver consistently and how you keep that client wanting to use you in the first place.

Think about this – are clients going to refer you to a friend if a friend needs work? Are they more likely to refer an excellent freelancer, or one that delivers average results?

Of course there is a twist to this rule – we all know our first jobs weren’t the best and were possibly even sloppy. That is something you’ll have to refrain from doing with this rule of course.

5. Communicate beautifully

Spell checks and grammar checks are vital for the less than able English speakers here. I often find clients talking about how poor ex-hires were with their English and it will always be off putting when a client wants to deal with the client with long conversations about jobs.

Another important part of this rule is to put communicating with the client as a priority. If they send you an e-mail it’s not ‘I’ll do it later’, it’s ‘OK I’ll respond now’. This is any time of your day you’re at the computer and this is what can set you apart from the rest. Having an instant reply or instant action towards the e-mail they’ve sent (if they want/need something doing) is always going to be something that a client likes – and it’s something that’ll win you over if your trying to impress them.

So there we have it, my golden rules of freelancing. I hope to have benefitted a few freelancers with this article.

Article kindly provided by PHP freelancer Jamie Huskisson. The original source can be found here.

8 Simple Online Time Management Tools for Freelancers Leo Babauta

One of the biggest challenges for freelancers is managing our time — if we don’t do it well, we won’t survive as freelancers.

Time management is about developing good work habits, and using time management tools that work without getting in the way.

As freelancers, we also want tools that can be used and accessed from anywhere — multiple locations, while traveling, and on the go with our mobile devices if necessary. So today we’ll look at a few online tools that are simple, easy to use, and effective — helping you manage your time and tasks without too much hassle.

This list actually contains alternatives for each type of time-management tool, so you have options to check out.

Calendar: Google Calendar or 30 Boxes. A calendar is one of the cornerstones of any time, management program, of course, but it’s best to have one that’s simple and easy to use. You don’t want to have to wait to enter an appointment or to see what you have on tap. I’m a fan of GCal, with its multiple calendars (one for freelance work, one for work, one for personal, one for family?), its email reminders, and quick add extensions, but 30 Boxes is another favorite and is a great alternative. I suggest you only use your calendar for things that have to be done on a certain date or time — not for your daily to-do list.

To-do list: Vitalist or Todoist. There are dozens of to-do list managers online, and I’m not going to do a comprehensive comparison. But Vitalist is one of my favorites, because it is so intuitive and easy to use. Todoist is a great choice if you prefer things in a hierarchical, outline-type format.

Project management: Backpack or Basecamp. You can use a to-do list to manage the tasks of a project, of course, but if you need to collaborate, or store extensive notes or files, you’ll need something a little better. Backpack is the simplest way to do that, because it’s so versatile. You can share pages, have checklists or other lists for the project’s task, set up pages for each project, add files and notes and images, even send yourself reminders and do “white papers” for collaboration. If your project needs are more complicated, you’ll want to give Basecamp a try.

Contact management: Big Contacts or High Rise. Every freelancer has many contacts to manage, of course, but how is a contact manager a time-management tool? Well, Big Contacts and High Rise (from the same makers of Basecamp and Backpack) go beyond just storing phone numbers, addresses and email addresses. They also can store notes for each contact, phone calls made, meetings held, and tasks that need to be done. If you do extensive work with some of your contacts, these tools will be useful. I personally have been using Big Contacts, but High Rise is very slick, and simple to use.