Freelancing
Freelancers – Manage your time
Here are some “rules” for helping to manage your time. When you work on your own without supervision at home the main management task is managing yourself and your time:
Planning
Most problems arise as a result of taking action without thought: every hour you spend in effective planning saves three to four in the delivery of tasks. By failing to plan you are planning to fail
Hard Work versus Results
Some people become so submerged in “busy work” that just keeping busy can be a major objective – sorting a pile of paper may make you feel virtuous but equally may mean you are prevaricating from doing the important stuff. Successful performance is not measure in buckets of sweat or the sheer number of hours you work. Optimum results are those where the greatest benefits are achieved by the least effort.
Concentrate your effort
In most situations a critical few efforts (around 20%) usually produce the greatest part of the results (around 80%) this is called the Pareto Principle (also then 80-20 rule). This means that it is most effective to concentrate your energy on the “critical few” areas of work that will produce the major results.
Equal Distribution
No one ever has enough time but we all have all there is. This is the great paradox of time. Time is the one resource that we all have an equal share of.
Freelancers – keep healthy
Freelancers who are primarily working from home and sitting most of the day can soon develop health issues. Many people who are working at a computer for long periods can develop very bad dietary habits. Some will succumb to the hourly break with a cup of tea and the biscuit or two; eat a hastily thrown-together sandwich for lunch and after working until five and needing to do more work in the evening toss down a ready meal. If the home worker is also the homemaker and needs to make meals for the whole family then shopping often is built around quickly made convenience food.The result for some is that, with no restraints on when or what they eat they put a great deal of weight on and develop a bad skin condition (the discipline of joining Weight Watchers or similar is good), for some workaholics they become so focused on work that they forget to fill the cupboards with a range of foods and often do without real food the diet is seriously lacking in quality nutrients and vitamins and minerals. Ideally you need to manage to organise food by shopping once a weeks and planning meals, including eating out, but it takes considerable planning skill.
The major problem for most home workers is the lack of exercise – when you work for someone else when your working day has finished you can go to a gym or exercise class or go walks at weekend. Alas, a freelancer only earns when work is finished and, at times, there is not a proper beginning or end to the working day, but it is crucial to plan in some time for exercise and relaxation. A gym membership may be an important investment.
Business Advice
Don’t try to do everything yourself!
When you work for yourself from home, the workforce-of-one, there is often an erroneous belief that you should try to do everything to do with your work and business yourself. Wrong! When you start off there may well be a time when there are few account transactions, and a small order book and only a line in your appointment diary for the week when that is possible. Over time when everything builds and you still try to do the paperwork, deliver the product, do the telesales, design and distribute the marketing material and a newsletter , answer the emails, schmooze the clients over lunch, chase up later payers AND do the project work that makes the money-it all gets rather too much!. If you focus on earning the money and doing those things that earn the money, you should be able to outsource some of the work (this will count as expenses and will be set against your tax). You can:
-Delivery – if you have a product to deliver you can keep to a set delivery time each week, say, and get a local courier service to pick up and deliver for you.
-Use an accountant or bookkeeper to do your accounts, or use an umbrella company such as MSL Payroll to oversee your contracts and pay you through their payroll. As the company acts as your employer all your PAYE – tax and national insurance is sorted for you as well as chasing payments. [Read More...]
Dress appropriately for clients
When you are freelancing and working from home you often wear comfy and casual clothes – it’s a lot more comfortable working at your computer when you are wearing casual clothes. In fact more than one worker-from-home has worked most of the morning in a dressing gown She would then get dressed up to go out to client meetings.
The important thing is not to forget that clients will expect to see you looking smart and professional- and will seriously rate down your worth and professionalism if you arrive in scruffy trainers and fleece or similar. So what should the savvy freelancer wear for client visits? Of course it will depend on your type of sector and what is considered usual wear – but not what is considered usual wear for employees, but that kind of outfit worn by someone with some status, perhaps a middle or senior manager. You dress for the status that you want to be recognised as – and that won’t be the office cleaner will it?
Men’s outfits
A quality suit or jacket and trousers (the best you can afford)
A decent white shirt and low-key tie
A pair of good quality shoes to match your suit. A black outfit is probably not good unless you want to look funereal
Women’s outfits
A quality suit or dress and jacket (skirt down to knees – women clients will not be thrilled looking at expanse of leg and male clients may do and not take you work entirely seriously)
Smart shoes with lowish heels (no tottering)
Training
Upgrade you Skills
Sometimes when you work for a company for sometime it is possible that your work-related skills become outdated and your field may have moved ahead. This can often be a barrier to promotion for many people who do not possess the level of skills to undertake a higher-level job. Some employers will upskill their employees for their current jobs, but few want to invest in training someone who will then want a promotion – and may well just move to another company.
Someone thinking of going freelance or contracting needs to research the level of skills needed to get the kind of contracts they want to bid for – and start upgrading their skills if they have not the requisite professional or trade qualification.
Similarly a freelancer or contractor will find that the expertise in their field (particularly in IT or Design, for example) will continue to move on and it will be important to upgrade skills to increase the value of the projects that can be applied for – and indeed, the level of interest and challenge also.
It is possible to do classes or courses in the evening at a college or university or study by open learning at home- difficult to do when still working, but is was ever so. There is also an option with many IT skills by learning by using online IT training materials based independent learning course.
Don’t think “I haven’t got the time”. If you are underskilled in your field, you will never get the work you really want without commitment to training.