Rachel Soothill | Lifestyle & Time out,Resources
Do you tend to gather more resources than you can practically use? Such as all those saved reading lists, e-books, training materials and blog posts you’ve been meaning to read for the last six months? The trouble with all this ‘really useful stuff’ is that it can clog up your workspace and also take up valuable time.
Was one of your New Year resolutions to be more productive and grow your business? Digital Dragonfly believes you need good IT systems in place to do both. If you spend all day working on your computer read on for 7 ways to develop healthy tech habits in 2012.
Jon Norris | Working From Home
Working from home is one of the greatest perks of freelancing. No horrible commute, no noisy office, no stale Tesco sandwiches for lunch – just you, your laptop and your underwear. Once you’ve got your home office all set up, it’s time to start tweaking your working habits to ensure maximum happiness and productivity.
Jon Norris | Getting a Job,Resources
Scoring new clients can be tricky this time of year – most people have already mentally checked out for Christmas, making new projects hard to come by. That makes it all the more important that you’re able to hang on to those clients who do come knocking during the holiday lull. Here’s five easy ways to make sure you keep hold of any new business until January comes around.
If you’re a freelancer or contractor and do the majority of your work on your own, you’ll have no doubt encountered the odd unproductive day. You know the kind of thing – you have a million projects to take care of, but the lure of daytime TV is just too much, and no matter how hard you try you just can’t get any meaningful work done.
Jon Norris | Lifestyle & Time out
Here comes another study which will cause the freelancers of the world roll their eyes wryly as the rest of the world slowly figures out what us homeworkers have been preaching all along.
Yesterday we ask if you could live without email given the rapid rise of social media. Today, based on the results of a study by the Pew Research Center, we’re asking can you live without your smartphone?
A new survey from technology market research specialists Radicati.com says the average corporate email user sends and receives around 105 email messages every day and that nearly 20% of these are spam or ‘greymail’ i.e. unwanted newsletters or notifications.
Online productivity is becoming increasingly popular, but there is still a need for offline suites. Which is the best? Microsoft’s all-conquering Office, or open-source upstart Open Office?
Jon Norris | Review,Technology
As you may have noticed, Microsoft is currently in the midst of some quite pronounced marketing gesticulations to promote their new cloud-enabled productivity suite, Office 365. Aimed squarely at the droves of Office users fleeing the good ship Microsoft in Google’s direction, Office 365 purports to have brought the functionality of Microsoft’s world-beating Office software to the web.
Rachel Soothill | News,Technology
Research published by PC World Business has revealed that UK small businesses are adopting tablets for use in the workplace, with many more looking to do so in the near future. According to the research nearly 25% of small firms are using tablets such as iPads and Android slates to increase the efficiency of their business.
Rachel Soothill | Guides,Working From Home
Working from home is one of the advantages of being a freelancer. However, with the perks there can be lots of distractions to watch out for, such as the television, family members, cats walking across keyboards and the numerous tea breaks. While distractions aren’t a problem from time-to-time, it is important not to let them occur on a regular basis otherwise they will start to have an impact on your work.
David Sumner | Working From Home
It’s not hard to see why the freelancing bug has caught on for so many. Being able to work from home and work to your own schedule (with no boss telling you what to do) sounds like heaven to most of us. However, if you are going to succeed in the world of freelancing then you must be able to balance the freedom and flexibility with discipline and ground rules.
Starting a business is a time-consuming and difficult task, which generally means getting down and dirty in all areas of the business. With so much to do every day, developing an optimised workflow becomes more than a just a ‘nice thing to have’ – it is essential to your business’s success.
The iPad has been a hugely popular way for people to get online, consume information and play Angry Birds. For freelancers and contractors, its strength has been in enabling the user to find out stuff, fire off quick emails and generally perform online tasks without having to boot up a computer or be restricted by a miniature screen. It has created a happy medium between mobility and functionality.
In a nutshell this is a book about communication and how not to do it. As a particularly blunt and tactless individual I thought this might help me temper my natural desire to be right all the time…. but it has not (apparently). Persuasion is a generally interesting book but it is purely for those people who like the self help genre and does not stray from the core readership market or attempt to engage the business reader.
Isn’t the internet wonderful? You can go shopping without ever leaving your house, you can speak to people the other side of the world, and, most importantly, you can get loads of useful stuff for free!
Microsoft has unveiled a brand new cloud-based product which they hope will win over the business community.
Office 365 will bring together Microsoft Officer, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online. Instead of having to install it on your computer, you can simply pay for and access the service online. Or, ‘in the cloud.’
In part two of our Time Management special, Andy continues his conversation with business coach and author of Time Management for Dummies, Clare Evans. They cover the following topics -
Setting time-based boundaries…
Podcast 28: Ten top tips for great time management (part 2) [ 28:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
In our day-to-day lives we read a lot. And some of us would like to read a lot more. Often it’s time that restricts us, or perhaps the strain on our eyes.
For many freelancers and contractors the ability to read quickly and efficiently can be vital. It can be the difference between gleaning an important piece of information and remaining in a soon-to-be unblissful state of ignorance.
Come along we haven’t got all day!!
Jon Norris | Guides,Resources,Technology
Software comes in many different flavours these days. The majority, from Microsoft, Apple and the like, is closed source – meaning the developers don’t release the source code their software is based on, which helps them protect both their intellectual property and bottom line. A growing percentage of software, however, is Open Source, meaning the developer releases the source code for anybody to poke around in and change as they see fit, and, most importantly for you and I, the software is almost always free.
Mel Dixon | Lifestyle & Time out
When you’re working as a freelancer or contractor, it’s not just your business you have to manage. You also have to manage your own stress levels. After all, a taut freelancer may soon become unhappy and unmotivated leading to a professional and personal downward spiral.
What follows is a guide to reducing stress levels on the job.
You probably dread coming back from holiday to hundreds or thousands of emails.
The thought of spending the first week dealing with them all and feeling that you’re having to catch up all the time. Here are a few quick steps to help you deal with the backlog.
74 unread emails! Since last night? Are you kidding! We all know what email overload feels like, especially if we’ve been away on holiday or if our American cousins don’t realise that Bank Holidays are sacred. It’s hard enough working out what work has priority but even worse when client email are hidden within an inbox cluttered with newsletters, calendar reminders and “special offers”.
If you use Gmail you might be interested to know that Google are working on the problem.
Gmail is great at filtering out spam but today the Google gmail team announced that they will use similar technology to automatically sort your emails by importance.
Michael Rose | Lifestyle & Time out
Freelancers need focus; without a boss to keep you in line and being outside a traditional workflow it can be hard to know where to focus your efforts. Combine this with the pace of modern life and it’s easy to get swamped and to feel that there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Not only is there a lot of work there are constant distractions, tweets, bleeps and pings pulling us away from our true goals and aspirations.
Focus: The Power of Targeted Thinking attempts to give the solution to all these feelings of confusion and distraction.
Mel Dixon | Lifestyle & Time out
For most freelancers and contractors, getting a good nights sleep is pretty crucial. Yes, you do get those strange types who seem to get by with just a few hours kip. But they’re not normal.
And surely being reliant on huge vats of coffee to get through the day doesn’t do anyone any good?
Michael Rose | Lifestyle & Time out,Technology
Teux Deux is a super-simple, sleek and stylish to-do list manager. If you like great design with a tiny pinch of minimalism then this might be for you.
Built entirely for the web you just sign up for a free account and start typing in your to-dos. To add a task you just type and hit return. That’s it.
Prioritising and planning how you use your time is a key skill for every great freelancer. Freelancing gives you the freedom to choose what you do and when you do it.
This freedom can have shortcomings however as it’s very easy to be distracted by emails, twitter and other interruptions — and it’s tempting to focus on doing those tasks you like instead of those which may be most useful.
Would you like to take a Pomodoro? In this instance I’m not asking you to accept a tomato, but instead enquiring as to whether you’d like to try a technique designed to improve your powers of concentration and increase the efficiency of your work.
As part of our Freelance Focus series, application designer Cesare Rocchi advises any freelancer who’s struggling to maintain their discipline and productivity to try out the Pomodoro technique…
Michael Rose | Working From Home
Who needs an office? Well, the Prime Minister I guess. Your accountant, perhaps. The CEO of a corporation with multiple divisions for sure. But if you’re an agile company producing web-content, applications or software do you really need to have all your troops all lined up ready for battle at 9am every morning five days a week?
Freelance Advisor has always tried to promote home working as a flexible, sustainable and more productive option for 21st century working and this week Seth Godin, Hive Logic and Chris Ashworth all made excellent points about the failings of the traditional office.
Anthony Hewson | Working From Home
You gave up working for someone else for a reason. More than one in all likelihood, but one stood bold and proud: freedom.
Such a noble word; such a bright and sparkling principle; such a statement of hope and promise.
Such a lie
Leo Babauta | Lifestyle & Time out
“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” ~Lao Tzu
One of the best things I did when I decided to simplify my life was to simplify my workday — first at my day job and later, by quitting my day job, in the work I do now as a writer and entrepreneur.
I’ve eliminated most of the routine, boring, administrative tasks with a few simple principles.
Judy Heminsley | Lifestyle & Time out
When freelancing or starting a small business and looking to keep costs down working from home is the obvious solution.
There’s also a downside, though, and that’s the risk of becoming lonely and isolated, with its knock-on effect on self-confidence and motivation.
Continuing our #WorkingFromHome series Judy Heminsley shares her hard-won tips for overcoming the gloom of isolation and how to get motivated in the mid-afternoon slump…
Judy Heminsley | Lifestyle & Time out
When I talk about home working to someone who is office-based, they reply, ‘I could never work from home. I’d spend all day in my pyjamas watching daytime TV.’ What they mean is that they’re afraid that away from the eyes of bosses and colleagues they’d never get anything done, that they would procrastinate.
The trouble with procrastination is that it drains energy from us every time we think about that dreaded task and then stuff it to the back of our minds again. Far more energy than it would take to complete.
So why do you procrastinate?
Anthony Hewson | Lifestyle & Time out
Freelancing takes courage. No guaranteed pay cheque, no back-up team, no boss to give you guidance, no boss to take the fall.
No excuses – the buck stops with you. It took courage to take that first step into the freelance world, whether it was a bold and brazen stride with an armful of clients ready to commit, or a stomach-knotted plunge born of necessity.
Anthony Hewson gives us some inspiring advice on how to feel the fear and to use it to put some fire in your freelancing belly.
The guys and girls at Cloud Engines are my new best friends! As a roaming freelancer (working on contracts in other people’s offices, working from home and, sometimes, working from bed) the problem of where to keep my data has always been a difficult one to solve. Not any more.
Pogoplug is a great solution. It’s got 4 USB slots and it connects to a home WiFi router and, yes it really is that simple, now I have access to my portable hard drives wherever I am in the world.
Leo Babauta | Getting a Job,Lifestyle & Time out
As Confucius said… “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
As part of our new series on Making a Living Without a Job, productivity guru and professional blogger Leo Babauta explains that everyone can go freelance and earn a good living by doing the things they love to do.
Leo Babauta | Lifestyle & Time out
Single-tasking: getting more done by doing less.
Developing good, simple habits and maintaining a focused mind can not only help you stay sane but is way more efficient than multitasking.
Guest blogger and productivity-pro Leo Babauta tells why multitasking is bad and how we can avoid doing it.
Leo Babauta | Lifestyle & Time out
Email Zen: Clear Out Your Inbox
Our productivity guru Leo Babauta, pro-blogger and founder of the highly successful Zen Habits, gives us three top tips on managing email and keeping your mind, and your inbox, clean and clear.
Leo Babauta | Lifestyle & Time out
Leo Babauta of Zen Habits rises at 4:30 a.m every day. And he’s clearly insane! But before we roll over and pull the covers over our heads… lets hear some of the benefits and, if it sounds good to you, how you can make it a lasting, productive habit.
Leo Babauta | Lifestyle & Time out
As a freelancer with multiple clients, multiple deadlines and multiple todo lists it can be hard to know what to focus on next – so rather than choose we often end up doing two, or more, things at once. As part of a series of posts on Getting Things Done for Freelancers Leo Babauta of [...]
Michael Rose | Lifestyle & Time out
Mark Kirby’s piece on Time-Boxing for Freelancers this week got me thinking about all the time I could waste trying to find the perfect tools for the job. The irony of this is not lost on anyone I’m sure so, rather than waste unnecessary time on “productivity p0rn”, I thought I’d take Mark’s advice to [...]
Mark Kirby | Lifestyle & Time out
Getting things done throughout the day is what keeps the contracts and cash coming in. But how do we know which tasks we should be working on? And for how long? Freelance Advisor’s life-hacks guru Mark Kirby offers a smart solution to planning freelance work. In this post I’m going to focus on a simple [...]
