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Time-Management Skills for the Self-Employed

Over the past month, I’ve gotten sucked into a few projects that have demanded the vast majority of my time. There have been times when I’ve felt overwhelmed with my to-do list, and only a disciplined approach kept me going at all. In talking with other self-employed individuals, I know this is something we all struggle with on a regular basis. In the interest of solidarity, I’ve decided to share some of my time-management skills:

A To-Do List is Essential
A solid to-do list is the cornerstone of my time management process. I use an application for my laptop, called Things, which I can also sync to my iPhone for adding/managing tasks on the go. Before that, I used a paper to-do list designed by a friend of mine, which included a self-organizing element to help determine priority. Theoretically, I don’t actually need a to-do list. I have a freaky memory and I never forget about a project or deadline. But using a to-do list helps me to prioritize the projects I’m working on, and deal with them in manageable chunks. It’s also really satisfying to cross things off when you finish them; you get a sense that you’ve actually accomplished something.

Break Tasks Up into Manageable Pieces
Some tasks take a lot of time. I’ve had projects that take days or weeks of my time. It’s hard to feel like you’re making progress on those tasks because they’re so time-consuming, and it can get discouraging. I find it really helpful to break tasks up into manageable pieces. If I’m writing a book, I might make my goal to write 5 pages each day, and then I can check off my five pages. If I’m doing a project that consists of 20 articles, I might set myself X articles per day or week, depending on the size and scope of the articles. Making this steady progress and being able to cross things off my to-do list keeps me moving forward.

Prioritize Fast Tasks
Sometimes you have a lot of tasks on your list, and a good strategy to handle the workload is to prioritize based on the time the project will take you instead of when it’s due. For example, if you have a big project and three small projects all due in two days, it makes sense to do the small projects first. That way you can knock things off your to-do list, and if the big project runs long, you won’t be late on the other projects, too. Sometimes it also makes sense to handle smaller projects first even if the bigger project is due sooner for that very reason – when big projects run long, they can set your entire workflow behind.

Leave Room in Your Schedule
One of the keys to me as a self-employed individual is to leave room in my schedule. If I fully-book my schedule, that’s inevitably the time when one of my projects will run long or require extra revision. If you leave a bit of room in your schedule, you have flexibility if you’re running close to deadline or a project takes longer than you expect. It helps to have some small ongoing projects you can use to fill the gaps, or you can spend your extra time working on marketing if you finish your projects early.

Plan Your Breaks
I may have a propensity to procrastinate. I’ll be starting to work, and then I’ll think of something I should look up or do. When I find myself distracting myself from work, I actually schedule my breaks. I’ll keep a separate running to-do list for things I think of while I’m working, and wait until my scheduled break to look them up or do things. Sometimes I say “I’ll work until X time,” or sometimes I give myself a break after completing a certain number of articles or a certain part of a project.

Reward Yourself When Necessary
There are times when I take on really massive projects that require me to work long days, and even sometimes the weekends. These projects usually pay pretty well (which is my primary motivator to taking them – or else I’ll do it for an existing client) so I “reward” myself for completing the project. There was one project I completed in May that paid nearly $3,000 but required me to work a lot of 12-hour days, so as a reward, I bought myself a $300 “sale” item I’d been wanting. For smaller projects, I’ll do smaller rewards; I might buy a new book after a particularly rough week, or take my SO out to dinner if I’ve been working particularly hard or feeling stressed.

Time management skills are something that everyone needs to practice. Do you have any time management secrets you’d like to share?

Philosophical Musings on Language

I had planned a more business-oriented post for today, but one commenter left an interesting message on one of my recent blog posts that I feel warrants a response. His comment was: “by and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.” As a writer, a lover of language and a professional for whom words are a business, I have a few different takes on this comment that I wanted to share. At the very least, it was thought-provoking, and I wonder what other people think about this comment.

The Purpose of Language is Communication
First, I’d argue against the spirit of this comment. Language developed to enable communication. Communication is independent of truth or lies. Communication is an attempt to convey a message from one party to another. In some cases, one or both of the parties might choose to conceal the truth, but concealing the truth is not a function of language – it’s a function of human behavior. I’d argue that by its nature, as a tool designed to facilitate communication, language as a convention runs counter to the spirit of concealment.

Language has Evolved for Accuracy and Precision
How do new words enter the language? Words are coined in an attempt to more precisely describe or identify something. When enough people use words for long enough, they enter the lexicon and become a recognized part of the language. Words don’t evolve to promote concealment and obscurity. They evolve to facilitate precision and accuracy. This facet of language development also runs counter to the idea of language as a tool for concealing the truth. Yes, some people may use it that way, but that’s not why language exists or how it evolves.

Business Use of Language
When you unite business and language is when I think you begin to enter gray areas about the use of words as a tool for concealment. Many companies utilize language to portray a positive picture of their company or product in an attempt to sell the product. How many people want to buy something from a company whose copy says something like: “This product isn’t the best product for this purpose, nor is it the cheapest, but we want you to buy it anyway!” Not very compelling copy. Good copy describes a product accurately, while still presenting it in a positive light.

Personally, I’d argue that good copy doesn’t “conceal” anything from the reader. As a company, you don’t want to set up false consumer expectations or you’ll create disappointed consumers. That’s not the way to build a good business with sustainable success. The goal of good copy is to make consumers want your product without making false promises and without “hiding” things from your consumers. That’s how I write copy, and I have turned down projects that have requested me to make false promises or present products in an inaccurate manner.

Language, Like Any Other Tool, can be Misused
Unfortunately, not everybody has the same approach to accuracy in language. Some businesses do use language to conceal the truth about a product, or portray it inaccurately. For example, I purchased an iPhone 4 and am experiencing the same antenna problems that many people around the country are reporting. Apple’s official response to reports of antenna problems was: “Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone.” Apple hasn’t openly acknowledged the antenna issue, and this language attempts to downplay what is a very real design flaw in the phone. In this case, I would say that language is being used to obscure the truth: that the phone has a design flaw that Apple doesn’t intend to address.

Ultimately, like any other tool, language can be used and misused in a variety of ways. Language is used for concealment by some individuals and businesses, but I’d argue that this isn’t the purpose of language, nor is it the way it’s used in the majority of cases. I’m one of those people who believes in the inherent goodness of humans as a species, and I believe that in the majority of cases, people use language as it is intended – to communicate. So while I have to acknowledge that there is some truth in this comment, in that language can be used as a tool for concealment, I believe that cases where language is used for concealment are a minority.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with this comment, or do you think language is more innocuous – a tool that can be used in a way it isn’t intended to be used?

The Reality of Being Self-Employed

Being self-employed has a certain appeal to people who have never done it. Many people assume that being self-employed means setting your own hours, knocking off early if you have an appointment or just want to play outside and never having to report to a boss again. These are all real possibilities, but being self-employed comes with a dark side, too. If you’re thinking of working for yourself or wondering why being self-employed isn’t everything you thought it would be, consider these reality checks for the self-employed.

Self-Employed Means Long Hours
Yes, when you’re self-employed, you can typically set your own schedule. However, what many people don’t realize is that the schedule you set is usually far more than 40 hours. Self-employed individuals must complete their work, but they also have to market themselves, do their own accounting, settle bills, generate contracts and deal with a thousand other administrative tasks. When you’re self-employed, your income is directly proportional to the amount of work you put in – which means that you may be working 60 to 80 hour weeks when you get started just to make ends meet. Over time, you get more efficient and build systems that help you deal with the administrative details faster, but many self-employed individuals work far more than 40 hours per week.

Marketing is a Never-Ending Task
When you’re self-employed, you are responsible for generating your business. If you’re not spending time marketing, you’re not getting work, which means you’re not making money. When you’re self-employed, marketing is a never-ending task that takes countless hours every week. Self-employed people must be prepared to advertise their skills or services whenever possible, which means carrying business cards everywhere you go and utilizing any opportunity to demonstrate skills and find business.

Being Self-Employed Involves Higher Taxes and Expenses
Self-employed individuals typically pay twice as much in taxes than someone who works in a traditional job. When you work for an employer, your employer pays a portion of your Social Security and Medicare payments. Self-employed individuals must pay the entire amount themselves, resulting in higher taxes than traditional employment. Self-employed persons also don’t have the benefit of employer-sponsored health care, which means we have to pay for our own health insurance; which typically starts at around $400 per month for individuals.

Self-Employed People Don’t Get Paid Vacations
When you’re self-employed, you only get paid when you’re working. That means you don’t get paid sick days or paid vacations. If a self-employed individual is too sick to work, he or she doesn’t get paid. Likewise, if a self-employed person wants to take a week or two off for vacation, he or she must earn extra money before leaving – or go without that income.

The Client is the Boss
Being your own boss can be fun, but most self-employed individuals work for clients and the client essentially becomes the boss. As a self-employed professional, you can usually dictate how you do a job, but you must provide the product or services to the client’s specifications or suffer the client’s wrath. In many self-employed professions, clients convey very tight timeframes, which may require extra work or shuffling other projects to get things done. Being your own boss is fun until you have a problem with a client; then you wish you had a boss to step in.

Don’t get me wrong – I love being self-employed. I’ve had very few problems with clients, and have been able to resolve all of those amicably. I love being able to work from the park, or Starbucks or the office, and I love being able to take the afternoon off if I get my work completed early. But being self-employed isn’t as glamorous as many people think it is, and people who are thinking of working for themselves should be prepared to make sacrifices and deal with the nitty-gritty of being self-employed.

What to Do When a Relationship Goes Sour

In spite of everyone’s best intentions, sometimes a working relationship simply doesn’t work. You may not be able to agree on a message or content, you may have differing opinions on how to present something or you may simply feel apathy or indifference from your partner. When a working relationship stops working, what do you do?

Always be Professional
Whether it’s a mutual decision to terminate a project or one party initiates the breakup, it’s important to be professional in all of your business dealings. Don’t get angry about terminating your project, and if you are angry, don’t show your partner. Whether you’re a client or an employer, there’s no reason to take your temper out on the other party in your deal. And it’s important to remember one very important fact: the world is a small place, and you never know who the other party knows. If word of your temper tantrum spreads around the community, you’ll have a hard time finding work and your reputation will be sullied. Be professional and you can cling to that in your future business relationships.

Compromise to End the Project
Usually, when a project is terminated prematurely, each side has to give a little. A client may not be happy with the work that a provider creates, and may want to pay nothing. Or the provider may be unable to keep up with client requests for edits and may want to end the project. It’s important to keep in mind that both parties probably want a project to end in a certain way, and compromise is the fairest way to terminate a project. If you’re an unhappy client, maybe you pay for a portion of the work. If you’re a provider who wants to end a project, maybe you offer one or two more rounds of revisions and then call it quits. Keep in mind that you’re both giving something up, and try to find a graceful way to ensure you both get something fair.

Consult Your Contract
When you enter into a business relationship, you may sign a contract with the other party. Many contracts have provisions for what happens if one party wants to end the project. Make sure you are happy with the termination provisions before you sign a contract. If you do need to terminate, consult your contract to ensure you’re both in compliance with the termination provisions.

Document Everything
It’s always a good business practice to document all communications anyway, but make sure you document any communication regarding the termination of the project. If you have a phone conversation with a client or provider, document it. Save email exchanges or written letters. You may need to reference these materials if the termination turns acrimonious, so keeping these things on hand gives you peace of mind.

The termination of a business relationship doesn’t have to be a painful process. If you can both remain professional, communicate clearly and compromise on the terms of the project’s end, you can both be satisfied with a mutual parting of ways. Terminating a business relationship goes bad when people start to show their tempers or act unreasonably, so keep in mind that you’re a business professional and conduct yourself accordingly – even if the other party doesn’t. It’s your reputation on the line.

Professional vs. Non-Professional Writers

One problem that I encounter fairly regularly is a mismatch between clients’ expectations and the reality of the writing profession. I encounter this primarily on Elance, although I run into it with corporate clients and small businesses, too. It seems that many people simply don’t know how much it costs to hire a writer, and have some expectation in their heads that writers will work for pennies per word – or less. This may be true in non-technical applications or with non-professional writers, but there are substantial differences between professional and non-professional writers.

Professional Writers have Years of Experience
Experience is a huge factor in hiring professional vs. non-professional writers. Non-professional writers are typically starting out, hoping to become professional writers, or they may be moonlighting to supplement their incomes. Or non-professional writers may be employed in other professions, such as marketing professions, and try their hand at writing because their company needs copy or other written materials and they attempt to fill that gap. This kind of experience can accumulate over time, but it takes a lot longer for a non-professional to garner experience.

Professional writers, on the other hand, write prolifically. They write many words per day. They have experience with many different types of projects. They’ve had an opportunity to refine their writing through practical application, and this makes a world of difference in the end product.

Think of it like this: a professional writer spends 8 hours per day, or 40 hours per week, writing. A non-professional writer may spend 2 to 4 hours per week writing, or even less. Over a month, this adds up to 160 hours of writing for a professional, or up 8 to 16 hours of writing for a non-professional; 10% or less of the experience that a professional writer gains per month. Over a year, a professional writer spends over 2,000 hours writing, while a non-professional may spend 100 to 200 hours writing.

A professional writer with 10 years of experience has spent 20,000 hours writing.

A non-professional writer, even with 10 years of experience, has only spent 2,000 hours writing; the same amount that a professional does in a year.

The experience scale is skewed heavily in favor of the professional writer. And when you hire a professional, you’re getting the benefit of that experience; which is part of why professional writers cost more than non-professionals.

Professional Writers Use the Right Words
I was recently working on a project writing school descriptions, and one school website described themselves as a “chain of schools” throughout a specific area. This made me cringe. To me, the term ‘chain’ evokes thoughts of a chain restaurant; overpriced, not particularly noteworthy, bland, generic, food-in-a-box, franchised dross. There are many ways to express the same general thought using words that don’t evoke such negative images. For example, they could have called themselves a “family of schools” or a “network of schools” – either of which would have been preferable to ‘chain.’

This is a classic example of non-professional versus professional writers. Non-professionals may be able to convey their meaning through words, and may even do so with relatively few grammatical errors or sound sentence structure. But professional writers have a sense for the cadence of language, and we think about the images that a word evokes. We don’t just use any word – professional writers spend time and energy finding the right words.

My tagline is: “I write what you meant to say.”

I don’t write what you tell me to write. I don’t write what you say. I distill what you say to write into its component parts, and refine it, and deliver it polished and shining. I write the best version of what you intended to say.

I write what you meant to say.

That’s the difference between a professional writer and a non-professional writer.

Yes, we cost more. But if your message is important, we’re worth the cost.

We deliver. We boost your ROI. We polish up your message until it shines, and reach more people, more effectively with our words.

When you hire a professional writer, you’re getting years of experience and skills. You get a customized message, tailored to your needs, designed to grab your audience and convince them that your product or service is the answer to all their problems.

When you hire a non-professional writer, you get cheap.

What do you want? A professional writer, or a non-professional?

Notes on Switching to a Mac for Business Applications

My laptop finally died yesterday (I don’t recommend Toshiba – I’ve had a host of problems with my former laptop from Day 1, and apparently there are a lot of known issues with my model) so I was left with the challenge of deciding how to replace it. The timing wasn’t optimal, as I’ve been dealing with some other expenses – and what small business owner does have the budget sitting around to replace a laptop when it goes down? For me, though, it’s essential to have a laptop for work, in addition to my desktop, so I headed to the local retail outlets to see what was available.

My criteria ranged from simple to relatively demanding. First: No Toshiba laptops. I’m still too unhappy about the long range of problems I’ve had. After that, I wanted a laptop that wouldn’t get too hot on my lap, which is a problem with a lot of metal cases and low-end laptop manufacturers. I needed a decent processor and hardware combination. I also had some more specific criteria, such as a keyboard that gives good tactile feedback and seems capable of withstanding the pounding a full-time writer gives it on a daily basis. (This criteria alone eliminates a surprising amount of laptops – the next time you’re laptop hunting, try typing and looking for keyboards that bow as you type, or whose keys simply don’t provide satisfactory tactile feedback.) With just this simple criteria, I managed to eliminate 70% to 80% of laptops.

This left me with a small number of laptops, another large portion of which had to be eliminated because they were simply too large for me. I prefer a 13 to 14 inch profile; the 15-inch widescreen laptops are just too big for me to use and carry around comfortably. In this size range, with decent keyboards, good cooling and my minimum hardware requirements, I was left with a few Hewlett Packard laptops in the $700 to $800 price range, and some Samsung and Sony laptops in the $800+ price range.

And then there’s Mac. Entry level Mac laptops start at $1,000. But my friends are primarily creative professionals who use Macs, and I’ll admit to growing Mac envy over the past few years as I’ve watched them utilize their pretty software that does exactly what I think Windows software should do, only prettier, simpler and better. So when my significant other suggested switching to Mac, I was definitely eager to consider it, but the price tag gives me pause.

An entry level Mac laptop has hardware roughly comparable to a $600 or less Windows laptop. For $400 more. However, the Mac OS X isn’t as resource-hungry as Windows, so less hardware doesn’t necessarily equate to a performance compromise. I’ve watched my SO sitting on the couch playing with a Mac laptop with no problems; lots of browsing (an insane number of open windows, including some video), music, email and running random applications. Never any performance issues. And that with an entry-level Mac laptop.

So I went to the Mac store and played with their entry-level Mac laptops. The applications were very pretty. I was concerned about compatibility, but it turns out there’s software to address most of my compatibility issues (although I still haven’t gotten my expensive all-in-one business printer/scanner/copier working with my new Mac laptop). And the Mac software is generally less expensive. And the functionality is simple and pretty, although there is a learning curve coming over from using Windows for the past 15+ years.

In the end, I opted to get the Mac, in spite of the higher price tag, because I wanted it. I really like the way Mac apps are designed, and I rationalized that I’d get more functionality out of it.

After a day and a half of using it, pretty much non-stop, for business applications – I’m extremely happy with my purchase.

I’m running both Pages and Microsoft Word for Mac for word processing. Honestly, I like Pages better, but I’m keeping Microsoft Word for those things I just don’t know how to do in Pages (primarily advanced formatting and Word functionality). Pages has a cleaner design, and things just seem to look better on a Mac; it’s been a joy to work today in a way it’s never been on my Windows machines.

I’ve also been looking at a lot of Mac apps to handle my other business needs, including invoicing, blogging, social media management and other elements of my business operation. I’m extremely happy with the functionality and design of the software I’ve tried so far. I really like Pages, and I’ve tried ViJournal for things like journaling and blogging (although it doesn’t handle WP, and both of my professional blogs are WP) and like the interface and look of the app quite a bit.

I’m leaning toward iBiz for time tracking and billing. I haven’t gotten into Numbers or Keynote yet, but I’m eager to try them – the UI looks beautiful, and I suspect those applications are going to be just as much of a joy to use as the other apps I’ve been using. For the first time, I’ve got all of my contacts synced in one place (the Address Book – I’ve pulled data from my label software, my phone, my email client and random VCard files I’ve been saving). I have all of my music installed and organized, which has made a surprising impact on my productivity.

In the end, though, I’m finding that using my MacBook is simply more FUN than using my old Windows PCs. The user interfaces of Mac software are much more beautiful than Windows apps, and the features I need and want are easy to access while maintaining clean, simple designs. Even the fonts are more attractive. In general, I just enjoy using this MacBook, which has made a huge impact in my productivity today. And I expect, as I get more accustomed to using a Mac, I’ll find even more apps that can enhance my productivity and automate tasks I was doing by hand on my Windows machine.

In short: I highly recommend switching to a Mac for business applications. There has been a slight learning curve, but my increase in productivity has compensated for time spent hunting around in an app for specific features. And there are plenty of apps designed to do a task and look pretty while doing it, unlike Windows apps. I’m a convert. The MacBook is worth every penny of the price difference.

Time-Management Skills for the Self-Employed

Philosophical Musings on Language

The Reality of Being Self-Employed

What to Do When a Relationship Goes Sour

Professional vs. Non-Professional Writers

Notes on Switching to a Mac for Business Applications

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