Category Archives: Productivity

How You Can Improve as a Freelance Web Designer

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Being a freelance web designer can be great – there’s plenty of opportunity to earn a good buck if you’re skilled and creative enough, you get to talk to interesting people and work on interesting projects from time to time, and the work is generally relaxing and allows for a lot of freedom in the scheduling. However, many people who go into this business soon find themselves stuck in one spot, unable to progress any further. There are some things to keep in mind unless you want to remain at the same income level for too long.

First and most importantly, value your time and think big – those small gigs that earn you a few extra dollars can be great in the beginning, but they can easily eat into your time too much and prevent you from getting any real work done. Limit those small projects as much as you can and fill up your time with as many large-scaled projects as you can.

Also, you should rely on your clients for references as much as possible – whenever you complete a deal and the client is happy with your work, throw them a line asking them to refer you to their partners who may need similar services – you’d be surprised how well that works and how much extra work it can score you!

Last but not least, don’t be afraid to try out something new – the job of a freelance web designer can be a very varied one if you let it!

Originally posted on November 24, 2010 @ 11:24 pm

Productivity Tip: Turn Off Instant Messaging

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It seems so simple, so innocuous, but really instant messaging is the evil sinkhole of productivity. I have a few different programs, to manage the different lists of people I talk to, as everyone seems to have a different preference. Even my work has its own Jabber server and network, adding one more to the pile.

The corporate instant messaging platform was so we could turn off the rest, and be able to focus on work, but the reality is that all instant messaging needs to be turned off to really get a good amount of work done. Any interruption to your focus, or what I call my “groove”, will distract you from your goals, stop you from getting things done, and cost you time and energy that could have been put into work tasks.

Writing conversations, even just in short form instant messaging takes much more concentration than talking on the phone to someone, as it uses both your sense of sight and touch, where talking via an audio medium, through Skype or the phone, only uses your hearing.

The biggest productivity tip I can give you is to turn off your instant messaging programs during your blogging time. Schedule when you will be available to be accessed through such means, and let people know they can e-mail you, or if it is an emergency or very high priority, they can take the time to call you. I know calling can be a distraction as well, so make sure they realize that it is only in extreme situations that calling would be acceptable.

Instant messaging tools are productivity killers, and in this highly competitive world, the last thing you want is to be unproductive.

Originally posted on September 17, 2010 @ 10:29 am

Blogger Burnout

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So there is something I know fairly well, and it is called burnout. It is a condition where I pile on so much work that my life only resolves around work, and I don’t do anything else. This works for a little while, but eventually, any and all work seems like too much. My relationships suffer, and so does the quality of my work, and I eventually realize that I have taken on too much and begin to scale back.

You might have noticed that posting has been a little slow here, and that is because I am really trying to throw myself into doing work for everyone else. I have since contacted everyone I do freelance work for, and let them know that I just can’t keep it up. I have to focus on the company that pays my bills, and gives me a full time income: Splashpress Media.

Moving away from working on other projects will mean increased quality of work on their sites, as well as this one. Hopefully, you haven’t all left to find someone better to read.

Check out Devlounge, Blog Herald, Blogging Pro, and Forever Geek to read more articles by me.

Originally posted on April 5, 2010 @ 8:53 pm

5 Useful Online Writing Tools to Make You More Productive

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In my more than two years of  writing for various blogs, I’ve grown accustomed to using various online tools that  helped me become a more efficient and more productive blogger.  Here are five of these useful online tools to help you with your writing/blogging chores.

Windows Live Writer – Never mind if you’re not a Microsoft fan. But Live Writer is definitely a very robust, useful and dependable blogging tool. It could be the best among the lot. Live Writer lets you set multiple blogs and directly publish post to them.

Microsoft Research ESL Assistant – A useful tool for non-English-as-a first-language bloggers.  This tool provides correction suggestions for typical ESL (English as a Second Language) errors including choice of determiners and propositions, as well as word choice suggestions.

Google Translate – If you’re like me who covers netbook news, I usually encounter news items in various languages including French, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, and others. And if a foreign-language site is your only source of information about a particular new gadget, you have no other recourse but to use Google’s Translation tool. It may not be the most accurate translation but it’s enough to give you the gist of what the news is all about. More than enough to you to compose  a decent news blog post.

Google’s Currency Converter – Again another useful online tool for tech bloggers. If you’re writing about new products and gadgets which you sourced out from foreign-language blogs, you simply type the price plus the currency’s name in Google’s search box,  hit enter and you’ll be given the U.S. Dollar equivalent.

Google Docs – Who doesn’t use Google Docs yet? Ever heard of cloud computing? Google Docs is a very good and useful example of a cloud storage service. I use it for drafting long posts which I need to edit from time to time even when I’m using different computers.

Honorable Mention:

Copyscape – If you’re not sure if you are plagiarizing other people’s content, especially true if you’re writing about original topics and not regurgitating news items, Copyscape is an invaluable tool.

Other Tech News
North Korea denies ‘righteous’ hack attack on Sony
The Japanese comfort women issue still rages on

Originally posted on June 28, 2010 @ 1:18 pm

Bad Days Affecting Blogging

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So yesterday, wasn’t a great day for me. Things didn’t go my way, and that made me a little depressed and cranky. Even worse because my wife is gone to Belgium for her grandparents 50th wedding anniversary and that leaves me completely alone.

With everything that went on, my day was severely hampered in the blogging department, so much so that I really didn’t get much of anything done. Add to that, issues with Blogging Pro, and I was ready to drop everything, and go on a very long vacation. It was one of those days where I would have killed to be back in an office job environment. As a blogger, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to get back into a traditional workplace and even if I could find a job in the computer and networking field I used to be in. I am getting sidetracked though.

Usually, I am able to shake the issues I am having, and just refocus, but yesterday, that wasn’t possible for some reason. It made me wonder if blogging, as a job, is more effected by emotion than other career choices. I think of blogging sometimes as more of a creative endeavor. Like painting a picture or writing a masterful book, and I know that art is definitely influenced by blogging. What is your take? Is blogging more effected by emotion like art, or is it just a bad day like with any other career?

Originally posted on May 3, 2010 @ 3:13 am