I haven’t written anything on the blog for a month or so. In the blogging world, that’s centuries.

But I have an excuse, really. I had a whole load of personal stuff that needed to get sorted. It’s all behind me now so it’s time to move on.

We all know that if you go quiet in social media, people will forget you, whatever the value of your insights, whatever your brand value and all that tosh.

I’ll make up for the loss, fill in the gaps and move on to better and greater things.

So what’s your excuse?

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Working at home is a great thing. It’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting in my garden wondering what I’m going to do for the rest of the day. I consider this to be a privilege, but if you’re not careful it can be a curse. Stuff happens, things get in the way. Here’s 5 time wasters and ways to avoid them.

Constantly checking email

You’d probably want to know if you’d won the lottery, but do you really want to know what Amazon is recommending straight away? Determine what is important and filter your email. Have a mailbox for clients for example, one for email newsletters or whatever you consider important. Then designate times in the day to look at email. Do you really need it to be on ALL the time?

Crashing IT systems

Admittedly this doesn’t happen very often and, without going down the smug Mac users path, it’s only ever Windows that crashes. Make sure your systems and backups are up to date. Tests your backups as well. Many people think that just because they’ve got back up software, they’re covered. Then they realise they’ve forgotten to include essential work files or worse, it doesn’t work at all.

The coffee pot and the biscuit barrel

In order to finish big jobs, I set myself deadlines, often hourly. An hour’s research for example or so many words written or translated.

While I’m not a complete coffee junkie, I like peppering my day with the odd cup. This involves leaving the office and spending the best part of 10 minutes making it. That’s 10 minutes out of an hour. 12.5%. And I’m not even going to think about the effect on my cholesterol!

I’m not saying don’t have a coffee or eat a biscuit. Just be aware of the time it takes from your busy schedule and allocate specific time for breaks.

Work expands to fit the time

Are you one of those people that, when given seven days to do a one day project, will do it on the sixth day? That’s fine as long as you don’t get asked to do a rush one day job on that sixth day. Will you be wishing you’d done the first job earlier? It’s always better to start (and finish) a job earlier because you don’t know what the future holds.

Worrying about things

Like most freelancers, I spend my life worrying about things that might not or never happen. Am I going to finish the job on time? Will this client ever pay me? What if the phone never rings again?

Now, a bit of worrying is probably a positive thing (you don’t want to get over confident do you), but no-one was ever successful because they worried all the time.

Worries and their twin brother fear are part of life. They are often irrational and prevent us making the right decisions. So here’s a tip. Imagine your worries or fear as a little boy (or girl) that is constantly with you. Then tell then good and firm. “OK you. I don’t mind you coming along for the ride, but here’s the deal. You just sit in that corner, shut up and let me do my work”. That way you’ll get things done.

We all have things that get in our way and stop us from being productive. What’s yours?

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Here’s a question for you. If you’re self-employed, do you think you don’t have a boss or are you the boss?

The difference is quite important. Not having a boss means you work when you want doesn’t it? It means you set the agenda, there’s no-one to tell you what to do and what not to do.

Does that suit your customers? Do you turn up for work when you feel like it or when your customers expect you to be there? Do you deliver your work when you get the time (and invent an excuse as to why it’s late) or do you deliver on time or even early?

I came across this video today, via chrisbrogan.com. The subject matter isn’t important, but have a look, the message is.

Clever isn’t it? There’s no more slouching for us now. We’ve got to deliver.

If you want to be bought by Amazon (or anyone else for that matter), get up early, be on time and BE THE BOSS. As Pete Townshend said (yes, in a different context), “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.

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I wasn’t really sure where I stood in the automatic tweet/real tweet debate. There may have been a productivity argument for tweeting automatically sometimes. But one of Chris Brogan’s tips in 50 Power Twitter tips put it nicely:

“Robot tweets are less sexy than human tweets”.

Tweet automatically if you want to, but don’t expect it to make you sound any better.

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It’s amazing how time flies. It seems like just five minutes since Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher each contrived to miss a penalty against Portugal in the 2006 FIFA World Cup (c) as we must now call it to send England crashing out in quarter final glory.

Now it’s already South Africa 2010 and we’re ready to go through the whole thing again. For at least the first two weeks there’ll be three games a day to distract freelancers and home workers and prevent them from getting anything done. If you hate the whole jamboree you’re lucky, just turn the television and the radio off and you you can ignore it all. If you’ve more than a passing interest, you’ll need help combining work and distraction. And getting some work done.

I’ve seen every game of the last three World Cups and have developed some stategies to combine working well and keeping up to date. And yes, I know this is tongue in cheek, but for some it’s a real problem!

1. Use a second screen or a second computer

During the World Cup 2006, Internet TV was just getting going. To be quite frank, the quality wasn’t great, it was jumpy, grainy and slow. Four years later, both BBC and ITV channels broadcast over the Internet and even a half-decent 2MB connection should be enough to get streaming that you can watch games without getting that spinning ball that means the connection is buffering every 2 minutes.

2. Do the boring tasks

You can multi-task! We all have boring tasks to do in our businesses. The World Cup is the perfect excuse to get on with them. So, if you have a backlog of filing, accounts or simply organising your workspace (a fancy word for tidying up), you can go ahead and do those tasks AND feel virtuous.

3. Get up early

The World Cup always takes place in June and July. In Europe at least, it’s daylight at 4 or 5 in the morning at that time of year. It’s also quiet with nothing but chirping birds to distract you. As it’s often too hot at 3 in the afternoon, why not get up early and change the way you work?

4. Turn the sound off

A little way of trying to kid yourself you’re concentrating on your work is to turn the sound of and watch out of the corner of your eye. Well, it works for me!

5. Use live blogs or a live updates service

Are you really interested in North Korea against the Ivory Coast? (yes!) Technology now exists to enable us to keep up to date almost in real time without going anywhere near a television screen. You can get scores pushed to your phone or computer and not be distracted by screaming commentators. The BBC also has a live teleprinter service that will tell you when and where all the goals are going in. Personally, I find these more distracting than watching a game out of the corner of my eye, but of they suit you, go for it.

6. Don’t try to work whilst watching the television

After years of trying, believe me, it doesn’t work. Sit in front of the television with a beer, not your laprop. Relax and enjoy.

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It started on a whim. I was bored one day. I wanted some fun. The rain was pelting down so I had no real desire to go out. I was a long way from my deadline for the work so I found myself meandering across the Internet. I don’t know what inspired me to play the lottery. I don’t do it very often and in my more lucid moments I think of it as a tax on the aspirations of the poor. But then again, I’m a money tart just like anyone else.

I filled in the numbers on the “lucky dip”. That sounds so tacky and fairground. I paid my money. Electronic money but real money nevertheless and went on my way.

Then I forgot about it.

They next morning I turned the computer on read to work. It’s the same old ritual. E-mail, news and a look at the to do list. I’m organised and methodical like that. I had a quick look down the 50 or so messages that were dropping into my box. One had a subject line that said “Good news about your ticket”.

Oh no. So this is what it feels like. That moment of anticipation. They normally send me messages like “Don’t forget to buy your ticket” which is a way of saying “oh shucks, you’ve lost, better luck next time” or “Make your life a little easier”, as though it was that simple.

But this was the real thing. I felt a shiver down my spine. I wanted to hold on to that delicious moment of torture. But I also had feelings of guilt.

“Give it away? Why?” “Well, what would I do with all that cash?” “Where do I start? You’ll never have to work again” “I want to keep working. What would I do with myself otherwise?” “Never heard of sea, sex and sun?” “What have I done to deserve it?” “Oh, that’s great, you’re getting a conscience now”

I stared stupidly at my screen for quite a while as though I wanted time to stop just there.

£8.10 on the euromillions.

A relief. No need to feel guilty.

Oh well, better luck next time.

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I’m part of a generation that didn’t learn to type as a teenager. There were no computers around and typing courses were for secretaries, exclusively girls (disclaimer: we’re talking 1970s here). I  ”learnt” on a Hoverspeed VDU in a previous life as a travel agent. I then fumbled through a few years working in travel on reservation systems that didn’t really require typing skills, just a few lines of commands that never changed. I didn’t do any word processing so I could get away with it.

Useless typist

So my typing is useless. Let’s be generous and say I use three fingers (OK, perhaps four). On a good day I’m slow and I’m very grateful for the spell checker because I can guarantee a typo rate of one a sentence.

When I came to translating in 1996, I was “typing” with 3 fingers. I thought that was quite adequate at first and used to spend hours slaving away at my machine to do the most modest of jobs. I only had me to support but looking back I used to spend hours working for only a modest income. The days, unfortunately, are only 24 hours long.

Is voice recognition the answer?

More recently my 3 finger typing skills have been replaced by a microphone and a voice recognition system. That has enabled me to dictate up to 10,000 words on a good (long) day. The problem is that it’s not always very accurate. Not only is it sensitive to computer speed and performance but also posture and fatigue in the voice.

It has little idiosyncrasies. There are some words that it won’t recognise like “dimension” and it’s useless at acronyms, especially of they have more than 3 letters. Once you’ve spent a day with a microphone wrapped around your head, believe me, it hurts. I sympathise with call centre operators across the world. Although not with call centres, they’re annoying, pesky things

Mavis Beacon is my muse

So I’m learning to touch type. Voice recognition software is a false friend. It gives me the illusion of productivity but it makes errors that I have to correct and on a bad day I don’t even see.

I’m not sure what to make of Mavis Beacon. Her product is a bit of a roller coaster, she talks to me every time I open it up. She hectors and patronises me a bit. When I do really badly, she says I should practice and she’s a stickler for accuracy. But for now, she’s my only muse and I and will come out of the experience with a new skill.

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I was contacted a few weeks ago by a web company in Cyprus, or more specifically Turkish, northern Cyprus. They asked me to quote for some travel writing for a new site they were building.

I have to admit to being very wary about being contacted out of the blue by people I don’t know about work. Or anything else actually. Nevertheless, I replied to the email and after a couple of exchanges I got the job.

I mentioned it to one or two people I knew who were all very sceptical and one even said I should demand payment up front because it was the only sure way of getting paid.

I decided to take a chance and went ahead. If nothing else, it was more interesting than the jobs I’d been doing recently and I could always just use it as a piece for the offline portfolio I’m building.

I completed all but one of the files but I had a question for the client. I sent them off and waited for the answer. The first day nothing happened, the second day, nothing. By the third day I was beginning to think my mates were right. Bye-bye pay cheque. I was ready to put it down to experience.

I’m generally a believer in the goodness of people so I e-mailed a reminder. “Oh, I didn’t get the files!” he said. “And by the way, when you send the last file, don’t forget the invoice”. Too damn right I won’t!

I sent the file and the invoice the next day. Separately, I think it’s really tacky and smacks of desperation to send them together. Less than 24 hours later I had a notification from PayPal to say he’d paid. I thought he might have waited a few days, but that’s the fastest I’d ever been paid by anyone (all you people that think it’s OK to pay at 130 days, take note!).

Surprises like that are some of the reasons why I love my job. Just have a little faith in people and it’ll be OK.

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Finding new clients is really hard. Especially when you already work with a bunch of good ones that enable you to pay the bills and make a reasonable living.

One thing freelancers are bad at doing (this one included) is marketing and promotion. It’s easy to sit in our little box rooms watching YouTube waiting for the phone to ring rather than doing something about it.

Sometimes it’s good though to shake things up and see how they are done on the other side. Here’s just a few of the possible actions.

Get a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system

Do you have a box of business cards gathering dust? At least list them all into an Excel sheet and add columns on where you met the people, remarkable features, notes about conversations you may have had. Then use that information to send out a newsletter. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just some news and a few useful tips about your area of business. It’s called keeping in touch.

There are more sophisticated ways of dealing with the problem of course. Most fully-blown CRM systems are overkill for workalone freelancers but many of the online, hosted solutions provide mini-packages that allow you to start small and are fully-scalable ip to entreprise level.

Keep networking

That means doing it all the time, you never know who’ll you’ll meet. You don’t just have to do it on formal situations, keep your eyes and ears open in informal situations as well. You never know who you’ll get talking to so always have some business cardsto hand. My wife makes cakes as a sideline (pretty good ones too). We were in a bar the other day and she made a sale just on the back of an idle conversation and because she had a business card in her bag.

Spread yourself as far as possible

There are many opportunities out there for freelancers to pick up work. One if them is directories. I’m not talking abut The Elances or Craig’s Lists of this world, unless you’re prepared to make poverty rates for impossible clients. More reputable services exist. I spoke to someone the other day in Geneva who found me on Freelance Switch (bonjour Christophe!). And I was just going to stop that subscription.

The thing is that you never know what tomorrow will bring in this game and as long as your name’s out there, it can come out of someone’s hat. But it has to be in that hat in the first place.

Follow up

This is really a no brainer. You meet someone at a lunch for example, you have a great conversation and you discover you have a ton of things in common. You come a way with a business card and a load of ideas but then….nothing. The card goes into the box and collects dust with the others. What’s the point of that? Follow up and keep In contact with people then someone will happen.

Be nice and be helpful – and not just in forums and on Twitter

Any old wannabe social media “guru” will tell you to be helpful online and the “karma will come and get you”. You hear that so often, from me as well, that it’s really becoming a platitude. But it’s a real mindset to have that goes well beyond the cyber world. You know the old marketing mantra – meet, like, know, trust – be dependable, be an expert and help people EVERY day. It sounds really crass but it does work.

A lot of blogs, especially writing and content marketing ones will have “oh so simple” instructions and tips about how easy it is to make money and get work. it’s bullshit. Whilst the tips may be sound advice, it’s hard work and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But that’s what we’re here for isn’t it?

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I did a silly thing the other day. I accepted a job from a regular client without asking what the subject was. It’s the kind of bread and butter job that translators rely on. 3500 words is not too short and not too long, the kind of stuff that keeps us going. All the PMs in the agency know what I like doing and what I don’t, but for once it was the big boss who called me. Perhaps I was so surprised it was him, I didn’t think to ask. More fool me. When I opened the file, I realised what the subject was. Refrigeration. Oh deep joy. I think I’d rather have my teeth pulled.

Let’s face it, life as a freelancer isn’t always perfect and we all get boring jobs to do from time to time. So how do you manage a day’s work without yawning?

Allow plenty of time

Boring jobs always take longer than they should, however well disciplined you are.

Make a plan

If it’s a translation, read the entire document first and identify the difficult bits, look for as much vocabulary as possible before you start, it’ll make the job flow better when you start. If it’s writing, do all the research first and plan it out. It’ll spread the pain out a bit and get the job done just that bit quicker.

Break it down into stages

When I was a kid, to stave off the “are we there yet?” question, my parents broke journeys down into bit-size chunks. I still do that with large jobs by counting the number of words left. It’s a great motivator because I find myself measuring performance from
one hour to the next. It also works for the short boring stuff. Writing jobs benefit from establishing milestones and achieving them. You’ll get there quicker (honest…)

Take breaks

Reward yourself with something nice. Coffee and a biscuit? A walk around the block? Twenty minutes daytime TV? Whatever works for you.

Sleep on it

I know I can hear legions of translators laughing at this. We just don’t get time to sleep on this generally because most clients don’t know the meaning of the word “reasonable deadlines”. Having extra time to review an intersting document is always a good thing, with a boring one it’s a lifeline because you’re more prone to make mistakes.

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