Freelancers Don’t Have Weekends pt 4

Part 4 of the epic quest to become more organised. You can read parts 1, 2 & 3 if you haven't already. Long story short; I started using the Getting Things Done method created by David Allen. Last time I explained how I implemented the system. I was pretty happy wth it. One month later, am I still that happy?

Not to put too fine a point on it: yes, it's been working really well for me. I feel that I have been exceptionally productive this past month. I finally made major progress on my side project, I have finished various small tasks that have been lingering and I have more variety in my social life.

I feel like it's nigh on impossible for me to forget things now. I have the Trello app on my phone and, whenever I think of something, I put it straight into my In list. When I'm next at my computer, there it is. I saw a great quote the other day that captures how I feel:

I can’t forget, because I don’t need to remember. — Johnny Chadda

What Went Well

Putting everything into lists forced me to be clearer in my intentions. Various parts of getting aut0m8 up and running had been waiting for me to do something. I was a bit vague about what needed to be done and so I kept putting it off. Once I sat down and documented everything that was needed, I was a lot more motivated. The clarity helped me know what to do to get things moving. Action begets action and, before you know it, I had ticked most of the things off my list. There is still more to do... there's always more to do... but I am very pleased with the progress.

Forcing myself to document everything that I had in my mind led to a lot of small victories. Things like:

• reviewing and indexing holiday photos
• organising my documents folder (containing tons of stuff that I have moved from computer to computer over the past 10 years)
• sorting and reducing the big box of chargers and cables that we all accumulate these days

Socially I have seen benefits too. Whenever someone recommends a new restaurant or I see an interesting place while I'm walking around... bam, on the list! Agi and I have then made an effort to go out and try these places.

I mentioned last time that I added a task on my weekly review checklist to look at concert and event listings. This is a small thing that makes me really happy. I always used to find out about concerts and events after they had already happened. Now I feel like I have my finger on the pulse. During my review I saw that Skunk Anansie are playing in Poznan in February, I talked to some friends and we bought tickets. How easy is that?

What Went Badly

Nothing has gone badly per se. For the most part I feel overwhelmingly positive about the whole system. However, there are some things that I still have not nailed.

For example my Waiting For list. The idea of the list is great; whenever you are waiting for something, add it to the list. It could be a reply to an email, the results of an application or delivery of a package. During your review you can look at the list and see whether there is anything on it that needs to be chased. So far, so useful.

The bit that feels clunky to me is when there is some email tennis. I send an email and add it to my Waiting For list. The person replies and I need to answer a question so I move the task to my To Do list. I reply and move it to Waiting For. They reply and I move it to To Do etc. At some point I forget to move it off the To Do list and later I wonder whether I replied or not.

This hasn't caused any major problems and it is a minor annoyance rather than a total system failure. I just need to come up with a process to manage it better. Maybe I am being too granular in needing to have the task move back and forth each time; especially when the emails are short and bouncing back and forth quickly. I've just added a task to find a better process to my In list!

How do you organise your time? Let me know, I'd love to get some alternative ideas.

A Little Housekeeping pt 2

I wrote a post in January analysing my earnings progress through 2015. I said I would come back and update my progress. We're halfway through 2016 now so how am I getting on?

In January I totalled up all of the money I earned and all of the hours I worked to produce this wonderful chart:

This chart shows clear progress throughout the year but I seem to have plateaued at the back end.

I wrote a post a little while ago about my plans to invest in myself and my career as a freelancer, you can read it here. The main point was that I planned to become an Infusionsoft Certified Partner.

I completed my certification in January this year. It wasn't cheap and it wasn't a walk in the park but I passed. I can now call myself an ICP, which is shorter than Infusionsoft Certified Partner but unfortunately looks to some people like an abbreviation for Insane Clown Posse. If you've heard of the ICP (clowns, not software) then you'll know why that is a problem. If not, treat yourself to some idiocy here.

During 2015 I became more and more involved in Infusionsoft. I saw the potential for higher earnings if I became qualified so I bit the bullet and took the course. How did that work out for me? Did it help me break through that plateau at the end of 2015? Take a look at the chart below:

Yeah baby! The chart is heading in the right direction. You can see a summary of the key details in this table:

	2015	2016
Average hourly rate	$23	$36
Highest hourly rate	$32	$46

My average rate for the year to date is $36/hr so I'm consistently beating my best rate from last year. It's great to see that my investment in the Infusionsoft certification has lead to me securing higher paying contracts. To be honest, I am very pleased with my continued progress. However, I want to share another chart with you.

I have been tracking my total monthly earnings as well as my hourly rate and this tells an interesting story. I have spoken before about the variability that comes with being a freelancer and you can see the facts of the matter clearly in this chart:

Although my hourly rate has been slowly climbing, my total monthly earnings have been up and down like a yo-yo. Thankfully for me the amount has never dropped to a level that I can't live on. Essentially, a bad month is OK and a good month is awesome!

What all this means is that I actually work less hours to earn the same amount. Now, that's a nice situation to be in but what if I could manage a consistent number of hours each month? Then my total earnings would be increasing in line with my hourly rate. How cool would that be?

Not all of this is within my control. I have regular clients that provide a lot of work one month and not so much the next. However, I cannot wash my hands of all responsibility. If I was out there hustling every day for new clients then I would probably have that consistent level of work.

The fact that I am earning enough to live the lifestyle I want makes me kind of lazy about getting out there and hunting for clients. On the other hand, it does allow me time to focus on other side projects, one of which is nearly complete.

I think the lesson to take away is that my goal for the next 6 months should be to get a consistent amount of work. My side project is part of my plans to address that. I'll do another review at the end of the year to see if it was successful.

Do you have any thoughts on this? I'd love to hear them, drop me a line.

Freelancers Don't Have Weekends pt 3

This post comes on the heels of 2 previous ones; part 1 and part 2. I have been documenting my efforts to become more organised as a freelancer. Last time I said I was going to try the Getting Things Done method. How did it go?

I thought I would write this post last month but it actually took me a long time to finish the book. I could blame this on being super busy but in all honesty it is a combination of 2 factors:

• Laziness on my part
• Verbosity on the book's part

I have a friend who maintains that any non-fiction book longer than 100 pages is padded. I don't 100% agree but it was certainly true in this case. There was altogether too much philosophy at the beginning before getting into the meat of the method in part 2. The excessive philosophising killed my enthusiasm for the book and I had to force myself to push through. Thankfully, a long car journey from the UK to Poland provided a lot of dead time that helped me finish the book.

What's It All About?

Despite what I just said, I think the book is full of excellent ideas. I am going to try and summarise the book's main thesis in a couple of paragraphs and thus prove my friend right:

Trying to keep track of all the things, personal and professional, that you are doing and want to do provides a mental burden. Remembering that you need to buy toothpaste when you are not at the store is ineffective, it stresses you out a little bit because you feel you should be doing it now. On top of that, you have to try and remember to do it again at the actual right time.

All of the things that you want to keep track of should be taken out of your mind and put onto lists. This relieves the mental burden of trying to remember things. Every item on the list should have a clear next action. This means that you are clear what to do to move things forward. Every list should be reviewed at the appropriate time. This means you can be sure that nothing slips through the cracks and you can rely on the system to do the remembering for you.

There are a few points that I could elaborate on but that is the bulk of it. The book then goes into the actual process of realising the system.

What Did I Do?

One Saturday afternoon I sat down for a couple of hours and dumped out everything in my head. Everything. Everything that I was currently doing, needed to do in future or dreamed of doing at some point in my life. Everything from a dental check up to Scuba diving the Great Blue Hole in Belize.

I then identified every "project" that was there. I grouped them into current projects, projects that need to start at a particular time and projects that I might do one day. For every current project I wrote down the next action that was required. I grouped the actions into contexts; things to do in working time, things to do in free time, things to do at the shops etc etc.

It was a very freeing experience. I enjoyed it. I felt good writing down all of the things I dreamed of doing.I created lists of life goals and responsibilities. I felt daunted by the amount of stuff but I was happy to get it out of my head. 

Then came the review schedule:

• An hour every Friday afternoon to go over all of the projects; to check that everything is up to date; to check whether anything should start; to check whether there is anything lurking in my brain that should be in the system.
• An hour once a month to review my areas of responsibility and life goals; to check that all my projects are the right ones; to review what I achieved the previous month.

I even created checklists so that each review has a structure. On the weekly list I added a reminder to check out concerts and events. This made me happy because I only check event listings every so often when I remember and frequently miss things I would have liked to do.

How Did It Go?

My first monthly review was last Friday (it hasn't been a month yet but I wanted to trial the system). I loved it. I feel like there is less on my mind because I know it's all in the system. I feel very proud of getting everything down on paper and having a proper system in place. Like a real grown up!

Paradoxically, I've actually been busier since starting the system. This is because I wrote down tons of small projects that had been lurking at the back of my mind. Without a next action I was vague about what to do. When they were written down in black and white with a next action attached I felt compelled to do them. Organise my address book, sort out the holiday photos, book train tickets. I've been ticking stuff off the list and I feel great about it.

I've already realised monetary value from the system - I made a note to book advance train tickets for our trip to the UK; something I would have thought of and then forgotten until too late. I wrote it down, gave it a due date and saved myself 100 pounds.

As you can probably tell, I'm pretty enamoured with the system so far. I will do a follow up in a month or so to let you know how it's going when I am past the honeymoon period.

How do you organise your time when freelancing? Let me know, I'd love to hear other ideas.

Brexit for Freelancers

If you, like me, are a UK citizen then the past week or so has been very interesting. You know, in the manner of the old curse; may you live in interesting times. I voted to remain and that put me in the (slight) minority. If you are a UK freelancer / remote worker who likes to travel then this has been a nerve wracking time. Here are a few of my thoughts on Brexit for freelancers.

Travel

For me, the number one issue is what will happen to my ability to travel. At the moment a British passport is amazing, it gets you in pretty much anywhere with limited hassle. On top of that is the right to move and live freely within the EU. Agi and I recently left Thailand and decided to try Europe for a while. Great timing!

What does the future look like? At the moment no one knows, which is a real bummer. In all likelihood nothing will change for the next 2 years at least. After that? I honestly don't believe British citizens will suddenly need visas to enter Europe. I expect we will retain the right to free movement and probably free residence.

If you can, now is a great time to get an Irish passport. Ireland is staying in the EU for sure so if you want to stay then that's a good option for you. My family are Irish but several generations back so it's not an option for me :( My mum is Scottish though so maybe Scotland can withdraw from the UK, rejoin the EU and offer Scottish passports. It's possible!

(Actually, Agi and I are getting married next year so I'm hoping I can ride the coattails of her Polish passport as a spouse.)

Money

Since the announcement of the referendum result the UK pound dropped to a 7 year low. Now, if you get paid in US dollars (which most Upwork users do) and live in the UK this is actually great news. Suddenly your dollars get you a lot more pounds, hooray!

If you live elsewhere and still use a UK bank account then now is a great time to get a bank account wherever you are. This is good advice anyway because withdrawing money from a UK bank account overseas incurs charges. It becomes especially good advice now as your pounds are worth so much less. Get a Polish, Argentinian, Thai or whatever bank account and transfer your money from Upwork, Paypal, wherever directly into it.

If you're constantly travelling then there's not a lot you can do. I know, I have travelled extensively and I wept when I looked at the ATM charges afterwards.

In the long run the pound will probably bounce back but it is worth it to take some action now.

Just a few thoughts on the situation for UK freelancers. Do you have any tips? Please let me know.

Freelance Money Management

I have been freelancing for a while now and things are going well. I thought I would share some thoughts I had recently about ways to manage your money and make life easier as a freelancer.

When I first started as a freelancer I was working for very low hourly rates just to get started. You can read the full story here. When there was a quiet week that just meant I couldn't save anything or, worse, I had to dip into my savings to get through. Over time my rate increased (see my post about this here) and I was able to start saving more. Despite this I am still quite careful with my money; some may say stingy!

I do worry about what would happen if the clients I have suddenly disappeared. This has happened in the past, clients get busy themselves and don't have time to delegate work to me. They still want to work with me, they just don't have any spare time. There's nothing you can do in this situation, no work = no money.

Agi and I love to travel and I talk about it on this blog. We don't do things on a shoestring because we aren't as young as we once were! That makes me sound really old but it's true. We don't enjoy sleeping in dorms or travelling for hours and hours in cramped buses. However, we try to make sensible choices about how to spend our money.

Transport on the road offers a plethora of options. I mentioned we don't like buses very much but sometimes they are the only option other than an expensive plane. My preferred option? Take the train if possible. I love train travel. It's cheap, you aren't trapped in your seat and you can see the countryside. Also, if you can get an overnight train then that saves paying for one night's accommodation. We recently travelled from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. Air Asia offer cheap flights but the train was still half the price. I used my phone as a mobile data point and we even did some work on the way.

Food is another big one. I don't know about you but I tend to eat at least daily. When you're in a strange place it can be tempting to always eat in restaurants. If you're in South East Asia or somewhere similar then restaurants are really cheap but you can still save money. I love eating out but when you go out for breakfast it is very tempting to have a bacon sandwich or something similar. This takes up valuable working time and adds to your waistline! Agi and I always try to buy some muesli from a shop. We keep it in our room, borrow bowls from the kitchen and have a quick, cheap breakfast. This helps maintain a routine, prevent overeating and save money.

These are a couple of the things we do to save cash for the lean times. We love the freelancing lifestyle and want it to continue. I would hate to be forced to find a job because I spent too much! Get in touch if you have any good money saving ideas.