My General Resolutions

I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about what it takes to be a successful freelancer. This sort of coincides with the new year but that is more coincidental than intentional. The following are some ideas about how to achieve more as a freelancer which may, from a distance, bear a resemblance to new year’s resolutions.

Continue Your Professional Development

I worked for 3 major international business prior to becoming a freelancer. All 3 of those companies invested a large amount of money in ongoing professional development. I had courses covering a wide range of topics from effective communication to project management to being a good leader. Some of these courses were great, some were good and some felt like a waste of time. However, most courses taught me something that I could use in my life.

Since becoming a freelancer I have not done a single minute of training. All of my time has been focussed on earning money, finding new clients or having fun. Those are all very important but it has been clear to me recently that I need to continue developing my skills. Clients’ needs change and I need to be able to meet them if I want to continue earning money, finding new clients and having fun.

Professional development doesn’t have to be expensive or arduous. The internet is literally overflowing with free courses to learn web development, graphic design, ancient Sumerian agricultural practices... you name it. I have invested time recently in studying HTML & CSS, something that my clients need. I did this using the Odin Project, a free resource to learn all aspects of web development. I am also going to become an Infusionsoft Certified Partner. Infusionsoft is something I have been getting more involved in over the past year and want to do more of. The certification is not cheap but it is something I enjoy and should enable me to get more business at higher rates of pay in 2016.

Invest in Yourself

Long before becoming a freelancer I have been a frugal man. I hate spending money frivolously. I even hate spending money non-frivolously. Show me something that I want to have, is a good investment and useful for work and I will hem and haw about spending the money for months. If there is a cheaper option then I will almost always choose that.

Another thought I have had recently is that my frugal nature has been counterproductive to my work. I needed a new computer last year and I set myself a low budget. I found a laptop that was good, not great and bought it. Since then it has consistently disappointed me; boot time is painful, there are frequent lags and it just isn’t really what I need.

Part of being a freelancer is knowing what you need to do a good job. If you worked in an office that consistently bought sub standard computers and equipment you would complain that the company was hampering your ability to do a good job. Being a freelancer is no different except that you are the one in control of the budget! If you scrimp on your equipment then you are harming no-one but yourself.

I recently bit the bullet and bought myself a new MacBook Pro. It has been like a breath of fresh air. It boots up in under 30 seconds, it never hangs on a screen and I can have as many applications open as I want. I often comment that one of the best things about being a freelancer is that I can work anywhere I have my laptop and an internet connection. Therefore the most important piece of equipment for me is my laptop and I should invest in a good one. I’m not advising you to spend money you don’t have but make sure you give yourself the best chance to do the work you want to do.

A few thoughts for the new year. As I mentioned, these aren’t new year’s resolutions exactly but more like lifetime resolutions. What lifetime resolutions have you made? Let me know here.

How to Survive Christmas as a Freelancer

I've talked a lot about how much I love freelancing... and I do! However, I feel I should present a balanced view. Christmas is a time that presents unique challenges for the freelancers among us. In this article I will explain some of those challenges and my personal recommendations for overcoming them.

Allegedly (I have no idea where this figure comes from) 78% of freelancers miss having a company Christmas party. Personally, I never cared about Christmas parties and usually looked for an excuse to miss them. If that paints me as a misanthrope then clearly freelancing was the right choice for me! However, it does tie into the issue I've mentioned about loneliness as a freelancer.

If you get lonely during the festive period there are more and more opportunities to make your own Christmas party. Check on meetup.com and similar sites for digital nomad events in your area. Do you use a coworking space? There's a good chance they will arrange something or will be open to the idea if you suggest it.

The main issue I want to talk about today is the fact that everyone disappears over Christmas. This is actually part of a broader issue. There have been a number of times that Agi and I have had to deal with flakiness from clients. The situation usually goes down something like this: a new or current client can't send work through because they are too busy.

This week is flat out, I'll get something to you next week.

This creates a difficult situation - while waiting for the new work to come through you are not getting paid. Should you look for something else and risk not having time for the work when it does come through? Should you wait for the new work and not get paid in the meantime? This gives you plenty of opportunity to catch up on TV but it doesn't pay the bills!

Christmas is this problem writ large. Nearly everybody takes some time off over Christmas which means there is a good chance you'll miss work over the period. Most people are so busy on a daily basis that they won't have work prepared for their freelancer to keep them going over Christmas. I'm not trying to write a sob story for freelancers; I still prefer it to any other job I've ever had. Also, if you can afford it then why not take a break over the Christmas period?

What to do about it?

Develop good relationships with clients

If you are your clients have a good working relationship then you can discuss things openly. Clients who value you will want to make sure you are OK and able to keep working for them in future. They will take the time to give you extra work if you want it. They may pay you a bonus or a retainer to help you over the dry period.

Look for recurring tasks

A lot of clients may have recurring tasks that need to happen at any time of year. If you deal with these on a regular basis then let your client know that you are available to continue them over Christmas.

Prepare for the down time

This is probably the best option. Working freelance requires that you are well aware of your finances. Any time that you want to take a holiday you will need to prepare and save some cash.  If you are already doing this then put something aside to cover the Christmas dry spell.

I hope these tips are useful to you. If you would like more then we love to talk freelancing... why not get in contact?

Freelance - I Love You!

Okay before I will start here, just to let you know I am not a great writer. Writing is my weakest skill. However I will challenge myself here and I will tell you my story.

Let Me Introduce Myself

My name is Agnieszka, but I prefer Agi! I'm the quieter part of no9to5! Brown hair, 164cm (very small person), but very fast! My passion is running. I think I am like THE FLASH and run everywhere, every day... but not as fast as FLASH! I could talk and talk about running, but maybe next time I will share more.

What else I can say about myself? I love spending time outdoors. I am a very active girl who likes to challenge herself and learn new things whenever possible.

Since I can remember I travelled from my childhood. My parents took me and my brother every year somewhere to show us a bit of the world. Of course mainly in Poland but after communism, we started to travel abroad.

I always love to discover new parts of the world, I like to meet new people and explore more and more. I like new things, new places and new food.

UK Bound

After my study I decided to leave Poland and I moved to UK without any English (yikes!). I actually learnt some sentences: “Good Morning. My name is Agi. I am looking for a job. Any job”... “Pardon”... “Please could you repeat” ha ha ha.

So when I arrived I got a job at Mars and over there I started to grow up. I developed my job skills. It was a perfect place to work. I learnt a lot there. But……

Living in the UK was pretty sweet. Great job, great salary and Great Boyfriend. Living there I discovered a new world. I have done a lot of new things. I got my motor bike driving licence, I went on my first big backpacking trip, my first half marathon and more and more……. I like it, I liked my life in England.

Living in the UK was awesome, but…..I felt not 100% sure if this is what I want.

I started feeling like I don’t want to spend my whole live in the office from 9-5 in one big company. That's not the kind of person I wanted to be. I want to be different and I want something…yes but what do I want?

I know…..I want a new job, I want a new life, and I want to experience something new.

How About Thailand?

My Great Boyfriend, said to me why don’t we move to Thailand and start to live there.

Hmmm new country, new culture, new continent why not?

Wait, but it's hot there every day, what I am going to do with my running? Where will I run there? Where will I find job there? What kind of job? AAAAAAAAAAAA……….and more and more questions in my head.

One life, so let’s do it. And there my freelance trip is starting……

Freelance trip……Freelance WHAT? WHERE? HOW?

Hello Freelance, wait what is freelance?  Where to start? How to start?

My Great Boyfriend had a few friends who were already living in Thailand and some of them were already freelancers.

The first thing I did like any normal human - I checked on internet what is freelance. I also read a book by Tim Ferris - The 4 Hour Workweek, I also followed a few blogs and got more knowledge.

Let's Freelance

First thing I did, I created my profile on Odesk (now Upwork). I reviewed other people's profiles, what did they say about themselves and of course check out the profile style.

All of them looked the same. People copy and paste their CV’s. I tried to make mine different, I wanted to be more COOL and stand out from the other 100,000,000 people. I have also completed on Odesk (Upwork) recommended tests like: English test, Management skills test etc.

And then I started hunting for some jobs. But what job, what do I want to do? What can I do? What skills do I have? What job background do I have? Can I freelance?

Of course I can freelance, let’s keep myself motivated and be positive.

So I reviewed my skills, my work history and myself. I decided I can apply for Virtual Assistant jobs, I can help people to be more organised, I can help with Social Media, I can create images etc. All of these things came to my head.

And nowadays after 1 year freelance I became super Virtual Assistant, I became designer and guru of Social Media! After 1 year I have learnt lots about Photoshop, social media and many other things.

I have created my own website http://virtualagi.com/

And after all this experience with freelance I could still travel around Asia.

I and my Great Boyfriend decided to share this story and this is why we decided to create no9to5 to help people to start with Freelance.

If you have any question please contact us: http://no9to5.co/contact/