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.

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.

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.

Freelancers Don't Have Weekends pt 2

I wrote a post last month about never having actual time off as a freelancer. My plan was to try out the Big Rocks principle from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I said I would follow up and let you know how it went. So how did I get on? Have I become a highly effective freelancer?

So, in a nutshell, the plan was for me to take 10 minutes every Friday and schedule the big tasks I need to do for the coming week. The idea is that I would be reminded of the big tasks and focus on getting them done without letting small things; emails, messages, YouTube, whatever, get in the way. How did I do?

I think a solid C+. Did it help? Yes. Was it great? No.

What Did I Do?

My method was to go through the week and block out chunks of time. The chunks were either a) for specific tasks I needed to do or b) chunks allocated to particular clients. I have 3 regular clients at the moment and I gave them chunks that roughly matched the amount of time I thought they would require.

What Went Badly?  :-(

The smart people among you will have already noticed a flaw in my plan. While I had about the right amount of weekly time for each client, the client demands vary on a daily basis. Client A might have a rush job at the start of the week and nothing at the end while Client B is the reverse.  This meant that I was constantly readjusting my plan because Client A had used their allotted time and ran over into the block for Client B or vice versa.

On a couple of occasions I had multiple clients with urgent requests which meant everything went out the window and I just did whatever was needed. One day I had a quiet afternoon and was catching up on some blogs while my calendar was pinging me every so often suggesting that I should be doing client work. I didn't actually have anything to do so this just filled me with a vague unease...not what I wanted from the experiment!

What Went Well?  :-D

When I had a specific task in my calendar it worked out great. The best example is this blog. It usually takes me about an hour to write a post, find images and get it ready. The problem is that this hour is sometimes the hour before it is published!

I blocked out an hour a week to write the blog. Even though,due to client demands, I couldn't always do the blog in the slot I had planned, I would reschedule it to the next available time. The result is that I was regularly reminded to do the blog and it got written with plenty of time before posting. This was a small but significant stress reduction that was also seen on a few other small jobs.

What Will I Do Differently?

The main benefit I saw from this activity was dedicating known amounts of time to specific activities... like writing this post. Things went wrong when I gave chunks of time to vague activities like "9:00 - 11:00: Work on Client A".

My plan is to continue giving chunks of time to specific tasks like the blog. For the more variable things I am going to allocate chunks of time for "Client Work". These chunks of time are going to be dedicated working time but not for any particular client. This should allow me to focus in the times I am supposed to without feeling bad about not doing work for Client A or B or whoever.

I also have recently developed a man crush on CGP Grey:

I love his Hello Internet podcast and his Youtube channel. He is a big advocate of a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen. I am currently reading this book and I'm going to see what I can adapt from it. I will follow up in part 3!

How do you manage your time while freelancing? Let me know.

Freelancers Don't Have Weekends

Working as a freelancer allows a lot of freedom to create your own schedule. That's great but there is a danger of letting your work take up all of your time. You can end up doing work every day and at all times of day. How can you ensure you have some time to decompress? Do you need a weekend?

One of my favourite things about freelancing is that I don't actually need to work a full time job. I can earn enough money to do everything I want without being trapped working 9-5 every day. Often I do work 8, 9, 10 hours in a day but I don't have to.

I have found though that I work at all hours of the day or 7 days a week without really ever taking a complete day off. I don't work all the time but I do work every day. I'm not sure yet if this is a good or bad thing. Traditional work culture has trained me to believe in a 5 day work week with 2 days off. I have thrown off most of the traditional mode of work so I'm not sure why I still feel like this.

It is sometimes too easy while freelancing to take a long lunch or watch a YouTube video here and there. This can then mean that you have still have work to do at 7pm without having worked all that hard during the day. You still get all of your work done but it feels like you're never truly off the clock.

I have been thinking about this recently and I've decided to try an experiment. When I was working full time I attended a training course on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I really enjoyed the course and there were lots of useful ideas in it but one that really stuck with me is the idea of Big Rocks. Essentially, plan the big tasks that you have to do and everything else will naturally fit around them. If you let the small things lead the way then you'll never get around to the big things. This video demonstrates it really well.

Last Friday I spent 10 minutes marking out time in my calendar for the tasks I need to do. I'm going to try to stick to it even when other things come up. Writing this blog is frequently something that I push aside when client work comes up and I end up doing it at the last minute. However, I marked out an hour from 3-4 today to write this post. I was in the middle of some client work when my calendar notified me that the no9to5 blog session was coming up so I finished what I was doing and changed tasks. Now the post is nearly finished and I can go back to what I was doing.

I'm hoping that doing this will result in me finishing the work I need to do in a reasonable time so I can fully switch off until the next day. I will do a follow up in a month to let you know how the experiment goes. How do you manage your time while freelancing? Let me know.