Words on a page

That’s something I’m not always keen on. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against sharing. It’s just that things can go badly.

I prefer to use a wiki or Google Docs to collaborate. But not everyone I work with thinks like me, or is comfortable with the range of tools that I’m comfortable with.

And to be honest, email doesn’t really work. Too many bad things can happen to attachments:

• They can get stripped from messages
• They can get corrupted
• It’s easy to get confused about the current version of a file if multiple revisions are floating around

Whenever possible, I try to get editors and clients to work with an online file sharing service. These services are cheap, efficient, and easy to use.

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As a freelancer, something that’s probably more than just slightly important to you is getting paid. Most of us enjoy what we do, but job satisfaction doesn’t pay the bills or fund our vices. Obviously, to get paid we need to invoice clients.

To be honest, I do quite a bit of my work in the cloud. For the longest time that included using a Web-based, for-pay invoicing application called Blinksale.

Even though I like using Web-based tools, I also prefer to have as much of our data in my hands. On top of that, I’m an enthusiastic user (and promoter) of free and Open Source software (FOSS). It not only cuts my costs, but also gives me more flexibility.

While there’s nothing wrong with Blinksale, I needed a change. A few months ago, I looked around for a FOSS invoicing solution. I dug up a few, and decided to go with one called BambooInvoice.

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The Web site. For years, people have been saying that a Web site is essential for a freelancer. And they’re right.

A Web site more than just a bunch of pages lying in some corner of the Internet. If done properly, it’s a marketing too. It’s your portfolio. It’s a central location that clients and prospects can converge on to learn more about you, your experience, and your services.

But where to begin? For the next several hundred words or so, I’ll give you a few suggestions about how to build your space on the Web. And, if you follow some of that advice, you’ll also have a chance to pick up a few new skills.

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Each December, I take some time to go over how the current year’s freelancing went and to plan for next year. This year, though, I’ve decided to take another route. December has been a time to reflect on my freelance career.

I’ve been quite fortunate in that I’ve been able to make a good living over the last few years as a full-time freelance writer (mainly freelance technical writing). Even when I was working for The Man, my freelance writing brought in a decent to substantial portion of my income, and allowed me to express myself in ways that I couldn’t in my day job. Admittedly, that day job also involved writing but …

Regardless, I should be happy with what I’ve done and how my career has progressed. But on reflection, even at this early stage, I’ve come to realize that I haven’t really achieved many of the goals that I had when I started out as a freelance writer in the early 1990s. I won’t go into my usual feelings about not having done as much as I could.

In fact, I get the feeling that I’ve become more than just a little comfortable and complacent in what I’m doing. For me, that’s not a good thing. I really need to challenge myself. If I don’t, then writing really just becomes a monotonous exercise.

On top of that, I’ve come to the realization that I’m pulling myself in too many directions. Things are going fairly well, but I’m also feeling very fatigued mentally. There’s so much that I want to do, and so much that I need to do. The problem is giving those things a priority. And it’s becoming harder and harder to find time to tackle all the want to do projects.

The plan? Over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing a major re-evaluation of the direction in which I want my freelancing career to go. It could involve a number of minor tweaks. Or, a radical change could be in the air.

More on this in 2010.

Photo credit: jdurham from morguefile.com

Email. Phone calls. Twitter chats. Blog comments. All of that, and sometimes more. Communication can easily steal away chunks of your time. Not only your working time, either. Thanks to those forms of communication, and the expectations that they generate, the personal and work lives of many freelancers tend to smudge together.

And, to be honest, I don’t think that’s healthy. No matter how driven or how focused you are, you need time away from work. That time away allows you to refresh your and gives you a chance to remember the important things in life. Things like family, friends, a good meal, a tasty beverage, a relaxed body and a clear mind.

Here’s some advice on how to take control of your communication, and your time.

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