Rule #2: Maintaining a set schedule....

Alarm goes off. Wake up. Sleepy. In my case, my alarm is my son, age 1. Sometimes it's my phone alarm, but usually it's the little Squeaker =).

Get up. Get the kids ready for daycare. We all have a different daily schedule, so this can be pretty weird from one day to the next.

Usually during the week I get from 10:00am to 5:00pm to work. Just work - no interruptions, no arguments, no, "Mom, she's looking at me weird!" or, "Mom, sissy stuck her tongue out at me!"

I realized just a few weeks after I started freelancing full-time that not having a schedule is bad. I found myself just working constantly, getting agitated when I couldn't get everything done, and generally being very project and work-driven, which led to burnout very early on.
I realized that balance is the key. So I decided that once I put my son into daycare, I would strictly adhere to a schedule and work during that time, straight through. If I still had a task or two that needed to be finished after, I would do it after dinner or the next day. So sometimes my tasks roll over to the next day, and other times I get everything done, leaving me feeling accomplished and giving me time and energy to spend the evening with my kids and taking care of the household.

Sounds easy, right?

Well... I hate to say it, but maintaining a schedule isn't very easy. The same way people get bored or mess around at traditional jobs, often times a freelancer will get burned out on a project and just kind of procrastinate if they don't "feel like" working on it. This is very bad! And don't look so innocent... you know you've done it too =).

So how do you keep from being bored with a project?

Have 2 of them underway at once so you can switch back and forth between them.

Work for a 50 minute stretch just busting your behind, then give yourself a ten minute break.

Make sure you eat lunch... or at least have a snack around... a tired body makes for a tired mind.

Try not to sit at the computer ALL day... get some exercise, go for a walk, drink some water, or go out to eat with a friend or significant other.

If you only have one project under your belt, bid on several more. You can always turn something down - generally for every job posted on a freelancing site, there are at least 2 or more freelancers applying to take it on. So really, it's a win/win.

For more tips about time management and helping your productivity as a freelancer, I found another great article that goes into just that:

Outsourcing & why employers do it....

One of my biggest frustrations as a freelancer is seeing projects going for $1/article or $3/hour. Who can survive on that?! Aside from that, what does that say about the quality of work? If I'm making under $10 or $15 an hour, I kind of feel diminished, like I don't really want to put in the extra effort because it isn't worth it.

However, from a business standpoint, this actually makes a lot of sense. If I'm overseeing and planning a project, and I can get good work for $5/hour as opposed to $30/hour, why wouldn't I do that?

So how do you, as a business person, employer, or project manager, make sure you're getting affordable but high-quality work? Are there specific tricks to doing it, or do you just have to spend hours doing legwork, interviewing candidates, and then pick who you think is best without truly knowing?

From my own experience, I've seen a lot of high quality work come out of sites like guru.com, a freelancer/employer web site. oDesk is another really good site to use. What's the difference between the two?

oDesk is free, and Guru has a membership fee of roughly $150/year, give or take depending on which membership you choose.

Like with everything else, research is key - knowledge is power. I'm no expert on the subject of outsourcing, even though I've been a freelancer for ages. I've found that reading and getting information on these types of things from experts is the best way to go.

For more information on outsourcing, tips and tricks, and some expert knowledge on the topic, this is an excellent informational tool to help your company succeed, save money, and outsource wisely:

Outsourcing Secrets

And for new freelancers, here's an excellent source for freelance work that is updated daily with new job postings:

Go Freelance

Rule # 1: Apply to as many jobs as you can.

It doesn't matter if you're already working on projects or not. Unless you have a written agreement, contract, or some kind of guarantee that the project will be completed, any client can back out at any time without explanation. Some projects are larger, some are small - some people take a day to read or reply to a proposal, while others take a month. Your application could be sitting there and never get a reply.

So as a rule, apply to as many jobs as you possibly can. It's better to have to turn down work because you're over-scheduled than to have to scramble to find work in a day or two because you need to put food in the fridge. I know that either scenario is pretty high-stress, but the bigger jobs take longer & the smaller jobs usually have less of a timeline for completion.

In any case, just to be sure that you have enough work or get more work coming in, apply to any projects you would enjoy or think you would be good at. This ensures that you have enough work when you need it, and therefore have enough money coming in.

Don't be afraid of spreading yourself a little thin while you're applying for projects, either. You don't know if you're going to get it when you bid, so what does it hurt to try? As I mentioned before, some companies and people post jobs to these sites and then never go back again.

Thanks for reading! More basics of freelancing are coming later. I'll also be venting my frustrations about the freelancing world on this blog... but I'm a very solution and action based person, so there's always a way to fix a problem or handle an issue.

Jen