i learned to say no
I’m a very happy guy, always smiling and willing to help people and I have a hard time saying ‘no‘, especially to friends and family. Well I learned to say no the hard way this year. A friend of mine hired me to do a project for him, and guess what… lost a friend.
I learned to say no, and to make sure I always have a contract or written agreement, even for friends and family.
higher rates don’t mean less clients
I gave myself a raise, which I should’ve done a long time ago. Not much, but $50 here and there can make a huge difference in a budget. I didn’t want to raise my prices afraid I would lose clients, but the thing is I made more money this year than I did in 2006, not working more hours, just different hours.
time management
I write, blog, design, develop, play guitar, work on my car and spend tons of time with my friends and family. needless to say I had to learn to manage my time.
Between 20 hours a week at school, an hour and a half in traffic everytime I go there, 20-30 hours of freelance work a week, managing blogs and writing. That’s easily 65-80 hours a week, and I still get 7 hours sleep every night. I love what I do, but I’m sure I would not enjoy it as much if I was struggling with time.
50% up front
even for clients that i regularly do work for, i always ask for 50% up front. you only need to be screwed once to learn this.
make friends in your industry
You won’t go really far if you rely only on your skills, your knowledge and a small contact list. You have to go out, network and meet like-minded people, make friends.
backup often
this happens to me all the time. sometimes i’ll select a group of files and accidentally delete something i wish i hadn’t, followed by emptying the recycling bin. and everytime, i’ll spend hours and hours wondering what happened to those files and where they went.
It took me 3 days to realize I actually deleted that folder. I though it was ‘somewhere else‘ on my comp or on an external hard-drive…nope.
The kind of situation where you want to bang your head on the wall, but you can’t cause you’re on the phone trying to explain what happened.
take time off
That is just common sense, we all need to take some time off to recharge those batteries. When I feel stuck, uninspired and not creative there’s nothing like going for a walk, driving around or taking a nap.
Spending time with your loved ones is very important too. Work will still be there tomorrow if you take the evening off to go see a movie with a friend.
not too many projects at once
I’m not a superhero and I cannot handle 27 projects at the same time. I just can’t. If I accept too many projects I know the quality will suffer and I don’t want that.
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