At some point over Christmas, I am going to revamp this site. I want to give the site a fresh new look and re0aign some stuff I’ve never been happy with.

This seems like a good time to tweaking the branding and ease of use for both myself (when updating) and you, my treasured reader. So, as with any good community site, I want you to share your feedback with the site and help me in developing PFF 2.0. What do you like about the site. What sucks? Let me know, even if it’s just a sentence or two.

I know this site has been dead, but I want to get things really rolling. I’ll post lots of good, quality content. The podcasts can start up again. Everything is looking good for a quick but effective re-design. First things first though, I’d like your thoughts. Drop them into the comments below.

Thanks gang!

I’ve never really worked in a space that I’ve made. Never created an office that is specific and central to my work flow. And then it hit me one day a week ago. Why not?

I mean, you have to literally live in the space you work. You need to be happy in it, after all you’ll spend a lot of time here (and I mean a lot), so at the very least it should be comfortable.

Ergonomic Chair

With that Eureka moment, I drove up to IKEA and bought a proper  office certified chair. After building the chair (which is no mean feat in itself) I settled into my new ergonomic chair. Its very comfy and I can work and work without feeling tired or achey from lack of body support. An ergonomic chair is great for your posture and circulation.

Whiteboards

So, now that I’m sat more comfortably, I think, “Hey, what else would make me more productive?”… 2 whiteboards are purchased. They let me sketch and write notes on them, a really useful and cost effective trick that’s kept me more organized. I seriously recommend you get one (or two).

After these improvements, I can actually see evidence they are working. In that week I get paid 3 times more than I typically earn on average. Coincidence? I think not! My workspace has become more personal and more comfy. I would even go as far as saying I’m happier working.

External Monitor

As a designer, I use a lot of programs at once. I’m sure a lot of you guys will. I have a 20 inch iMac, but its not a huge screen. So, a 24″ external monitor is ordered. I really can’t put into words how much more I get done with the help of this tool. I can have 3 windows open at once. Very handy indeed. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I am a firm believer that everyone should consider an external monitor, whether a copywriter or a developer.

Desk

That’s really as far as I’ve got. Next on my list to purchase to improve my work area is a good quality, large desk. I’ll do my research into it to make sure it fits my requirements. It’ll need to be big enough to hold all my books, computers & leave enough room to be able to sketch till my heart’s content.

I really cannot recommend enough spending a few hundred dollars on setting up your workspace the right way, the way you want it. You’ll see a return on your investment for sure, and more importantly, you’ll be a happier freelancer for it.

9 Ways to get your portfolio seen

Your portfolio can be the best in the world, but if no one looks at it, then that’s irrelevant. This post looks at 9 ways to get clients checking you out.

How to Create a Dynamic Design Portfolio with Wordpress

Here’s one for all you techies out there. With a bit of tweaking and PHP magic, you can make wordpress into a fully functioning CMS-Portfolio system

How To Write a White Paper to Attract Clients

This post covers writing white-papers to market your services, and makes an awesome read

The Roadmap To Becoming A Professional Freelance Web Designer

Smashing Magazine’s Roadmap to Becoming a Freelance Designer, complete with tonne’s of resources and useful links.

13 Tips for Marketing Your Business With Your Blog

Need I say more?

10 Tips for Surviving The Economic Downturn

Were all sick of hearing about it, but we do need to be a little wary of the Credit Crunch. This post by WDD lists 10 ways to help stave off effects of a quietening economy.

I came across a blog post recently entitled “10 Reasons Why It Rocks To Be A Freelancer”

I thought it was a pretty decent article. However, I also thought the post maybe over hyped freelancing a little. Just a little. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding freelancing. So, I thought I’d step in, and shine a little ‘realism’ on things. I’m good at that

If your considering becoming a freelancer, I want you to know the whole story. From someone who’s right there, freelancing with the rest of them. Because, the grass usually is greener on the other side! And when you get there, well, you might want to go back. Or, as you’ll hopefully see from this post, you’ll be so happy you never look back!

1. You set your own hours

The post’s first point, “You set your own hours”. That’s pretty true. However, clients, will expect you to be available for a good majority of the week, throughout normal office hours (8-6 or 9-5). In theory, yes you could get up at 12 in the afternoon, but I’m sure several client calls will wake you throughout the morning. Then again, it depends on your clients. They also forget to mention you’ll end up working lots of overtime. Sometimes, it just needs to be done, and it could mean you miss out on sleep or weekends occasionally.

2. You set your own pay

Whilst this is also true, you can’t charge what you like, as many people believe. You have to be realistic in your pricing, or you’ll end up with too many cheap, demanding projects, or even none at all. Pricing is governed by your skill level, your workload, the project and the current economic climate. That means pricing will potentially fluctuate from time to time, and you can’t charge $1000’s per hour, because people won’t pay that.

3. You do something you enjoy

Again, this is true, however, do be aware that something you enjoy today as a hobby or pastime, could become a chore when you rely on it for your livelihood.

4. Setup Costs Are Low

Yes, set-up costs can be low. However, they can also be huge. Most people choose to incorporate, which is an expense in itself - with accountants and taxes costing more than you might think. Then there’s all those other things like hosting, web and logo design (if your not a designer) and even furniture or office supplies. You could quite easily spend several thousand dollars before even getting your first client.

5. Freedom to balance work and personal life

Again, sort of true. Yes, you have the flexibility to switch the odd afternoon around to pick up your kids, or have a cup of coffee with your partner. But, at the same time overusing this benefit is a bad idea. Here’s why:

- Family and friends start to think your not serious about freelancing (which most people seem to think is just messing around with a computer all day to start with), and begin to call round during the day - really messing up your work time.
- You could become less productive.
- Clients start to notice your available less and less - or at weird hours.

Not forgetting, that there will be times your so busy, you work 16+ hour days. its frustrating knowing you went freelance to have more time, to be closer to your family, and yet you seem to spend even less time with them. Freelancing is something that is hard to switch off from, unlike a 9-5 job, where you leave all the work in its place back at the office. So try not to overuse your freedom (and yet, enjoy it at the same time, its a perk remember ) If you find homeworking really hard, consider getting yourself an office to work from, you’ll feel the benefits far outweigh the outlay.

6. Laid Back Lifestyle

I know every freelancer will back me up here. When the work piles up, or you start running dry, it can be even more stressful. Caffeine and long hours make for a very stressed freelancer. Not knowing where your next pay cheque is coming from can cause even more stress. You might go somedays where you feel constantly nervous, your stomach in knots, just because its getting on top of you. Then you lose sleep. Then you feel worse, and things spiral from there.

A strong character is needed to be able to freelance. You need to have self control with your finances, a back-up of atleast 3 or 4 months wages at any one time for a rainy day, and a smile for those days when you feel like you just want to cry (or shout at your most demanding clients). Speaking of clients, prepare to deal with people who leave a project on their desk for months, until it becomes urgent and they turn to you to do it in 10% of the time. Look out for clients who need serious hand holding to even decide what domain name they want for their site. Don’t even get me started on slow payers… they become your latest bug bear, trust me.

7. Be Your Own Boss

Yes, you are now your own boss. But you still have responsibilities. keep those in mind, and don’t abuse your freelance position, its a gift to be enjoyed.

I’m not trying to put anyone off freelancing here. No, you see, despite all the above, and more, you’ll love it. If someone offered me a job 5 times the salary of my freelancing, I wouldn’t do it. Once you get the chance to work for yourself, and experience that liberation of been able to cut out your super annoying boss, you’ll never go back.

Please, if you disagree, or agree with anything, feel free to comment, or share the post link

Last week I was ill. Not badly, but still ill. And so, in my infinite wisdom, it hit me, I’ve never posted about illness + freelancing. A strange combo, but it works. Anyway, here’s what to do if you get ill, or before you get ill again.

1. Get some insurance

In case of long term medical issues, you may wish to get some life insurance out for these emergencies. If your out of action of any length of time, your income will be effected, so money spent here may be a lifesaver (no pun intended)

2. Consider buying a laptop

Sometimes, when we are ill its a total waste of time. Sitting around doing nothing because you have a cold or swine flu isn’t helping anyone. So, consider buying yourself (or using your existing laptop). Now you can snuggle up in bed, feeling all ill, but still keep up with your emails, any writing you have (and if you have a powerful enough laptop, you can work as normal with all your normal software such as Photoshop e.t.c).

3. Plan out an ill plan

Spend 5 minutes thinking of tasks you could do when your ill. These might be emailing some of your old clients to check in and see how things are going, it might be to set-up a blog. Whatever you chose to do, try and stick to it, to use this ‘free’ day to the maximum.

4. Don’t stress out!

Stressing out when your poorly is not good! It will make you more ill! So keep calm, and remember, your only human, and your clients expect nothing else. So stop pretending like your a titanium clad robot.

5. Be honest and upfront with clients

If your been pestered by eager clients, tell them your ill. They’ll understand. If you only have a minor illness, you might chose to not tell them, and try to carry out whatever task they want to give you. If all else fails, you’ve got voicemail to take care of client relations for the day. Don’t go telling people your ill all the time though, they’ll think your unreliable (and a hypochondriac to boot)

6. Relax and get better

Most importantly, try and relax, drink lots of water and focus all your concentration on getting better. We hope you feel better soon!

Sometimes, I really wonder, if to be successful in business, you have to nasty. Not just a little bit, but ruthless. Look at Bill Gates. He seems as nice as a mill pond on the surface. But, anyone remember the browser wars? Gates tweaked and altered the cards by signing secret deals with hardware manufacturers to distribute systems with Internet explorer pre-installed on the hard disks. Steve Jobs, the much loved Apple King, has the mentality, or atleast Apple has the mentality, of slamming down on anything remotely anti-apple with a heavy lawsuit threat.

Yet, these are 2 huge, profitable companies. It makes me wonder, do you have to be nasty to get anywhere in business? Do you have to be ruthless to push ahead and earn more money?

I don’t think so! As freelancers, we have the unique ability to be friendly, yes, I did say friendly, to our clients. Our clients are absolutely sick to the back teeth of nastiness, of not been cared about! Take for example phone support. Many companies get this completely wrong. They just don’t seem to care about the end-user, the people who make them money. You phone them up, you are given so many numerical choices your central cortex begins to solidify from the stress, then when you shake yourself from your panic frozen mindset, and actually pick a number, you spend the next 20 minutes having to interpret spanglish. To top it all off, this is costing you $10 per minute. Brilliant!

One company I feel get it this nearly spot on are Apple. On the one hand, I’m saying they are ruthless. But in all reality, Apple know where there bread is buttered. By dedicated mac fans. And so they treat us well with great products, great service and the like. When you phone apple up, you usually speak to a native english speaker. And they have brains. They know what they are on about, are super friendly and will even have a joke with you. This adds to a positive user experience, which has numerous advantages, such as word of mouth referrals and the like.

Most freelancers however, are working nomads. We do it all on our own. And when a client phones up, its us they talk to. When they want to come to the office and work through a design, they meet the designer. They can sit with you and actually talk to you, face to face. Its one of our biggest selling points. Friendliness. So go tell your clients how friendly you are!

Apparently (and I say this with a wicked big pinch of salt, as it was taken from Wikipedia), Caffeine is, unlike many other psychoactive substances, legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions. That means your have access to one of the most subtle drugs around. And like other drugs, you do develop an addiction to the stuff, suffering headaches, nausea, migraines, eye pain and even temporary memory loss if you go without it! That, if you ask me, is a proper withdrawal symptom.

What is this post actually about?

Well, a few of you may remember that a while I go I posted about m wanting to give up Caffeine. And I’ve done it! I’ve gone nearly a month without the stuff. And, more importantly, I feel better for it. I cut down from several, super strong black coffee’s a day, to nothing, taking things slowly (with the odd Coke Cola to subside withdrawal effects). Let me tell you, I know feel:

• More alert, more of the time
• Sleep better
• Am less irritable, and more calm
• Feel less anxious (a side effect of caffeine overdose)
• Am able to stay awake later, and get up earlier because sleep quality is much higher
• Have in general, much more natural energy (including in the afternoons, where I would be partial to a nap before)

I totally think you should consider dropping Caffeine. I’d love to be able to tell you my income went up 22.3%, which I cant exactly, but I do feel it has improved my concentration and memory to the point of working harder for longer. If your a freelancer, who’s patrial to a little bit of coffee in the morning, or a red bull on those all nighters, I recommend you try dropping Caffeine all together. If you like, I can tell you how I did it. I can create an ebook, which will be available for $5 or so, should the demand be high enough. Anyway, that’s enough about me, on with freelancing… huzzahh!!

http://audioboo.fm/boos/26565-7-cashflow

Enjoy!

• You can store your clients contact details, and pull them up wherever you are on your iPhone or laptop and get in touch with them
• You can store notes about meetings, phone calls and to-dos you might have related to that contact
• We have several other features that we are keeping top secret for now, until our launch this summer.
• Above all, they allow you to keep track of your clients, and be a much better / organized freelancer for it.

You can check out the site at: http://www.penguinapp.com

Here we have a small teaser page, with a link to our newsletter. This newsletter will allow you to get up-to-date news on the apps progress. You’ll also be able to get 5% discount at launch.

Penguin App is also on twitter at: twitter.com/penguinapp

Looking forward to your comments, and I’m here to answer any of your questions as always.