Another four rules novice freelancer

I decided to catch the wave of popularity of the previous notes about Four rules for successful freelancer I decided to continue the story and to share with you a few more tips that I hope will help you. Rules freelancer:

1. plans to do

I really love the so-called «productivity porn» - a thorough study and use of a wide variety of case management systems. It seems to me that any successful person should at least superficially, to learn a few systems like GTD, AutoFocus and others, but now it's not about that.

I advise you to have a planner Affairs, electronic or paper. This is the easiest way to keep things in order. Bring him to the weekly horizon - you should always know that you have scheduled for the week ahead. This allows you to shake the days with the highest concentration of problems or to understand what day you will have a window to, for example, to go to visit friends. Despite the fact that the scheduler is on the lowest rung of GTD-it is still the same good old classics, which are notebooks "Moleskine" or motorcycles «Harley-Davidson». However, you have the last is not necessary.

2. Start a blog

This advice is partially slipped in the previous article, and now I want to develop it in more detail.

Start is not just a blog, where you can describe your relationship with your beloved cat and professional blog. His goal - to help you organize your thoughts, be a platform for your promotion and to showcase your abilities.

Blog can be started on any free platform to the good-old Learn, fearful Blogger or the trendy and beautiful Tumblr. However, I advise you to spend an extra thousand rubles to buy a domain, hosting, and put on him his own blog. Firstly, it is once you add solidity, because this blog tells everyone that you are a professional. Secondly, you will have your personal mail, which will give you the weight in dealing with customers. Well, finally, it is very convenient - do not depend on anybody. Costs for blog content are minimal (about 150-200 rubles a month), and benefits from its presence is very important.

3. Pay attention to portfolio

A common mistake many freelancers is that they do not watch their work, in the best case, dumping them all in one folder, and at worst no keeping. This is not only wrong, but also dangerous for your professional image.

Firstly, all work should be carefully stored and backup. I use this system folders. I have two large folders, one called "active projects", and the second - "Archive". The active project is stored the works that I am now - each project in its own folder. The Archive I remove what has already been completed and no longer needed.

For each project in a separate subfolder, I keep all the sketches, text, sketches, plans, "skeletons" of texts and all the intermediate version, carrying a folder above the final version. As a result, I have accumulated all the necessary materials, and any time I can find everything I need. All this, of course, laid out on Dropbox and stored in most emergency cases on a separate hard drive was.

Complicated at first glance, the system guarantees me complete security portfolio, coupled with its ease. You can have any of your option, but the portfolio needs to be protected and nurtured. And the best way to do this - to spread their works with detailed comments on his personal blog. Put your work with intermediate versions and comments (see as it does Lebedev Studio), and then when dealing with a customer you can simply provide a link to your blog and a few not so pleasant issues will disappear by themselves.

4. Participate in Free and social projects

It will bring you fame and moral pleasure, because there is nothing better than to work for free for those who can not pay for your services. Are you a designer? Draw a logo for the shelter stray cats. You are a programmer - write them a widget for websites and blogs, copywriter - creates a beautiful enticing text (and so on). You will find many new friends and get a good experience.

However, free projects is not necessarily orphanages and children's homes. There are blogs and websites, free pdf-journals (Journal pretzelFor example, the quality and interesting material surpasses many of their print counterparts). Such projects are a powerful start for the novice freelancer and an excellent hobby for an experienced freelancer.

In this article, perhaps you can finish the cycle of materials for freelancers. However, if you have tips or suggestions to learn something new, write - I will tell you everything you will inetersno.

Thanks for attention!