There’s only so much time in the day, and sometimes despite your best efforts to plan ahead, life intervenes and scuttles your deadlines and best-laid plans.
I know more than a few freelancers who have found themselves trying to juggle deadlines with family illnesses and other lesser crises. And most freelancers I know have taken on too much work at one time or another and found themselves juggling and scrambling to meet all their deadlines.

So how do you avoid freelance overload? And if you find yourself in the precarious position of having to juggle deadlines with unexpected and unavoidable life events, …read more

Good Monday morning readers!
Today, I’m shining the spotlight on Lisa Collier Cool, a best-selling author and winner of 18 journalism awards. She’s written more than 400 articles for the Associated Press, Cosmopolitan, Family Circle, Fitness, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s, Hallmark, Harper’s Bazaar, Health, Health Monitor, Ladies Home Journal, Marie Claire, O the Oprah Magazine, Parenting, Parents, Penthouse, Publishers Weekly, Redbook, Reader’s Digest, Self, Woman’s Day, Writer’s Digest and many others.
Lisa also is a prolific author. Her book, Beware the Night: A New York City Cop Investigates the Supernatural (with coauthor Ralph Sarchie), reached #3 on the Amazon bestseller list, and …read more

Running my own full-time freelance business taught me a lot of things—especially how to save money. Granted, I knew how to conserve finances before, but there’s nothing like not knowing when your next assignment is coming in the door or whether your clients are going to pay on time to kick that saving habit into much higher gear.
Several years of working as a reporter also helped prepare me for running a lean full-time freelance operation. Because as some of you may know, reporting jobs generally don’t pay well. So in addition to learning how to write and report during my …read more

In big business, there’s a practice called Lean manufacturing that makes companies more efficient and profitable. And while your business may only employ one person, there are some valuable lessons that a business of any size can learn from this philosophy.
Often referred to as Lean, the goal in very simple terms is to create more value with less work, fewer resources, and less waste. In other words, the goal of Lean is to find efficiencies and eliminate any practices or resources that do not help create value for the customer or client. This management philosophy comes primarily from the Toyota …read more

How can you separate yourself from the pack in today’s market? One way to stand out to prospective clients, in my opinion, is to combine expertise with heartfelt enthusiasm.
This sounds strange to me now, but at one time I made a lot of freelance hires based on availability. Sure, I expected high-quality work, timeliness, and professionalism. Good references were a plus too, of course. But in those days I seriously got excited about receiving an inquiry from a prospective new freelancer. If someone had the right attitude and a promising set of skills, I was willing to give them a …read more

I’ve come to see a schedule as the backbone of every project. Because if you forge ahead without some kind of timeline, isn’t successfully completing your goal just a shot in the dark?

Sunday I talked about utilizing a planner. And for any project that contains more than a step or two, I’ve learned it’s vital to break the big picture down into segments that can be estimated in terms of time, energy, and resources. Without doing that, I suppose it’ll get done eventually. But will it be done on time? And will it be a good product?

In industries such as …read more

Since I left the corporate world, I’ve been having a bit of a time dilemma. When I was working in an office, I had distractions, sure. But those were all within the realm of work. Trying to stay productive here at home is a little different.

So my planner and I had a come-to-Jesus meeting on Friday, during which I was reminded of everything that made me successful at managing my time when I was immersed in the whirlwind of producing magazines. Being a good employee, I responded with an outline of how I plan to use it now in my …read more

Call me strange, but I love crossing items off my to-do lists. In fact, I’ve been a list person for as long as I can remember.
I suppose I might have picked this up from my mother, who has always carried one of those small notebooks in her purse wherever she goes. For jotting down lists, thoughts, and things she doesn’t want to forget. Later, my training as a newspaper reporter reinforced what I’d already observed my mother doing when I was growing up. As a reporter, I always carried a stash of pens and at least two notebooks in my …read more

“To survive and succeed, every organization will have to turn itself into a change agent. The most effective way to manage change is to create it.”
—Peter Drucker
The creator and inventor of modern management had it right about change—the best way to manage change is to create it.
Of course, I believe Drucker was talking about larger organizations when he offered that very sage advice. But I think the same advice can helpful to one-person businesses and independent contractors. If you create change for yourself, it’s easier to manage when it comes along—even when the change is not something you initiated. And …read more

What’s the one thing that you’re afraid to do as a freelancer?
Are you afraid to send off a query to a new-to-you editor or publication? Are you afraid to get more assertive with a client about collecting late payment? Are you afraid to fire a deadbeat or slow-paying client? Are you afraid to delve into social media or learn a new skill? What is the one area where you feel stuck?

If you don’t have any active freelance fears (that you’re aware of anyway), congratulations. And please tell the rest of us how you managed to accomplish that. But if you’re …read more