Day to Day Realities

Honest Observations of a Full-time Independent WorkerMichael Girouard — RefreshNYC — Nov 30 2010

About Your Presenter

• Seasoned [grizzled] programmer of 11 years

• Second-year full-time independent worker

• Owner of two businesses:

MigiMedia: Content Management & E Commerce Group

Ashcroft Eyewear: Independent Boutique Eyewear Brand

• Organizer of Refresh NYC

What About You?

• How many people are full time independent workers?

• How many people are full time employees?

• How many people are just dipping their toes in?

•Why are you here?

A Quick Warning

I will recommend

you read two very different

books.This is intentional.

Realities @ 10,000 Feet

Work sucks whether you’re

independent or not.http://www.flickr.com/photos/michelhrv/2299050033/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bionicteaching/2041278305/

Independent does not mean

antisocial.

Being free is not a license to be lazy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frosted_peppercorn/2411572004/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidpbrown/1922428299/

Just because you can work from anywhere…

…does not make it a good idea :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuartpilbrow/2942333106/

Chances are,you won’t

be rich.

My Schedule

The Average Week

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

Weekly Planning

Client Work

—Ashcroft

Client Work

—Ashcroft

Client Work

—Ashcroft

Client Work

—Ashcroft

Client Work

—Ashcroft

Spillover —

Leasure

The Average Day

TOD Task

9:30 – 10:30 ✓ Planning & Pipeline Review

11:00 – 1:30 ✓ Quick Tasks / One Offs

1:30 – 2:00 ✓ Feeding Time

2:15 – 6:00 ✓ Project-Related Work

6:00 – 7:00 ✓ Work Overspill

9:00 – 1:30 ✓ Ashcroft Web Work

Planning

Warning:Planning strategies are mostly snake oil. Possiblythis one as well.

Use at your own risk.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/invis/4252924872/

How not to Plan

• Take all the things you need to get done an put them in a todo list.

• Map out every possible task you need to do on your calendar.

• Plan your day to the minute. Leave no room for interruptions.

A Better Method

• What are your roles in life?

• What are your goals with each role?

• Every week identify your needs and schedule accordingly.

My Roles/Goals

Pipeline

Pipeline managementis easily the most under appreciated

areas of the freelance workflow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/baggis/225007470/

A well defined pipeline

• Tells you what your opportunities are.

Opportunities are to be followed up on.

• Tells you what your projects are.

Projects are your main income source.

• Calculates your efficiency for a given time range.

Efficiency is your benchmark for improvement.

My Pipeline

Projects

Project Management

• Is easily the most complicated area of freelance work

• You should strongly consider outsourcing (management, development, etc)

• Be selective, not picky when choosing projects

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cappellmeister/5921913/

Decent PM Tools

http://basecamphq.com/

http://myintervals.com/

http://zoho.com/projects/

Other ConsiderationsHow about plain-old WordPress?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/selfhosted-wordpress-blog-project-management/

P2 GTD

Key Functions of PM

• Projects (note: plural)

• Milestones

• Tasks

• Teams

• Time} These are all moving

targets.

You and your tools must be able to handle change of all kinds.

Finances

The Income Dance

Quote

1.Invoice

2.Payment

3.Receipt

4.

• Opportunity arises.• RFP comes in.• Proposal goes out.

The Income Dance

Quote

1.Invoice

2.Payment

3.Receipt

4.

• Bid is approved.• Project is awarded.• Quote is converted to an invoice.• Invoice goes out.

The Income Dance

Quote

1.Invoice

2.Payment

3.Receipt

4.

• Ideally paid w/in agreed upon terms.• Oftentimes partial payments are made to

begin the work.

The Income Dance

Quote

1.Invoice

2.Payment

3.Receipt

4.

• Receipt goes out upon payment. • Oftentimes overlooked by freelancers.• This may also be a reminder if the payment is

late.• Valuable time to upsell if this is a final receipt.

The Income Dance

Quote

1.Invoice

2.Payment

3.Receipt

4.

• Process repeats as necessary until project is complete.

Financial Toolshttp://workingpoint.com/

http://outright.com/

http://lessaccounting.com/

http://freshbooks.com/

The Taxman Cometh

http://www.waywardirregular.com/?p=59

The way I pay my taxes is quarterly, and this is definitely an unpleasant process, but makes the yearly tax-time a little less daunting. It’s like getting stabbed in the kidney once versus getting stabbed in the kidney fifteen times – the first one is all scary and hurts like hell, but number sixteen is just old hat and you’re ready for it.

“• Track Income/Expenses.

• Don’t do it yourself.

• Don’t wait until the last minute.

• Educate yourself.

Just keep it simple… Recommended Reading

Important Miscellany

Information Addiction

• How many feeds are in your reader?• How many times to you go to

Facebook/Twitter/Delicious per day? • How long do you stay on the

site?

Outsource. Please.

The smartest thing youcan do for your businessis to remove yourselffrom it.

“No”

• Is the second most important word in a freelancer’s vocabulary.

• Yes, turning down work can actually be profitable in the long run.

Personal Projects

• …are just as important as client projects.

• These are areas where you can safely experiment with new technologies and platforms

• This is where the most important learning comes from.

Questions?

Thank you.mikeg@lovemikeg.com