It’s not easy to make it as a freelancer in any field, but one proven step toward success is to keep your promises, and then go one step further–overdeliver.  Getting started  as a freelancer is the hardest part, because lack of experience is so easily equated with lack of skill.  And there’s no more important a time in a freelancing career than the beginning to set in stone a work ethic and principles to help you succeed. By giving the client what they want, and more, you’ll get their business again, and you can benefit from referrals they send your way through word of mouth.

Start on projects early.  If you know it’ll take you 5 days, don’t want until T-minus 5 days to start the project.  You don’t know what unexpected interruptions could slow you down, and you’re risking finishing the project late if you only give yourself enough time to finish it under ordinary circumstances.  If it’ll take you 5 days and it’s due in 2 weeks, start now.  You might have it done in 5 days, but you’ve gotten an early start and will probably finish it early.  And you’ve got a built-in cushion if something should go wrong.

If you start the project earlier, you won’t have to rush, which can cause problems.  You’ll be done early enough to be able to revise a little more before turning it in, too. While you might take a certain sense of pride in starting a project at zero hour and getting it done on time, how much better would it be if you’d had a day between writing and revising? 

Working from home, setting your own hours, taking a day off without filling out paperwork or asking a boss—these are some of the most wonderful benefits of freelancing.  But these can also be some of its greatest problems.  When there’s no time-clock to punch, it’s easier to push the work aside and do it later.  When there’s no office to call for a sick day or a vacation, it’s easier to take that day and tell yourself you’ll work longer tomorrow, or work over the weekend, to make up the time on those projects. It’s also easy to take on too much work, get behind in the bookkeeping, or become so disorganized that every day seems to be nothing more than one frustration after another.

Organizing your freelance life might seem daunting and will take a little time in the beginning, but once you get a system in place, every day will go much more smoothly and you’ll get more done in less time. The more organized you are when it comes to time and money, the more you’re freed up to do the creative work within that frame, and the more successful you’ll be.

Make a schedule and stick to it.  Look at your projects, and block out hours of your work day for certain tasks.  A common freelancing mistake is underestimating the time a project will take, so in the beginning, make a guess and add a few hours of extra time to your estimate just in case.  At worst, you’ll allot too much time and have that left over to do more prospecting or get a head start on another project.

When you work a 9 to 5, you have the benefit of learning about your co-workers, your supervisors and your employer and coming to a certain level of understanding about their expectations of you, their likes and dislikes, their skills and their attitudes.  But when you freelance, each client starts a brand new learning experience, and each client seems wholly different from the last, which can make managing clients a challenge.

All freelancers have a few easy clients who assign a project, disappear into the background while you do your work, pay promptly and cause few problems. And then there are clients with their peculiar quirks, who are great in one way and more difficult in others, and of course, the downright picky and difficult clients. Chances are good you won’t know which category a client falls into until you’ve already accepted the job.  You’ll get some who seem to want to make every decision for you, some who give no direction but then complain that what you’ve done isn’t what they had in mind, some who just don’t understand the technical side of things and make suggestions that would basically undermine everything you do. 

Whether you’re new to freelancing or you’ve been at it at a while, you’ll quickly discover that your field, whether it’s writing, design, programming or some other freelance endeavor, changes constantly.  What’s “hot” today might be forgotten tomorrow, and new software, techniques and knowledge keep things constantly changing and moving forward.  If you want to be able to compete as a freelancer, you have to keep up.

Continuing education is a great way to make sure you always know what’s new in your field.  Classes and workshops, of course, are an easy way to stay abreast of the latest search engine techniques or design principles.  But there are other ways to continue your education and keep yourself valuable as a freelancer in an ever-changing marketplace.

Participate in industry forums, message boards and mailing lists.  Before you’re able to find 20 articles online about that new trend in Internet marketing, you’ll hear about it extensively on a business message board. If you’re seeing freelance programmers start to talk about a style that’s taking off with their clients, you’ll know it’s time to look into it for your own business.

Often, one of the hardest things for a freelancer to do is set a price  Especially when you’re just starting out, the tendency is to charge far too little for work to be sure to get plenty of it.  That tendency will wear off when the work starts coming in more regularly and the fear of losing potential work because you’re charging market rates or too much is outweighed by the need to earn a reasonable wage.  But how do you know you’re undercharging, and how do you go about setting a price?

It sounds easy enough to decide on an amount per hour that you want to earn, and you should think this way.  But as a freelancer, it’s more likely that you’ll be billing per project rather than per hour, unless you tend to work on long-term projects where you are paid per hour by agreement.  Freelance writers will probably bill per article, press release, grant or other project, where designers might bill by website, logo or other graphic creation.

In the beginning, you could very well end up working for far less than your ideal hourly rate, simply because you underestimate the amount of time a project will take.  If you quote a client a rate of $150 for a project based on your desire to earn $45 an hour, for example, and the job takes you 7 hours, or 12, you’ve undercut yourself by quite a bit.  Those are live and learn moments—it might take doing a certain type of project a few times before you come up with the right quote for the time you’ll be spending. Among new freelancers that’s a common phenomenon.

Most people cite one of the reasons for becoming a freelancer as a sense of going nowhere in their regular jobs.  Whether it’s a job that doesn’t offer advancement, or a mindless job that doesn’t offer much of employees, a job that you’re unhappy with can make you miserable.  Freelancing seems to be the perfect solution for that.  You do what you want, when you want, for whom you want, right?

Don’t be fooled into thinking that it’s impossible to get into a rut when you freelance.  It might not be as easy to stagnate as a freelancer than in that corporate cubicle job, but it can happen.  When you face new projects with little excitement, or find yourself, in the middle of projects, wishing a particular client wouldn’t call on you again, or even feeling like you hate certain projects, it might be that you’re stagnating as a freelancer.  What do you do? Stir things up a bit.

Nowadays more and more home offices are becoming popular, basically because of the increase of outsourced jobs over the internet. Thus, most of us start to work at home, since this is the place where we are most comforted. But just like the typical office, or home-based job needs equipment that would cater to our home office needs. But what exactly are the things you need in your home office?

Comfortable chair

Among other things, you would most be in need is a comfortable chair, since this would serve as your throne as you do your work at home. This doesn’t have to be an office chair, as long as you enjoy sitting on it and that it helps you access your other needs. Your chair must have a good, durable cushion and backrest, since you would be spending most of your working hours in this piece of furniture.

The daily routine in the office can eventually lead you to stress, especially when you are loaded with tons of work which you have to finish by the end of the day. There are even times when you have to skip meals or go overtime jus to get your assignment done. This is quite a common experience to those who have desk jobs, but through this, they get to live an unhealthy lifestyle.

So how can you keep yourself fit and healthy while working in a desk job? Below are a few effective tips that can keep you stay looking fabulous inside and out even while in the midst of stressful office work:

Are you a freelancer in search of projects? Nowadays freelance jobs are growing rapidly across the internet, so you won’t find it difficult to get one. However, while these jobs are readily available, you should also take extra caution when getting them since some of them might be a form of scam. Thus, to avoid being in this kind of situation, you must search for freelance jobs at the most recommended sites. Some of them are listed below:

The style in which you present yourself at work clues your employer in on both your personality as well as your work ethic.  Unless your job requires you to wear a uniform, choosing work attire becomes more than a simple task of picking out clothes.  It is ultimately a way to make a statement. Follow the key pointers listed below to ensure you are making the right statement before you head out the door in the morning.

Casual Doesn’t Mean Sloppy
Dressing casually to work can be confusing as to what is accepted and what is not. Whether your company is lenient enough to allow casual dress throughout the year or simply once a week the policy can be baffling.  When a casual dress code is allowed, some key factors should be kept in mind.