Whether you freelance as a writer, a programmer or a designer, there are certain tasks that you’ll do again and again and some that you’ll do infrequently.  Cheat sheets can be a huge help for both those tasks that you do all the time, and the ones you do infrequently enough that the exact way to do them can be a bit hard to remember.  Whether it’s formatting a certain type of writing or how to use certain tools in Photoshop or Dreamweaver, cheat sheets can carve minutes to hours off the time it takes to complete a project.

Any kind of a template can be called a cheat sheet, and the beauty of them is that you only have to create them once.  You might have a template for press releases or grants, for a website design, or for CSS style sheets to help get you started. There’s no point in rewriting the same code a hundred times for a hundred different projects, so use a cheat sheet template as your basis then make the necessary changes.  Just be sure you use your template only as a starting point to avoid having to redo the basics.  Then make each project unique.

Cheat sheets for infrequent tasks can be a life saver, too. You won’t have to struggle with trying to remember how to do something, make false starts that waste your time, and in a worst case scenario can cause you to mess up your work.  If you have a cheat sheet on how to do something, you’ll only spend the time it takes to glance at the instructions and you’re ready to go.

You can find cheat sheets online for a variety of projects, from email templates to bits of handy code, and even ready-to-print instructions for certain pieces of software and certain tools within them, so take advantage of these web freebies.  Also, making your own cheat sheets is a great idea.  When you come across a task that you’re unfamiliar with, as soon as you’ve successfully used a software tool or found that shorthand you needed, write it down.  Write down the step by step tasks and store it in a “cheat sheet” folder or print it out for easy access, so next time you need to do the same thing, you’ll only need to glance at your cheat sheet instead of figuring the process out all over again.

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