Nicola Balkind

Freelance Writer & Content Specialist

Skilling Up

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Skilling Up

I’ve written a lot about my freelance journey and about a lot of my favourite resources for running a microbusiness. In addition to my mantra about working on my business as well as in my business, I have to keep on top of the latest trends and relevant skills. As freelancers, we have to work on our skills without a board member to send us to a seminar or call in a training squad. Here are my tips on skilling up.

There’s a lot of talk about digital natives – oh, we millennials and our innate skills and internet prowess. But the truth is that almost everything I know about working in digital content and marketing, and all of my related skills, are learned. I can navigate around faster than the average 40 year-old, sure, but no-one is born knowing how to craft an excellent call to action or photoshop an image.

Skilling up is important to me, and this year I’ve focused a lot on multimedia, particularly audio and image editing – but more about those below. Here are three resources that helped me to skill up this year.

 

Business Training & Mentoring

Last year, I won a place on the Flourish programme from the Cultural Enterprise Office here in Glasgow. The programme included 4 days of business training along with private sessions with a mentor.

The time and space it afforded me to refine my business model, think about customers and plan growth was so welcome, and the mentoring sessions were a lot like business therapy. Whenever things are slow or I’m struggling with a recurring problem, I have advice to remember and apply to the new situation. It has been invaluable.

 

DIY Practice-Based Learning

Being a digital autodidact is a great asset, particularly these days. There’s tons of great software, online and off, that’s easy to use when you put in the time to learn to use it.

This year I embarked on a new audio project with my friend Holly. Making our podcast, Bookish Blether, has given me a chance to work on my audio production skills, particularly the use of GarageBand for audio editing. Now I feel ready to move on to more professional software and am looking into more options to up our game even more.

I’ve also taken visual content more seriously, creating my own header images and video thumbnails. I have a reasonably good eye but have never been happy with my artistic skill. While my cobbled together header images aren’t necessarily works of art, they’re eye-catching, and trying harder and making that extra effort was necessary so as not to be left behind. It has also raised the bar for the standard of content I’m willing to publish.

The secret? I’ve been using the free online software at Canva – give it a shot yourself.

 

E-Courses with CreativeLive

Another audio-related course I’ve taken this year is Alex Blumberg’s Power Your Podcast With Storytelling with CreativeLive. It’s up to you to make time to work on these, and it has taken me a while to work my way through this one. However I found it’s a great way to gee yourself up when you’re feeling uninspired, and I learned a lot from this one.

CreativeLive is a great platform that brings in experts to teach 1–3 day workshops across creative disciplines including photography, video, design, business, and audio. You can log in and watch live online workshops free in real-time, or you can purchase the course materials and watch the training in your own time. Some of the courses are quite entry-level, while others are more advanced, so even if you’re just thinking of starting up there might be some workshops that are relevant to you.

They also have a fantastic blog, by the way.

 

Your Turn

How do you skill up in your business? How do you decide which skills you need or want to add to your personal toolkit?

Freelance Finance

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Freelancing & Finances

Let me tell you a story about freelancing and finances…

Last week I returned home from my holiday to find that one of my long-term contracts was being terminated without notice.

Usually, when setting up a new agreement, I specify one month notice from either party. However in this case I had signed the client’s standard contract. I hadn’t anticipated that it’d be terminated early – but when you are a contractor there’s always risk involved.

Fortunately, I’d already been offered a few pieces of work to get me through the end of the year, but I was also prepared in other ways.

Although it’s never fun to lose work, it’s important to plan for the best and be prepared for the worst. With that in mind, here’s my brief guide to freelance finance.

 

How to be financially prepared

1. Forecast your income

My contracts can run for anything from one week to a year, so I track my clients and number of contracted days as I go.

On my wall I have a calendar for the year. Under each month I list my client names alongside the number of days or fee for that month. At a glance I can see how many days are spoken for and how much I’m due to earn.

I also keep a spreadsheet with invoices due, sent, and paid where I can track my income, all of which keeps me right when it’s time to file taxes, too.

 

2. Know your essential costs and income

My basics are rent, bills, travel allowance and food. You may have others, like childcare or a car or a mortgage.

These basic costs amount to an average of £1000 per month. To account for tax and savings (see next point), I need to bring in at least £1400 per month to cover it. (I also work on the assumption that I can and aim to make a little more than that to cover things like clothing, cleaning supplies and maybe even some social engagements.)

Here’s a simple formula: work out your essential costs, divide by your day rate and you’ll have the minimum number of days’ work you need to live. Voilà!

 

3. Set money aside

I have a rule for getting paid: don’t even look at what’s come in before detracting the basics.

For me the basics are:

  • 20% for business savings (these cover taxes and National Insurance);
  • 10% for expenses (this will depend on your overhead);
  • 10-20% for personal savings (depending on how much is coming in).

After those are spoken for, anything over and above your basic costs can go towards the finer things in life.

 

4. Limit stress: have a float

Most sources suggest saving enough to cover your basic expenses for at least 3 months before going freelance.

I have a couple of personal savings accounts: one for fun stuff like holidays and treats, and another as a nest egg / rainy day fund which acts as my float. Having a float is vital for any unexpected expenses: loss of business, illness, a broken computer – you name it.

Let’s be real. When you freelance, you probably won’t have a reliable income. Payments will be late, contracts will break, or other life hazards might get in the way. Unless your business covers sick pay and leave, you’re probably not going to be earning while you’re sick or taking a break. Have a float, save, and plan for those instances and cover yourself for those things large and small.

Knowing you have a float can make setbacks (like the one I’ve just experienced) so much easier to deal with. It can still be a blow to the ego, but I know that financially, I’m fine and I have time to find a new opportunity.

 

5. Don’t kid yourself

Now a general point: have a good relationship with your money.

The worst thing you can do is to be dishonest with yourself about your finances. Even if you think you aren’t “good with money,” you need it to live. You must be good with money to freelance successfully.

 

6. Avoid the time = money trap

Time is money. It’s a cliché for a reason. When freelancing, time often does have a direct correlation with money – but please don’t let it control you. I see a lot of freelancers give up opportunities to work on their business, or just to relax, because they are too busy working in their business.

Know how much you want to make, how much time and effort it takes to make it, and how far you can reasonably stretch it. Save for rainy days and factor in holidays, research days, professional events and any other time-costs you encounter. You’ll be saner for it.

 

Your Turn

Did I miss anything? What are your best tips for dealing with freelance finances?

Do feel free to share them in a comment below, tweet me, or shoot me an email and we’ll chat.

 

I’m available!

As you may have guessed from the story above, I have some availability through 2016. Want to work with me? Get in touch!

How I Dramatically Reduced My Email Load

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email envelope

Occasionally, on Twitter, someone will post a screencap (more like a screamcap, amirite?) of the email notification badge on their phone. Invariably it reads over 100, or in some cases even over 1000. I find this baffling.

Question

How many emails do you get each day?

How many emails do you get each day, really? How many of them are useful?

My Answer

I probably get around 10-30 emails per day.
I get more like 5-8 emails per day, really.

How do you do that?

The trick? It’s to get as many emails that you don’t really need to see to bypass your inbox.

It takes a little work upfront, but like any good system, it’ll save you a lot of hassle (and a lot of red notification badges).

I’m not quite an inbox zero kind of girl, but I do have a few stipulations:
1. No notifications
2. Only useful or to-be-actioned emails stay in my inbox
3. Newsletters, press information and mass emails bypass the inbox.

So, here are some ways that I reduced the amount of email that hits my inbox.

 

1. Unsubscribe

Been signed up for hunners of marketing emails that you didn’t want, or even newsletters you thought you’d read but don’t? Take half an hour to go through and unsubscribe from them manually.

Similarly, unsubscribe from social media-related emails. I can’t imagine a situation where you’d actually email notifications from Twitter letting you know that a spambot followed you. I mean it! UNSUBSCRIBE.

 

2. Unroll.me

There’s this great script called Unroll.me (also their URL) that can really help you to clear out your inbox. It has a few features:

The Roll-Up – Select the people whose emails you don’t need to see right away, and add them to your roll-up. This is a daily digest that gathers together all of your newsletters, or notifications, or other mail that’s low priority.

My roll-up includes business newsletters, addresses that only send me press releases, account-related marketing emails I haven’t figured out how to turn off, bank statement alert emails, and any account notifications that are occasionally useful.

Unsubscribe – You can also unsubscribe from emails within Unroll.me. I prefer to unsubscribe manually and get off people’s mailing lists altogether, but this is a good option for accounts that want you to sign in to unsubscribe, or even to hide emails from press lists or other nonsense emails with no manual option.

 

3. Create rules

Another way I keep my inbox tidy is by creating rules. Often these capture things like press emails that come from new addresses that aren’t in my contacts.

To give an example, one such rule is: If body includes “press” “screening” and “London”, mark as “Press”. Since I’m in Scotland and most of these are irrelevant, I don’t have to worry about missing much. These emails go straight into my “Press” folder, which I only need to check when I’m pitching reviews.

 

4. Use folders

As hinted at above, I have a filing system for emails. This might sound complicated, but you could have just a few key folders.

The folders I find most useful are:
Accounts – sign-up emails, orders.
Accounts/Work – as above, related to my business.
Friends – personal emails.
Work – work-related emails.
Work/[Client name] – work-related emails relating to a particular client or project.
Press – press releases, screening invites, etc.
Unroll.me – automatic folder containing my roll-up items.

 

5. Work on your methods

When I get up in the morning, I check my emails. Anything that has slipped through the net or isn’t important (e.g. an order dispatch notice, or a ‘thank you’ that doesn’t require a response) goes straight into folders.

Only emails that require your attention should remain in your inbox.

Now, most wisdom dictates that you should’t use your inbox as a to-do list. I agree, but I also like to keep relevant emails in my inbox until they’ve been ticked off. If I’m awaiting a response, I’ll file the email away unless I need that reminder there.

 

The result

The result? My inbox stays, if not at 0, under 10.

While my methods might not work for you, I know from experience that making moves to organise your inbox can really reduce your stress levels. It removes digital and mental clutter, gives things a sense of order. Most importantly, it allows you to focus on the important things first.

 

Your Turn

What are your best tips for streamlining your emails? Share them in the comments or shoot me a tweet @robotnic.

 

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