Daniel Marino

Taking the High-Speed Plunge

I know this sounds really bad as a professional web designer, especially one that partakes in freelance work on a regular basis, but I don’t have high-speed internet. Tomorrow, I will be officially ridding myself of the woes of dial-up, and will never look back.

Why?

Sounds like a stupid question, but is it? I always had a hard time with the notion of dropping $50 a month so I could check my email at lightening-fast speed. I hardly surf the web at home (that’s not to say I surf the web at work… too much, anyways). My wife uses the internet at home, but she mostly only uses it to check her email too.

I’ve found myself consistently juggling three or more freelance projects at any given time. I work a full-time job during the day, so I have to freelance during evenings and weekends.

It’s Been Hard

Lately I’ve been having a hard time with the freelancing. I enjoy it and quite frankly, need to do it so that my kids can eat. But for whatever reason, my scheduling has been really off. Partly because I may have taken more projects than I should have. Some projects were scheduled to go one week, and they ended up running two months. I’m always having the constant struggle of what my time is worth in dollars and cents.

I’ve started solving some of my issues. I’m getting better at saying “No” if I don’t have time for a project. I’ve been gradually raising my prices which seems to be weeding out some of the potentially Why-oh-why jobs. I’ve started keeping better records and scheduling my time. And now, I’m getting high-speed internet to make my time more productive.

What’s Next

I’ve been looking for some great, free project management software that incorporates billing. I’ve been very unsuccessful so far in my quest. I don’t want to pay for Basecamp or activeCollab. I thought about building my own web application to manage these areas of my freelancing, but that would kind of hurt my productivity.

I’ve decided I’m going to purchase a notebook computer in the near future. I’m sorry to say, it won’t be a Mac as I can’t afford to purchase all-new Mac versions of the software I currently use. My PC at home is only five years old, but it’s already a giant paperweight. Needless to say, that’s been slowing me down for a while.

Blue Skies are Ahead

I’m honestly not used to having all of this freelance work, though I am very thankful for it. This time last year, I was working a second job. I always hated being away from my family during the evening. Freelancing is a learning process just like any other, and I’m confident that I’ll be able to better organize and manage it.

Note: I’ve posted a follow-up related to this entry.