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Out of the Office Confinement and Straight into Freelance Prison
Seriously, do you sometimes feel this?
At the onset of my freelance career, I had doubts if I really made the right decision to quit my day job. I left a 10-hour job to work freelance for 16 hours and I was only earning half as much as I used to. That’s the exact scenario.
Has it changed now?
Honestly, I can’t say. I’ve stopped for a while to focus on other things. But I want to go back to accepting online jobs again. My former boss has already inquired on my availability to work for him again. He refers to me as his favorite hire from the Philippines, which is really very nice of him to say. I’ve also received a job offer from another possible employer.
So why am I not yet working?
Apart from being busy preparing for my wedding next year, I also decided to push through with what I really want to do. And that’s what’s keeping me occupied these days. Darrel finds it silly that I want to invest my time on ‘that’ instead of working and earning money right away.
But I know in my heart, my efforts will bear fruits someday. And the time and effort I’m sowing today, I shall reap tomorrow. So that I will neither end up in an office confinement nor a freelance prison.
Freelance Jobs: Served hot and fresh!
Due largely to the global economic downturn, people from all over the world are now keen on finding ways to generate or augment their income. Online freelancing and work at home jobs have become a lifesaver for many, making the Internet the largest congregation of job posts and job seekers looking to fill each others’ needs. But for aspiring freelancers, one of the most commonly asked questions is ‘Where do I find job on the Internet?’
You could always google.
Or you can find some here. I decided to post some of the online jobs available all over the cyberspace to help you narrow down your search, and make this a regular feature on this blog. You can help yourself with a few jobs postings I found in the last 24 hours.
1. Banners 10 banners needed quickly Project
10 banners needed quickly freelance project is offered at getafreelancer. You will need to have Coder account before you place your bid. If interested, you can get your getafreelancer account. In case you already have an account with … The job is for 8 hours a day during weekdays and 1-2 hours a day during weekends. The job mostly consists of market research and analysis.. … • Full Time Programmer Needed I need a full time programmer that will be responsible for … GeekInterview Freelance Jobs – http://freelance.geekinterview.com/
2. Freelance Flash – Web Designer (Karachi) | Freelance Opportunities …
By mustaqeem.
Freelance Flash – Web Designer (Karachi) | Freelance Opportunities, Web Development Jobs in Karachi, Pakistan by Renfro Crescent | ApniJobs.com. Apnijobs.com – http://www.apnijobs.com/
3. Freelance Sales Executive Career Opportunity: Nation Media Group …
By jobsinkenya.
Job Ref: HR-FSE-03-09. Nation Media Group wishes to recruit suitably qualified Freelance Sales Executives for its Nation Broadcasting Division. We invite applicants who are performance driven and possess excellent transferable skills … Kenyan Jobs: A Collection of… – http://kenyanjobs.blogspot.com/
4. Data Entry Freelance Jobs
By admin.
Data Entry Freelance Jobs Freelance data entry job opportunities are available through the internet. This job helps you maintain flexible and convenient work. Moneyearner My Blog – http://www.moneyearner.co.uk/
A freelancer’s worst enemy
It has to be distraction. And it comes in many forms.
When I was still working in an office, people in our household seemed to handle everything by themselves pretty well. They can decide on what meals to cook, they can manage the home business that we have, and they can carry out almost anything on their own without having to consult me. But since I started working at home, they suddenly seemed crippled. Even when I would specifically tell them that I can’t entertain distractions and that I will be busy working inside my room. Even if I spell it out to them that what I’m doing is real W-O-R-K. Still, my day won’t end without a knock on my door and someone asking me ‘What are we going to cook for lunch?‘, ‘Dinner?‘. Or without a call or visit from a friend or a relative and who would say ‘Oh great, you’re at home. Can you help me with…‘
After all, I’m just at home, how busy can I get?
On some occasions, distractions are rather self-imposed. During afternoon breaks, I would casually wander off to the living room and watch my favorite lifestyle show every 4 p.m. It’s only a 30-minute program and decided that it’s a good way to relax my brain muscles for a while. But the 30 minutes would usually stretch to 4 hours as I flip channels and continuously find one interesting show after the other. By the time I finish watching TV, it’s already nighttime and I only have a few hours to work before another distraction, one that I often can’t win against, comes in. Sleep.
Actually, bed is also a diversion even more tempting than TV. Working on or beside your bed or anywhere within a close proximity to your bed is courting distraction. Some people encourage taking power naps. But if you’re like me who feels sleepy for every 2 hours that I’m close to my bed, it’s not empowering any more than it is disrupting my work.
Another form of distraction, at least for some, is food. Normally, on my super-productivity mode (as my client would call it), I can endure to skip lunch or dinner just to avoid breaking up the momentum. But lately, whenever my boyfriend would open a bag of chips or a pack of biscuits in front me, I can’t resist not to eat. I hate to get my keypad dirty so I would really have to step away from my laptop and empty that bags of chips no matter how big it is.
How much do you really need?
A few months ago, I was feeling a bit restless bordering on panic mode, having just resigned from my regular job. Although I was able to pocket a lump sum, I don’t have a job anymore and however big the amount of money I have, it can only last for so long.
How will I able to sustain myself? How can I buy my stuff? How about my shopping and dining out?
Those were the thoughts that raced through my head whenever I allowed myself time to reflect on my situation. Although I did eventually got into online freelancing, my income was still much leaner than my salary as an employee. It entered my mind that I may have made a wrong decision letting go of a job that was supposed to give me financial stability, but I held fast to it and tried to find something valuable in the experience than wallow in regret.
Until recently, a beautiful realization came to me when I was at the shopping mall. I haven’t gone shopping for a while so I thought that maybe it would be a refreshing treat after beating myself with a lot of freelance work online. I had a good look around, stopped to admire some lovely pieces-clothes, bags, shoes, the usual stuff that filled my shopping bags before. Summer had just began and there were a lot of cute summer dresses on display, some nice pair of shorts and slip-ons. But no matter how charming they were, I simply didn’t have the desire to buy them.
Everytime I held a T-shirt or a pair of sandals in my hand, the first thing that came to my mind was ‘Do I really need this?‘ or ‘Where will I use this?‘. Surprisingly, being a compulsive shopper that I was, asking these questions was enough for me to let go of the item. And as I put more and more items back into the rack, I realized I really have so few things that I need to buy. Unlike the time when I was still working in a physical office, when it seemed that I needed a new batch of clothes every month, or that I needed another pair of shoes to go with the new dress I just bought, or that the leather of my bag had cracked and I needed a replacement. I was in a frenzy cycle of habitual spending, all the while thinking that those are necessities I can’t live without.
But now, all the things inside my closet are at least 6-month old and I don’t feel like they need to be replaced any time soon. I have streamlined my shopping list to the bare essentials and have cut not only my expenses, but the number of trips I make to the store. The less I go there, the less opportunity for spending.
Why the sudden change in my behavior? (which only confirms that yes, shopaholism is curable).
Freelance Jobs for ‘Ordinary’ People
I would often see this question get asked in a local forum discussing about oDesk:
“I really have no talent at all. What can I possible do as a freelancer? Do you think oDesk will work for me?“
Firstly, oDesk will not work for you. You’ll have to do the work yourself. (Horrible joke, I know. Please forgive me, hahaha.) But seriously, for those of you who feel you have nothing whatsoever to offer as a freelancer, don’t despair. I’m sure there’s a job out there, whether inside or outside of oDesk, that will perfectly suit whatever skills you have.
Below, I’ve listed a few common administrative jobs that can open the door of freelancing for you.
1. Data entry / Copy-Paste. There’s a lot of clerical, copy-paste or cut-paste type of jobs in the internet. I guess, it’s just a matter of how accurate you are and how fast you can go.
2. Site Registration. Many buyers need to sign up to a number of membership sites for marketing purposes and most usually outsource this tedious but easy task to providers who can work fast.
3. Forum posting. Join forums and discussion boards, build some reputation and post or reply to threads relevant to the buyer’s product or website. Often, you need to find a discreet way to leave a link pointing back to the buyer’s website.
Share files with your boss, get DropBox
One of the hurdles of freelance jobs online is file sharing. Of course, if your task involves only one to a couple of files a day, any good email can handle that. But if the job entails 20 or more files, you should consider another solution.
I was introduced to DropBox by a client who hired me as a Virtual Assistant (VA). I’ve used a few online drives before. But the problem always come up when it’s time to sync the drive to another computer (that of my boss). My PC would always freeze and the only way out of it was a reboot. We found out later that we’re having conflict with the OS. Apparently, we need to have the same OS version for it to work seamlessly. Okay, that’s crap.
But DropBox is on a different league. Configuring to share a folder to another computer is as easy as sending an email. Once it’s shared, the dropbox folder acts exactly like the other folders in your local drive. Sync time is relatively fast depending on the number of files that you’re sharing and the size of each file. And best of all, the free account gives you 2GB of online storage. Ain’t that neat?
I suggested this to Darrel which he then mentioned to his client who hired him to edit thousands of images to be used on a book. Before DropBox, Darrel would download close to 300 image files from a private server everyday. After he’s finished editing the batch, he would divide it into small groups, upload them using large-file upload websites and give the download links to his client. The client will then download and unzip the files before giving Darrel the next batch of pictures to edit.
Upon learning about DropBox, his client immediately purchased a Pro account for roughly $10/month which gives her 50GB of space. She enrolled Darrel’s computer as one of her own so he can share with the 50GB also. Now, all they do is drag-and-drop pictures into their DropBox folders. Due to a sheer number of files being shared, they use a text file to note how many pictures are contained in each folder to make sure that they have the same numbers. Alternatively, you may also log on to the DropBox webiste and check the recent updates on your shared folders. The DropBox website also allows you to undo changes made and even restore deleted files to your folder (Note: Folder owners are the only ones who have access to this feature, which means that if the folder was just shared to you, you cannot unchange or undelete files).
How do I use DropBox?
The tale of the job that got away…
I’ve taken a variety of jobs as freelancer. I’ve been a writer, an SEO/virtual/marketing assistant, a blogger and a product reviewer to name a few. But there’s one job that stands out among all these, the one job that I kinda regret that I let go of.
It’s being a Google map marker.
I think the job was specific to the client that hired me, but basically what I needed to do was to mark all the parking lots in a particular area or city via Google Map and note if it’s an outdoor or an indoor parking space. It’s really easy and for someone who’s never been outside of the Philippines, traveling and seeing some of the cities in the US via Google Streetview could be the next best thing to physically being there. Around the time that I was doing this, I was also juggling 4-5 jobs in a week, and this assignment was my stress-reliever. It was the kind of job that could get you lose track of time.
But I came to the point where I realized that it’s nearly impossible for me to take 5 jobs via oDesk and still be able to deliver a decent quality of work for each of them. I was also brewing a project in my head and I figured that I can only have 1 assignment at a time so I can focus more on my project during its infancy stage. I was able to trim down my job assignments from 5 to 2, a virtual assistant position and this Google Map marking, but still I needed to choose just one.
The virtual assistant position was my obvious choice. I was being paid twice as much as the marking job rate, being exposed to some cool technologies, learning a lot of new things, plus it has the proverbial potentials for career growth. Whereas the marking job maybe as easy as PPC ads clicking, but it can be pretty stagnant .
Where will marking parking lots lead me?
The practical and career-smart person in me argued that while it was fun, I have to think of long term goals.
Inside oDesk: Payment Schedule
Payment for an oDesk hourly job is guaranteed but it’s not instantaneous. To better understand this, let’s look at the oDesk hourly week calendar:
The hourly work week starts every Monday at 00:00 GMT (Click here to know what time it will be in your time zone.) and ends Sunday at 23:59 GMT. On the following day (Monday of the next work week), you will receive a notification from oDesk reminding you to check your time log. This could mean adding offline hours that you worked on and/or removing idle time from your workdiary.
At 12:00 GMT, whether you check you time log or not, the final time log will be sent to the buyer for review. The buyer will be given until Thursday 23:59 GMT to go over and check the time log, approve or reject offline time added or dispute idle hours logged.
During this time, you will see a Pending Credit amount displayed on your Financial Activity page. After the review period, Friday 00:00 GMT, buyer will be charged with the corresponding amount. However, this will not be credited immediately to your account. You will now enter what oDesk refers to as the security period.
What is the security period?
To accelerate the payment process while continuing to offer our Provider Payment Guarantee, we are enforcing a 6-day Security Period on all transactions. This enables us to perform some security checks to identify suspicious transactions and maintain the integrity and security of the marketplace for all buyers and providers.
Successful Career… But why are you still not happy?
Have you ever come to a point in your career where it seems, at least to some people, that you’re doing okay–earning a decent amount of money, well on your way up the corporate ladder, steady and secured for a bright future–but it just doesn’t feel right for you? Somehow, somewhere inside you is an unanswered call to do something outside your perfect 9-5 job.
So let me ask the question again: you have a successful career, but why are you still not happy?
I persisted with that thought hovering like a black cloud above my head for a few years. I used to think that I was just an ungrateful person who’s too miserable to count my blessings, especially when my family and friends would say “You’re lucky. What more can you ask for?” Indeed, what more can I ask for?
But I found this interesting presentation that could very well explain why we feel the way we do towards our ostensibly successful careers. Take a few minutes to watch, I promise this will be well worth your time (Although at first, it may seem that it’s just a book sales pitch, but after you get pass that, you’ll find gem in the succeeding slides.)
Career Advice ‘08
View more presentations from garr. (tags: career advice)
