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Wrote this article in Medium.com by Sep 25 2019

1. Don’t be a “Free” Lancer

Freelancing is not ‘Free’lancing. Many people take the freelancers for granted and try to squeeze work from them by not paying properly or try to cheat at the end. Develop a practice to spot such people or organization and ignore them. Never go by the promises given by many websites in the media and spend money or pay any fees in the name of getting the opportunity. There is no concept of ‘Quick money’ in the world. Never fall for such fraudulent websites/organizations. There are many frauds in websites such as freelancer.com. They would extract from your work and never return back to pay for your hard earned work.

2. Patience

Patience is virtue. Develop patience and it should be always lingering in your brain, even if the clients try to corner you. They might not have read the resume properly. They might not be aware of your education background. They might not understand in which situation and environment you are. All they would be focusing is on the delivery of the task you are working and since it is a freelancing task, they will be counting every penny they spend on you. Hence your self ego should be kept aside and be sure to receive the task.

Develop patience, if they have not paid on time. Be sure to make a firm statement with respect to payment. If they miss to pay one cycle try to be patient for another one. If they constantly don’t pay but expect tasks from you make a honorary exit by making a logical conclusion of the task. Be good always. Think you got relevant experience as a benefit instead of money.

Never allow for abuse, inappropriate words charged against you. Send a thank you note cordially and break the relationship as per the contract.

3. Focus

Try to understand the task and focus on collecting the required information to complete the task. Join the calls on time and never indulge in unnecessary conversations that might digress you from receiving the most relevant information. Contact the clients only through the defined media and never try to contact the clients through other social media if they are not interested to do so.

4. Detail Orientation

Get as much information as possible and collect them in a systematic manner. Do some homework before you start with the client and think on all the possibilities of the task. Do not ask irrelevant questions and waste the limited time given to you. List down the questions, prioritize them based on the available time. Be smart to identify the whitespaces of any task and be ready to point out them at the end of every task. This may lead to the award of the next project.

5. Time consciousness

Give importance to the deadlines marked by the client. For them time is precious. Try to complete in the given period of time attached with quality in work. Never say a task is ‘Complete’ unless otherwise it is 100% complete. If completed less than that, be honest and develop a practice to say you have completed n%. If you cannot complete the task in a given time, raise your hands before the deadline. List down the challenges, constraints, impediments to finish the tasks and send it to the clients. Do not include personal issues such as internet failure, power breakdown, in the impediments issues.

6. Culture Awareness

Google on the culture, creed, religion and nature of the clients based on their geography. Study on their accents, how they express anger or sarcasm. Be aware of their email patterns and accordingly respond. Do not reply immediately and be sure to be proactive and not reactive.

7. Aware of Timezone difference

Never disturb the clients at odd hours. Understand their time zone and act accordingly. Same way educate the clients also on your time zone, religious active timings etc.

8. Payment Consciousness

Negotiate payment pattern, invoice dates, invoice format before in hand and before taking up the tasks. Create a mutual trust between you and the client such that both parties are not affected by the payment related issues. Try demanding 20–30% and charge it before starting the task. This would create a commitment and trust between both the parties. Understand how much they are going to pay, research on the currency they are going to pay. Do not regret if you have not done the math properly after receiving the payment. Tabulate all your income and analyze the pattern of income, every year. Based on the analysis, you may demand more from the clients, based on the complexity of the tasks. Having a paypal account is one good way of transferring money!

9. Keep trying

Keep trying for new clients, through social media and reputed web sites such as LinkedIn. Be assertive and list down your unique selling points, whenever you get a chance. Do not write stories in your cover letter and be sure to be very short and crisp to explain your talents. While on a discussion, practice not to compare the clients or talk about the micro lever details of the project. Ensure that your unique selling points are the key takeaways for the customer!

A sudden enlightenment came to me last week. Every day, once I wake up and open my mobile, I find these Whatsapp notifications. Initially when I got into this latest and greatest communication system, I used to feel proud and excited. Oh, my! So many people in my contact, so much of information, so much of affection and concern over me to send so much details and forwards.

Slowly, this feeling started to wane off. The same notifications started to look like monsters for me. So much of forwards, so much of advise, so much of life quotes, so much of flowery good morning messages! Approximately it used to take minimum one hour to clear up all the notifications, check emails and start off the day!

My mind started to ask myself! Is it worth to spend 60 precious minutes of a every beautiful morning! Is it good to gobble up so much information within such short time? Is it good to learn life lessons by reading the mood driven quotes sent by some friend, who got broke up with her boyfriend? Or, in reverse, If I post something, people follow my mood, my personal life gets exposed easily.

I hated to imagine, as if my privacy is being exposed with my permission, apart from other side effects such as time loss, stress, anxiety, depression etc. due to so many forwards, quotes, medical miracle forwards etc. etc…

Hey! A sudden decision sparkled! Left all the groups from Whatsapp on a fine morning! Yes! Indeed! I did it. Initially for 2-3 hours, fingers automatically tapped Whatsapp! Oh! No messages! Mind cribbed for a while! No one for me, mind said! Fingers, body and soul together kept on searching for something!

But after a day, what a sense of relief! I started to opt for my own choice of options, to spend my quality time. Had fun with the neighbor’s kid. Read a book! Smiled at someone in the lift. Greeted the security guard! Got away from gossips, too much information, unnecessary forwards, depressing videos, facts with no facts etc.

I see the so called Whatsapp groups, has lost the meaning of its purpose which is primarily meant for communication. In the name of communication it is eating our my precious living moments all together. Family groups which are meant to pass love and affection are pouring advise and life quote videos. Friends groups which are supposed to have fun and laughter has started to forward inappropriate videos leading to so much of waste of time.

Yes! Coming out of social media is good and that too from Whatsapp groups is too good in many ways! One could read books, watch real butterfly in their own garden, see the sun peeping out of clouds, enjoy rain and so on, can be done which will bring real life pleasure than watching a no nonsense video laying on your bed!

Just as my soul, my mobile also got lightened and performs well, due to zero download of media and photos!

I see a new life now!

Raknahs – I speak my mind

I speak my mind here!

time

Freelancing is not so easy!