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SHOWING NEWS 371–380 OUT OF 727

April 13, 2022

FREELANCER’S FINANCES

An article titled A Freelancer’s Guide to Organizing Finances outlines clearly some fundamentals for beginning freelancers:

  • Separate personal and business finances
  • Create and follow a budget
  • Pay yourself first
  • Have money set aside in an emergency fund
  • Save for retirement
  • Continue to pay off debt
  • Don’t forget about insurance
  • Set money aside for taxes
  • Plan for ups and downs
  • Have confidence in your finances

Our take: Most of it is quite sensible, except perhaps the Pay yourself first rule. You should pay your helpers first unless agreed otherwise. Not paying others (because you paid yourself first) can easily damage your reputation.

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April 12, 2022

U2: WALK ON UKRAINE

U2 has released a song titled Walk On Ukraine, played and sung by Bono and Edge. They have joined an ever-growing number of independent artists in support of Ukrainians suffering under the Russian invasion.

Last week, another legendary band, Pink Floyd, released its first new song in 28 years, Hey Hey Rise Up, to support Ukraine.

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April 11, 2022

CONTENT ENTREPRENEUR

Joe Pulizzi, who popularized the term content marketing years ago, suggests a new term for professionals who earn a living by creating content — content entrepreneurs. He describes a content entrepreneur as a person who, quote:

  1. Delivers consistent information to a group of people, with plans to build a loyal audience and then monetize that audience over time.
  2. Creates content to build a long-term, successful business (not as a hobby).
  3. Begins primarily on one channel (as a podcaster, a blogger, a YouTuber) and then diversifies into many channels.
  4. Generates revenue from their audience in multiple ways.

Our take: We would prefer the term contentpreneur as an alternative. But Joe is right that creator economy is a much broader term that also includes people who create content as a hobby, as well as makers who, for example, sell handicrafts on Etsy (i.e., they are involved in creator economy but are not content creators). As he writes: “Terms are important.”

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April 8, 2022

PINK FLOYD: HEY HEY RISE UP

Pink Floyd has released their first new music — in 28 years! They and many other independent artists all over the free world are rushing to support Ukrainians in their fight for freedom and dignity.

Can we now get a new Harry Potter book from J. K. Rowling, please? 😊

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April 7, 2022

SHORTER EMAILS

The Problem: Email takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow for those who receive a lot of it.

The Solution: Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it’s too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.

That’s the key idea behind the Sentenc.es microsite that can be linked from an email signature or footer. Also known as Five Sentenc.es — or Four, or Three, or Two.

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April 6, 2022

FREECODECAMP.ORG

Do you want to learn coding? Stop right here: freeCodeCamp is an amazing free resource with over 40,000 graduates since 2014 and more than 5 million subscribers to their YouTube channel packed with tutorials and technical courses.

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April 4, 2022

20 INDEPENDENT MAGAZINES

Creative Boom has published a list of 20 independent magazines that every creative should have on their coffee table — as a source of inspiration:

“As any creative professional will tell you, the more inspiration we can soak up, the better. But as we can't get out and see the world as much as we'd like, it's nice to have the world come to us.”

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April 1, 2022

THE 3/3/3 TECHNIQUE

Oliver Burkeman, who writes books and The Imperfectionist newsletter about personal productivity, has recently introduced his 3/3/3 technique. Every normal working day, his intention is:

  • to spend 3 hours on his most important current project, having defined some kind of specific goal for the progress he aims to make on it that day;
  • to complete 3 shorter tasks, usually urgent to-dos or “sticky” tasks he’s been avoiding, usually just a few minutes each (he counts calls and meetings here, too); and
  • to dedicate time to 3 “maintenance activities”, things that need his daily attention in order to keep life running smoothly.

Simply powerful, right?

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March 31, 2022

CREATIVE SHELTER

#CreativeShelter provides creative industry jobs (incl. freelance ones) for refugees arriving in Czechia, Poland, Germany, Austria, and Slovakia:

“After the recent tragic events in Ukraine, we are witnessing thousands of people heading to central Europe looking for a temporary shelter. Not only do they need our help with transport and accommodation, they will also need to find a job that will provide them with money, give them a distraction from the terrible events at home and engage them in life in their new (temporary) shelter … We, as creative industry professionals, stand with those fleeing to safety.”

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March 31, 2022

MOST IMPORTANT TASK (MIT)

Another popular personal productivity approach among freelancers is the Most Important Task strategy (or MIT). It aims at prioritizing 1-3 key tasks a day towards accomplishing your most important goals. There are countless variations of MIT, e.g. by Leo Babauta.

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