Inside Freelance Design

Issue #28
June 29, 2006

Welcome to Inside Freelance Design (IFD), your free, bi-weekly e-letter from American Writers & Artists Inc. Every other week, you can receive this special alert with secrets, tips, and insights from AWAI's graphic design pros to help you improve your skills and reach your goal of becoming a professional graphic designer in the fastest time possible.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Avoiding the “I Can't Get Anything Done” Quagmire
Quick Tip: How to Get Free Paper Samples
The IFD Mailbag
EXTRA! EXTRA! News and Job Opportunities

Avoiding the “I Can't Get Anything Done” Quagmire
By Lori Haller

When you become a freelancer, you quickly discover a major pitfall of working from home. Nobody understands or respects the “working” part of the phrase.

Everybody assumes that if you're at home, you're not really working. You're as free as ever to talk on the phone, do housework, fix the sink, or tend to the kids.

Here are 6 strategies to keep you out of the “I can't get anything done” quagmire … or to pull you out if you're already there.

1. Establish the Work Mindset

There's one person you must convince more than any other to respect your work time. That person is you.

Start every workday by saying out loud: “I'm at work now.” And don't forget it. If your life is such that you have to do your freelancing work in several sessions throughout the day, say those words every time you sit down to work. Use them with other people when necessary.

2. Establish a Balanced Schedule

Get a big piece of butcher paper and make a 7-day calendar. Fill in any times when you have something you absolutely have to do that cannot be done any other time.

Set aside time for yourself and your family too – time for daily exercise and family activities.

After you've filled in these times, what's left is potential work time. But it's important that you not schedule all that leftover time for work. You need to be flexible. So choose times for work when you're less likely to have outside demands. Be reasonable, but be strict with yourself. You might, for example, schedule yourself to be at work from 9 to 2, when the kids are at school.

3. Set Up an Office Area

Your “office” doesn't have to be a separate room, though it helps. But if that's not possible, designate an office area that's visually distinct from the rest of the house. You want to be able to tell friends and family that when you're in your office, you're not to be disturbed.

4. Get Family Agreement About Work Space and Work Hours

Take time to talk with all family members about why you work at home. Tell them how nice it is to not have to commute, to set your own hours, and to make the money you deserve to help out the family. Get them to agree that during work times, and when you're in your office, it's exactly the same as if you were 10 miles away and physically unavailable.

It's especially important to get your spouse to understand … and agree to ... your work schedule.

5. Recognize and Manage Distractions

Email can eat up a lot of your time. Do a quick first-check of emails in the morning. Then schedule 2 or 3 other times in the day to check again. Read only work-related email during your work time.

Invest in Caller ID or an answering machine with call screening. Don't answer any calls that aren't work-related during your work time. You don't have to answer a phone just because it rings. If people get irritated by your new attitude, explain why you've adopted it.

Do not take TV breaks during work time. TV is addictive. Avoid radio programs that get you talking back to them. Use radio or music only as background to keep you from feeling isolated.

6. The Special Case of Children

Set rules for your children about when it's important to be quiet. When I'm on the phone, even my little guy knows that means I'm talking with a client and he needs to find something to do until I am done.

I try to keep business calls brief. As soon as I wrap up a call, I tell each child what a great job he did. Make sure to properly thank family members for following the rules. Praise them for their help and kindness.

Get your children interested in what you do. I have my boys color, draw, or decorate file folders for me. We talk about business, and I get the chance to show them what I do and how I do it.

Get them interested in art. Show them color guides and Pantone books and see if they can pick a new color for your clients' business card.

Keep stock photo books on a bookshelf set aside for them, and show them how much fun it can be to cut out interesting pictures and make a collage.

Have the older ones help out by spending time reading with the little ones. Have the smaller folks help out by doing simple tasks like picking up their toys. Just 30 minutes of their help each day makes all the difference in the world. It also teaches all family members how to be part of a team, work together, and complete a task together.

[Ed. Note: Lori Haller is a dedicated mother of 3 young boys who has successfully integrated family life with a hugely successful career. She'll share many of her success-producing design strategies at AWAI's November's Graphic Design Bootcamp. What's more, she'll share her proven secrets for managing family and time. http://www.awaionline.com/graphicsbootcamp/]

* * * * * * * * Highly Recommended * * * * * * * *

“Bootcamp was a fun and exciting experience and very well presented. A must attend conference if you plan on 'getting serious' about graphic design.

There were enough potential clients at the Job Fair alone to make it very worthwhile. I have been busy with work – NON-STOP since Bootcamp! I think that paid for the trip and then some!” -- Dennis R., Prairieville, LA

Spots for this year's FastTrack to Graphic Design Success are filling up FAST!

If you haven't reserved your place yet, make sure you do so today by calling Barb, Pat or Pam at 866-879-2924.

Learn more: http://www.awaionline.com/graphicsbootcamp/

QUICK TIP: How To Get Free Paper Samples

Contact your local paper company and ask for paper samples. Sample books are always well designed. They're beautiful to look at. And they're usually free.

It's good to get acquainted with a variety of paper stocks – smooth, matte, gloss, and specialty papers that have textures or additional fibers woven in.

Familiarize yourself with paper thickness, too. This becomes important when you work with a client on a direct-mail piece that mails first-class and needs to weigh no more than 1 ounce.

* * * * * * * * Advertisement * * * * * * * *

SHIFT YOUR DESIGN CAREER INTO OVERDRIVE AND FINALLY START EARNING WHAT YOU'RE WORTH

Learn how: http://www.thedesignerslife.com/overdrive/

FROM THE IFD MAILBAG…
by Kristin Schwarz

Hello, everyone!

We open this week's Mailbag with a tip from one of our members.

Dear Kristin,

I want to recommend a site for your readers: http://www.bamagazine.com/. It's an appealing site for learning graphics and design concepts.

Murtaza A.
Cairo

Dear Murtaza,

Thank you so much for sharing this site with us. For many years, Before and After Magazine has been a great resource for new designers as well as designers with a lot of experience.

Now, here's a great time-saving feature in Adobe InDesign that I recently discovered ...

If you are working on several direct-mail pieces for the same company, you'll be using some information that's repeated over and over – for example, telephone numbers, addresses, the guarantee, and/or a list of bonuses.

If you have this information in another document, you could use the standard copy/paste feature. But if you do that, the information will be pasted into your new document exactly as it appears in the source document you copied it from. And that could be a problem if the source document has a different paragraph style (font, color, size) than the one you're pasting it into.

So, here's what you do ...

Simply copy (Edit > Copy) as usual. Pick the appropriate insertion point in your new document. Then go to Edit > Paste without Formatting. The information will be pasted using the new formatting.

Until next time ...

Kristin

[Ed. Note: If you have a question or comment for Kristin, please send it to:
insidefreelancedesign@awaionline.com, Attn: Kristin Schwarz.]

EXTRA! EXTRA! News and Job Opportunities

GRAPHIC DESIGNER - Schwan Food Company needs a graphic designer capable of creating a wide variety of materials including brochures, catalogs, print advertisements and more. They want someone who will work in their Marshall, Minnesota office as part of their marketing team. You should be experienced, creative, and knowledgeable of Quark, Illustrator, Photoshop. Send your resume and cover letter to Deanne Thomas at deanne.thomas@schwans.com.

GRAPHIC DESIGNER - Stark & Associates, an ad agency located in North Carolina, seeks an entry level graphic designer. You should be skilled in both print and online design, and you must be organized and able to manage several projects at once. You'll work on the layout and design of numerous marketing and sales materials. Send your resume and work samples to Kevin Nichols at kn@starkpr.com.

GRAPHIC DESIGNER - PennySaver, the nation's largest shopping magazine, needs an experienced graphic designer to fill a senior level position with their marketing team. They want someone with the vision to develop results-driven campaigns that will raise the marketing standards within the company. Send your resume and work samples to Paul Ezelle at pezelle@pennysaverusa.com.

COMING NEXT ISSUE:

Using Web-Based Slide Shows to Promote Your Business
Quick Tip: A Great, Easy Resource for Learning about Type

* ABOUT INSIDE FREELANCE DESIGN *

Inside Freelance Design is a FREE bi-weekly newsletter from American Writers & Artists Inc., available to AWAI members and friends.

ARCHIVED ISSUES of Inside Freelance Design can be found on our website at www.thedesignerslife.com/insidefreelancedesign.

To ADVERTISE in Inside Freelance Design or send comments, news, research, or story ideas, email Kristin Schwarz at graphics@awaionline.com.

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Issue #28 June 29, 2006