Best Practices

Aug 15th, 2007

Look Back on First Year of Freelancing

This week marks the 12-month anniversary of the day I left my safe cubicle in corporate America for the more adventurous world of freelance web design. I’ve already posted some of the things I’ve learned at the 2 month and 8 month marks. Here’s a look back at what I’ve learned with the wise and [...]

Jun 6th, 2007

Moving Out of the Home Office

This past week I left the comfort of my home for a one-room office 5 minutes from my house. I didn’t enter into this decision lightly, but I did enter into it fairly quickly. I sat down and thought about all the pros and cons for working in a home office versus a more traditional [...]

May 2nd, 2007

Include Support Costs in Your Quote

Projects have a natural ending point. You and the client are both satisfied with the work. Checks are cashed, and to-do list items are checked off. A few months later, the client calls you concerned because some particular feature isn’t what they expected. They had signed off on the completed work months ago, but this [...]

Apr 11th, 2007

Lessons Learned in the First 8 Months of Freelancing

One of the blogs I read regularly is that of AJAX designer Jesse Skinner. I’ve never had an extended conversation with the man, but he stands out in my memory in part because we started full-time freelancing at almost the exact same time. Naturally when he made a post about his first 2 months of [...]

Feb 28th, 2007

The Best Time Of Day To Work

Maybe there are people out there who have a consistent level of efficiency throughout the entire workday. If you are one of those people I salute you. For my own part, I’m reasonably efficient for most of the day, but I seem to have a sweet spot of a few hours in the late afternoon [...]

Feb 15th, 2007

5 Keys To Tell If You Would Be Happier As a Corporate Web Designer Or a Freelancer

Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I want to talk a little about love (as it relates to this blog, at least). I love being an independent web designer. I love being my own boss. On rare occasions I’ll find myself wondering if I would love going back to a traditional job. I think it’s worth considering [...]

Jan 31st, 2007

Scheduling Projects

It’s easy to overlook the importance of budgeting your time because it seems so simple. You feel like you instinctively know whether or not you have enough time to do a project this week, this month, or at all. In the beginning as your practice is growing, you’ll almost always be right. Sometimes you may [...]

Dec 20th, 2006

The Motivation of Accountability

It’s been a little over four months since I left my 9 to 5 job to do freelance web development full-time. Since I became self-employed, I’m not accountable to anyone else for my work habits. Of course I’m accountable to my paying customers for the work I produce, but what about marketing, accounting, and all [...]

Nov 30th, 2006

Dealing With Unplanned Diminished Capacity

Your watch isn’t broken. Wednesday came and went without the regular Best Practices post. Normally I’ll think about ideas during the week, but not start writing the post until Tuesday or Wednesday. In most cases, there’s no problem with that system. Which brings me to the topic of this post: unplanned diminished capacity.
Any freelancer has [...]

Oct 18th, 2006

Lessons Learned in the First 2 Months of Freelancing

Exactly two months ago today was the last time that I spent my day inside a cubicle. A lot has changed since then. I write a lot more of my code barefoot. I’ve been spending a lot less money on lunch. Beyond these and other trivial (but awesome!) differences, I’ve observed a few things related [...]

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