Telephone interruptions

We hardly consider how much time we waste on telephonic conversations each day. Many of us are quite glued to our phones and don’t even realize how we waste a potent portion of the day conversing on phone. While working keep your phone either in silent mode or switch it off. It’s a big interruption while working.

Extended lunch breaks

While working at office, lunch is definitely not just a matter of eating, but also unwinding oneself. At the same time, extended lunch break filled with gossiping can actually prove to be a serious hazard. Keep lunch break relaxing, but not too addictive that you wish to carry it on and on for hours.

Frequent coffee or smoke breaks

At work place people are often seeing taking too frequent tea, coffee and smoke breaks. These are highly addictive and time wasters. You may think it’s a great way of unwinding yourself, but when done too frequently it’s more like a bad habit. You may end up socializing during these breaks and wasting lot of time.

Small naps are never small

People are often seeing taking small naps in-between work. But in reality they are hardly small ones get extended and definitely waste lot of time. They are addictive too, you may soon start regular naps. Rather than taking naps in between work, try to finish work first and then sleep with a relaxed mind.

Socializing on the job

People often socialize too much at work place, indulge into gossiping and waste big amount of time in a day.

Television watching

Television is one addictive medium, which results into severe time wastage. If you wish to watch something particularly on television, make sure you watch it only and don’t keep the television on for extended long hours. It results into huge time killing.

Social networking websites

These days a major chunk of the professionals, students, even home makers devote a large portion of their daily schedule in social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Hi5, MySpace and the like. They are highly addictive and cause serious damage to work schedule.

Poor planning
Ill planning of daily schedule or inability to set priority of work can land one into grave problem. Start planning your daily work, set a priority ladder of most important work towards least important ones. Work on the same, accordingly.

Multi tasking

Don’t try to juggle between too many works. Work on a specific job at a time. Too many works at a time can distract you from your goal and shared attention results into average quality work.

Your copy or content has to perform in this chaotic world. Wouldn’t it be too much to ask your content to do without providing it the weapon necessary to cut through the clutter? Those weapons are scannability, keywords, and short paragraphs. You need to keep following things in mind when writing for the web:

1. Keep the paragraph short. You are not creating a literary piece, so there is no need to make the paragraphs long. 3 to 4 sentences long paragraphs are enough.
2. Divide your articles using headings and subheadings.
3. Use important items as bullet points.
4. Use keywords in H1, H2, H3, and other heading tags.
5. Use primary keyword as early in the title as you can.
6. Use important keywords in the first 50 words, or at least in first 100 words.
7. Use headings and subheadings to communicate key ideas.
8. Use standard font in the blog or article you post on your website, so that most of the people can read the items.
9. You can also insert images and tables in an article or blog post to make the article scannable.
10. Keep the sentences shorter.
11. Do not confuse your readers by addressing too many issues in a small article. Keep it simple.

Your article or blog post should be constructed in such a way that your audience gets the central idea in the first 30 seconds. This is the amount of time one has for any online item. The visitors may stay longer if you succeed in retaining the audiences’ attention within this time limit.

Time management tips for freelance writers

Tip 1: Fix schedule for each client

The very first thing a freelance writer can do to manage time is to set a schedule, client-wise. Let’s say you have three full time clients and one or two one-time clients. Fix one proper time for each permanent client and keep one-time projects floating in between them. For instance, you can work from nine to eleven on Client A and then from one to three on Client B and from four to six on Client C, and keep the other one-time projects floating in between them depending upon when you get time. Do not follow my two-hours to one client timing. You can vary the duration of work according to the amount of work given to you.

Tip 2: Make a weekly list of articles to write

If you have a permanent client who needs so many articles each week then you should take one day out, probably Saturday, to make a list of articles’ titles that you should write in the coming week. This will save you a lot of time cracking an article idea at the time of writing.

Tip 3: Use Word 2007 for blogging

I am writing this post using blog feature of Word 2007. This is very handy. You can use it to write and publish blog posts. All you need to do is add accounts using XMLRPC link to the client’s blog. IF you do not have word 2007 then you can also consider using other offline blog editors. It will save a significant amount of time.

Tip 4: Install Clutter Cloak

On computer, it is quite easy to get distracted, and it is equally easy to save yourself from distraction while writing. You can save a lot of time by installing clutter cloak or any other similar application on your computer.

There are many more things that you can do to save yourself the horror of missed deadlines. Stick to these and see the improved performance.

What to do when clients are hard to come by?

• Look for more clients: This is the first thing you should do, but do not waste inordinate amount of time on client searching. 2-3 hours a day should be more than sufficient. Scan twitter, job sites, and freelance boards and see if you can land up in a good deal.
• Work on the basics: There are some shortcomings in your writing which you have noticed earlier as well, but due to unavailability of time, you could not work on improving them. Now as you do not have many works, why do not you take it as an opportunity to improve your writing skills? You may want to revisit English grammar, or you may want to read some books on writing, or attend some class. This is the right time to invest in improving your skills.
• Start you own project: In the years or months you worked for your clients, you must have thought of starting some exciting project: may be write an e-book or create an informational product, or a course, or a website, or a blog. This is the time to execute the plans you were making. Why do not you start working on the stuffs you have been planning for long?
• Spend time with your family: It often happens with us that when there are lots of works to finish within a tight deadline then we tend to overlook our family. As you do not have much work, you should spend your time with your family, and recover the lost family-time.
• Take a vacation: If you have sufficient bank balance to pay for your vacation then cash in on the opportunity you got and take your family for a long due family vacation.

These represent just tip of the iceberg. There are many more things that you can do. Just be creative and plan out something.

Keep in mind that content is key.  Converting a free blog into a money making blog is a long difficult process, but one that you complete by putting the work in.  Make sure that your blog has an attractive and visually appealing template.  Something that makes a user feel comfortable, and that allows your blog to be easily read.  A safe bet is to use cooler colors, as they are more calming, instead of anything too vibrant.

Your writing will also need a little bit of an upgrade as well.  You’re not just writing for yourself anymore, you’re writing to get people to find your blog and remain interested.  That means you have to write concise, not overly long, and entertaining entries.  Let your unique voice and personality shine, and make sure not to write entries that are too long.  Readers want to be entertained, but long articles can leave most doubting whether or not they want to read what’s written.

From there you should be able to steadily build an audience.  You want to pay attention to traffic and the amount of time the average user is on your site.  You can find resources for this through services like Google’s Analytics.  See what content inspires interest, and try and build on your good stats by writing to those strengths.

Now you should be ready to make a little money.  Use programs like Google’s Adsense, and look to websites like Amazon.com which offer payment for affiliate links.  Through these you can start earning money off the traffic from your blog.  Just remember, the longer you keep someone on the page, the more impressions and likelihood of clicks you’re going to get.  You want as much as possible of both.  With grabbing headlines and engaging content, you should be well on your way.

Start out getting the certifications you will need in entry level IT opportunities.  Study and gather certificates in Cisco, Java, and Microsoft platform related applications.  This is a good thing to do while you are pursuing a degree from either a 4 year University, or a technical college.  This way you’re setting yourself up for the industry, while getting your education, better preparing yourself in a shorter amount of time.

As you are learning, make sure that you always keep track of IT related news and trends.  The industry is in a constant flux of new ideas and constant change, keeping up on that is very  important.  Only by staying current can you make yourself into an asset at any job you’d like to get in the future.  So keeping your skills and knowledge up to date is invaluable.

Look for a few trade groups that you can join, during your education and beyond, so that you can network within the industry.  Networking is a vital component of any industry, but especially for one that is constantly changing like the IT field.  Getting connected with people already in the industry will help you find entry level positions when you’re out of school.  Not to mention connecting with those that have established themselves helps you learn what’s necessary to succeed in the end.

Finally, make the most of every opportunity.  Take advantage of the first job you get straight out of school, and work hard and apply that knowledge you have in every way.  You first opportunity can make or break you, so take full advantage.

-Make sure your speech shows your confidence.  Flow as if it’s only conversation, but show your command of the presentation that you are making.  By making this feel like conversation but showing your command, you gain more positive attention.

-Don’t make a speech where your audience is left asking, but why do I care?  You only have a short amount of time, but make sure you instill a good understanding of your points.  Make sure why your presentation matters to them, comes across.

-Familiarize yourself with your speech so that you know your facts in and out.  The worst thing you could possibly do in that short amount of time, is rambling.  Don’t fumble for words, or your speech will suffer as a result.

-This is more of an informal presentation, so do be friendly.  The elevator speech is more of an informal  presentation, but don’t lose your professionalism in the process.

-Try to stick to more listener friendly language, explaining things simply and completely.  Rather than going for big vivid descriptions, as you just don’t have the time for a speech like that.

-Finally, try to project your  passion and belief for what you are presenting.  If you don’t have any, find some or your speech will fail.  A good aura stemming from a belief in which you’re talking about will radiate on your audience.  So make sure you believe in what you are saying.

How to guides

How many times have you searched the Internet to find information on tweaking or fixing errors your operating system or software, or fixing your broken car speaker, or to know about buying insurance, etc.? Each time you search for some information to help you do something or decide something; you are searching for How to Guides. Why not help your visitors by writing such helps in a proper “how to…” style?

Example:

1. How to Find a Right Cell Phone.
2. How to Clean your Carpet.
3. How to Fix your Drycleaner.

Best of/Top 10

Best of something or top ten something is a big attention drawer. Using this type of headlines will pull more visitors to your site then you ever expected. More often than not, the article or blogpost falling under such headlines are written in a list format.

Example:

1. Top Ten Benefits of Yoga.
2. Best Antivirus of 2009.
3. Top Ten Videos of 2009.

Tell the benefits through outright headlines

Sometimes, being direct helps a lot in retaining visitors’ attention. Tell the visitors directly about the benefits he you are going to talk about in the following article. Outright or direct headline can also be used to make a bold statement.

Example:

1. Piano lessons in 30 Days.
2. Make Free Calls Anywhere in the World.
3. Work from Home & Earn Six-Figure Income.

Testimonial Headlines

Testimonials are the best way to state the benefits and sell the product. Advertisers have known this, since always. No wonder there are so many testimonial advertisements in newspapers and television. By using a testimonial headline for your blogpost or article, you will reap the same rewards that advertisers have been reaping for ages.

Example:

1. I Lost 30 Pounds Using This Secret Formula, You can lose too.
2. At First I did not Trust Him, BUT He is the Best Insurance Advisor.

First off, it’s not like you’re going to be getting to play your favorite game for hours on end, having fun and making a living wage from your efforts.  In actuality you’re forced to play something that’s likely to he horrible, for long periods of time, and analyzing every second of the experience.  Game testers are around to spot the smallest things, such as graphical errors, or collision detection issues with a game’s physics engine, and these require a massive amount of time to completely figure out.  So instead of playing through a level and getting paid for it, you’re really critiquing every pixel in the level to a daunting extent, and reporting back to development teams so that they can fix and edit the game accordingly.

Not exactly a party.

Not to mention a game testers schedule becomes increasingly more grueling as deadlines begin to loom.  Meaning a tester could end up putting in 12 to 14 hour days, playing the same levels and portions of gameplay over and over again, with the same repetitive movements and requirements, in an effort to nit pick every single detail.  Not exactly a dream job, and you can see why most testers burn out in a relatively short period of time.

I’m thinking most people misjudge the opportunity as a dream job, and then find themselves shocked into reality when they see just how much work playing videogames can be.