A few of my favorite resources

Greetings, Training for Translators readers!! This week’s post is pretty basic, but something all of us think about: a few of my favorite resources that might also be helpful to you.

Here they are, in no particular order, and with no affiliate deals

• The Neuron. You can hate AI, you can love AI, you can be terrified of AI, but the one thing you really don’t want to do is ignore AI. I wanted to subscribe to an AI newsletter written in human-speak, and my friend and colleague Veronika Demichelis recommended The Neuron, which I’ve really been enjoying and from which I’ve learned a ton. They have everything from a daily newsletter (it’s short and engaging; I do actually read it most days) to a free class about the basics of ChatGPT. Even if you see zero use for AI in your own work, The Neuron is a great resource.
• I wanted to buy a new interpreting headset, because I’ve had my current headsets (two Sennheiser SC65s, one for my office and one for home) since I did the Glendon MCI in 2020. I really like them, but a headset is a single point of failure (can’t interpret without it!) so I wanted to get a backup and try a different brand just for kicks. Unfortunately, my first try, a Jabra Evolve 40, was a fail. I love the rich, warm, sound of the microphone on Jabra headsets (contrasted with the crisper sound of Sennheisers), but the headband was way too tight (admittedly, I have a very large skull) and the ear cups felt like pleather muffins gripping my ears and blocking a ton of ambient sound, which I need to hear (my own voice!) in order to interpret. So I returned that and bought an Audio-Technica open-back gaming headset, and I love it! It’s super-comfortable, the incoming sound quality and microphone quality are excellent, and it’s light on my head (no neck strain). Definitely a win!
• Setting “dormant client nudge” reminders in Todoist. I’ve been a huge fan of the to-do app Todoist ever since my friend and colleague Meghan McCallum turned me onto it. It’s basically an electronic to-do list, but it’s way better than a reminders app, because you can pre-schedule things for way in the future (a conference that you want to attend next year), and you can set whatever reminder interval you want (I have mine set to remind me to meditate with the Calm app every weekday, to reconcile my accounting on the 5th of every month, etc.). And here’s another good use for it: Remind yourself to nudge your dormant clients at the beginning or middle of June and the beginning or middle of December. Why? Because in June, you’re “letting them know your availability for the summer,” and in December, you’re “letting them know your availability over the winter holidays.” We all struggle with nudging: it works, but it feels annoying. Make it less annoying by having these reasons to contact clients!
• Using TextAloud for text-to-speech proofreading. I love TextAloud so much that I wrote a blog post about it, and every once in a while, I’m reminded of how much I love it. I struggle with detailed editing because I read too fast. I recently did a complex legal translation that needed to be completely error-free for a court submission. TextAloud slows me down, helps me identify errors that I would miss if I were just reading the document, and it has a lot of convenience features that are missing in the MS Word “Read Aloud” function (see the blog post for details).
• Melanie Padgett Powers’ podcast The Deliberate Freelancer, and Jennifer Goforth Gregory’s new newsletter, “Goforth and freelance.” These are two freelance writers who I really admire, and I listen to/read pretty much everything they produce. I have long admired Jennifer’s blog with detailed monthly income breakdowns (including even a lot more detail than I put in my yearly income breakdown posts), so I really enjoy her new “for all freelancers” newsletter!

Thanks for reading, and I hope these resources are useful!