Greetings, Training for Translators readers! It’s August! Vacation season for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere!

Perhaps your mind isn’t on work, and you’re getting a well-deserved break. This year, I front-loaded my summer adventures in May and June (Fiji, Grand Canyon, cello camp), but in honor of summer vacation, I’ll be sharing some short mindset tips in the next few newsletters, then we’ll get back to the regular format in September. This week: how to use strategies and processes to combat overthinking! 

Ways to combat overthinking 

Today’s tip: the value of systems, policies, and processes for when you overthink things in your business (which most of us do!). 

I’m more freeform than rigid in my freelance business, but I think that systems, policies and processes can help us avoid decision fatigue (the energy drain of wanting to make the perfect decision) and analysis paralysis (in the face of too many options, we end up doing nothing). This allows us to save our energy for actually doing things, rather than thinking (and thinking) about doing things. Here are three ways I use this strategy in my business:

Find freedom in policies 

When I first started doing more interpreting, I found the scheduling aspect very stressful; sometimes more stressful than the actual interpreting. When you’re exclusively a translator, you can usually squeeze in a project for a good client. The work is entirely on your own schedule, so it’s not the end of the world if you work the occasional night or weekend. But with interpreting, schedule conflicts happen all the time. No sooner have you accepted a half-day assignment, when another client asks if you can do a three-day assignment that overlaps with the half day you’ve already committed to. This kind of thing was making me nuts. Should I cancel because I could make more money with the better offer? Try to find someone to replace me for the half day? The solution: a policy. I simply decided that I never cancel an already-scheduled interpreting assignment if I get a better offer. That doesn’t mean it’s the right decision; it means that I’m no longer stressed about whether to cancel. The point of the policy isn’t to make the perfect decision, it’s to stop the case-by-case anguish. This has really helped me. 

Set budgets and priorities for “bottomless pit” categories 

I think most of us feel that we could invest an unlimited amount of time and money in professional development: conferences, webinars, workshops. There’s just so much good stuff to choose from, but we don’t have an unlimited amount of time and money. Here’s where budgets and priorities come in! First, set a budget. It doesn’t really matter what the budget is (see above: the point isn’t to make the perfect decision). Your budget could be 5% of your gross income (this is what many large corporations spend per employee), or a flat amount: $500, $5,000, any amount that feels right to you. Second, set some guidelines. For example, I’m horrible at watching recorded webinars. I pay, then I never watch them. So I made a guideline: no webinars unless I can either attend live, or block out a time in my schedule *before I register* so that I know when I’m going to watch the recording. Your guideline could be something totally different; all that’s important is that you have one. 

Remind yourself that direction is more important than perfection 

As freelancers, we love to fixate on the perfect way to do things. The best marketing methods, the best day or time to send an e-mail. These can be good questions, but they can also be major energy-sucks. Instead, what if you simplified down to something like this:

• Every Tuesday, nudge a dormant client or follow up with a prospective client
• Every Wednesday, contact a new client 
• Every Thursday, spend 30 minutes on LinkedIn, sending connection requests to prospective clients 

If you do this, you’re headed in the right direction. Is it perfect? Probably not. Is it about 1,000 times more marketing than the average freelancer does? Definitely yes. 

These three “anti-overthinking” strategies have really helped me. I hope you also find them helpful. Have a great week!

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Greetings, readers! A quick newsletter for this hot (at least here in Colorado!) summer week, from two books I’ve been reading lately:

• Ed Gandia’s newsletter recently mentioned the book Time Off: A practical guide to building your rest ethic and finding success without the stress, by John Fitch and Max Frenzel. Ed mentioned a specific concept in the book: making a “More of/Less of” list for what you want in (or out of!) your life, and using that as “a practical compass for daily decisions.” I loved this idea, so I got the book (was able to get the electronic version free from my local library).

Here’s what appeals to me about this concept, and this book: it’s an actual strategy. To me, lots of personal growth/self-improvement advice boils down to, “just don’t do the things that make you nuts.” Worry less! It will all work out! And honestly, if it were that easy, we wouldn’t be, well…nuts. Personally, I need a strategy, and here it is: write a two-column list, with 5-10 things that you want more of in your life, and 5-10 things that you want less of. When you’re faced with a dilemma: should I accept this work project, should I go back to school, should I say yes to this friend, you ask yourself: does it align with my “More of” list, or my “Less of” list? Maybe you can’t turn that project down today, but just acknowledging that it’s not something you want more of can be a huge first step.

This book reminds me a bit of Mark McGuinness’ Productivity for Creative People, a book I really loved although I don’t consider myself particularly creative. The common thread: these authors focus on freeing up time and energy for what is most important to you, rather than what you see as annoying busywork. To me, that was a transformative concept: the real problem with aimless flailing is that it takes time away from the things you love to do. And summer, when work slows down for a lot of us, can be a good time to refocus on what you really want to be doing.

• Just as I was the last person on earth to read James Clear’s Atomic Habits, it took me a while to get to Mel Robbins’ The Let Them Theory, and I’m really enjoying it. Mostly, it’s a book about letting go of other people’s opinions and judgment (let them do their thing, while you focus on doing your thing), which is something most of us need to work on.

But in terms of great advice for this moment in the freelance world, here’s a gem from this book: when you feel yourself getting jealous of someone else’s success, don’t let the jealousy eat you alive, let them lead the way to what you’re capable of doing. Mel Robbins’ theory is that jealousy is about us: when we’re jealous of someone else’s accomplishments, it’s because we’re reflecting on our own unrealized potential. This struck me as true: we’ve all had the experience of seeing someone else doing really well in the freelance world, and thinking: I could do that! In fact, maybe I could do that better! Instead of lamenting, let that emotion spur you to action and focus on what you’re truly capable of, but you’re not yet trying.

Things in my business are going really well, and it’s a nutso time to be a freelancer, or even just to be a human. These books are helping me wrap my head around how to focus on what’s important to me. I hope they help you, too!

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We’ve all been there! “I was in this great marketing routine, and then something happened…” (life event, huge project, etc.) “…and now it feels so overwhelming to get back in the groove!” In this podcast episode, I talk about how to get back on the marketing wagon, after you’ve fallen off. Subscribe to Training for Translators in your favorite podcast app, or listen right here:

Greetings, Training for Translators readers! My new class, Direct client research lab sold out in one day (and, speaking of impostor syndrome, I wondered whether anyone would sign up!); just reply to this e-mail if you want to be on the wait list for the next session.

Money management: A timely topic

Have I mentioned that it’s an uncertain time right now? We don’t need to reiterate the reasons, but whether your business is going well or going poorly, it’s a good time to think about money management. If things are going well for you, it’s a good idea to save up some of your surplus in case things start going less well. If things are going poorly, you may want or need to get a handle on your spending. Here are some financial management strategies that I’ve been thinking about lately:

Know the cost of running your business

This is one of the most basic freelance finance tips I learned from JT Hine and his booklet I Am Worth It, back in the day!! Your break-even point is the cost of running your business. Here’s a rough look at mine:

• $4,800 per month for my base salary and all taxes (approximately $2,800 to me and $2,000 to taxes)
• $2,500 per month for additional salary that I take as an S-Corp profit draw (don’t worry if you don’t understand what this means; it’s only important if you have a corporation)
• $500 per month for office rent
• $500 per month to my retirement account
• About $1,000 per month, amortized over the course of the year, in other expenses: accounting, website management, website hosting, Zoom, Mailchimp, Thinkific, QuickBooks, professional association dues, professional development, cell phone.  

First observation: this is a lot of money! My “basic expenses” are more than $9,000 per month, and this doesn’t include contributions to business savings, additional retirement contributions (which I’m trying to do now that I’m in my 50s), travel to conferences, last year I had to unexpectedly buy a new computer, I got a new website, etc. etc. But you really can’t make any other financial decisions without knowing how much it costs you to run your business. Start there!

Infrastructure tips

Take a look at your financial infrastructure: where you keep your money and how you move it between accounts. I hadn’t thought about this for a while, until the topic came up during my monthly alumni question and answer session. Here’s my account structure:

• Business checking account (mine is at Chase Bank, which has excellent business services but also a high minimum balance to avoid service fees): This is my main account, where I receive or deposit everything I earn and out of which I pay all of my business expenses.
• Business savings account (also Chase): You should definitely have one, and it could serve a few purposes. Mine is purely my rainy-day fund (I keep at least $10,000 in it; more on this later), but you could use it in other ways:
  • If you want to earmark money for taxes (you should never be caught owing money for taxes with no way to pay it), transfer a percentage (probably 25-50%, depending on your tax bracket and where you live) of every client payment into this account.
  • Establish a paid vacation fund; this is a good motivator to take time off and reinvigorate yourself! It’s hard to take time off if you literally can’t afford it; funneling money into a paid vacation fund can help.
  • Start saving for a conference you want to attend, or a professional development experience you’d like to pursue.
  • Any other creative use that motivates you to save money: I put all of my book royalties into my business savings account, and then I use that money to pay for the production costs of the next book.
• Personal checking account: I pay myself my salary into this account. For me, that’s about $5,300 per month which covers all of my personal expenses and allows me to put money into personal savings.
• My personal “secret savings account”: I do this weird thing, but maybe you want to do it too. I have a Capital One high-yield savings account that automatically deducts $25 per week from my personal checking account. It’s such a small amount that I don’t miss it. If I need an emergency cash source (last winter I managed to back our car into a tree despite multiple backup cameras and warning sensors…hello body shop bill), it’s there. If I don’t, I have $1,200 of “free money” in that account at the end of the year, without even realizing that I was saving it.
• My Schwab brokerage and retirement accounts: I have both an individual brokerage account and an individual 401k retirement account through Charles Schwab, and all major financial services firms offer these same types of accounts, although you may have to have a corporation to establish an individual 401k. I funnel $500 per month from my business checking account into the cash account associated with my individual brokerage account. This is money I’m saving for retirement, but I park it in cash until the end of the year, so that I can access it if I really need to, with no tax penalty. Then I move it (generally $6,000-$8,000 per year) to my individual 401k at the end of the year.

Managing money in uncertain times

I’m fortunate that things in my business are going well. And yet, I’m financially cautious right now because of all of the uncertainty in the world, the economy, and the language professions. Here’s how I’m handling it:

• Funneling more money into my business savings account. I always keep $10,000 in there, but lately I’ve been upping it, with a goal of having $15,000 in that account by the end of the year, partially just to have a better cushion, and partially to save up for the costs of publishing another book.
• Decreasing my discretionary spending. I’m fortunate in that I know how to live frugally; different strategies work for different people, but one thing that works for me is establishing “buy nothing” categories. I recently did this: decided to spend nothing (zero) on clothes or books until the end of the year. I have enough clothes, and I’m reading books I already own or can borrow from the library. It’s going well so far!
• Particularly limiting eating out. The cost of eating out where I live has gone up a lot since COVID, probably for good reasons (paying service workers more), but it’s just crazy-expensive. A few weeks ago, I left home without eating breakfast; a 12 ounce mocha, a scone, and tip set me back $14 at the cafe by my office. A recent burrito at the airport on a work trip: $19 plus tip. At these prices, even a few splurges per month could easily add up to $1,000 a year or more, so I’m trying to plan ahead and avoid impromptu meals out. On my most recent work trip, I picked up a pasta salad at Whole Foods to eat on the plane ($5).
• Watching what I spend on personal care. Again, another category that really adds up. I’m not a big-time salon person, but I go to a moderately priced hairdresser who I love ($55 plus tip), a pedicure salon that I love ($35 plus tip), and I spend a fair bit on skin care products because Colorado is incredibly dry. I’m not cutting these expenses out, but I’m stretching them: I recently found out that my hairdresser does free bang trims (yes, I still wear straight bangs, like an adult-size American Girl doll!). This allowed me to go two months between haircuts. I also admitted that plain old tubs of moisturizer ($20 for a two-pack at Costco) work exactly the same as the more expensive day moisturizer and night moisturizer that I sometimes buy from Lush.

I’m a naturally frugal person. What can I say, I was a longtime subscriber to The Tightwad Gazette back in the 90s! As soon as I sign up for a free trial subscription, I set a reminder to cancel it if I no longer want it. I’ve ordered Door Dash exactly once in the past three years, and then only because I had a gift card. But if you’re looking to really overhaul your finances, I’d recommend the book The Simple Path to Wealth, by J.L. Collins. It’s definitely simple: the author’s three principles are 1) Spend less than you earn, 2) Invest the surplus, 3) Avoid debt like the plague. Not super-complicated, but if you’re struggling with money in general, I like this book, and I also like the website of Mr. Money Mustache, who has excellent frugal-living tips.

I hope these tips are helpful! Just drop a comment if there’s anything you want to ask me or tell me!

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Greetings, Training for Translators subscribers, I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying the Northern Hemisphere summer! 

New books!

Beginning and aspiring interpreters: I’m excited about the positive reviews of my new book, Getting Started as a Freelance Interpreter; “the book I wish was available when I started,” according to a number of experienced interpreters! The print and electronic editions are available on my website (link above) or from any online bookstore! 

If you enjoy the Training for Translators blog posts, perhaps you’d like a PDF of all of them! For $10, you can buy my new PDF compilation of posts from January 2024 through March 2025. This gives you everything in one place, and it’s fully searchable. 

This week’s topic: Changes in the translation software landscape

Take this with the grain of salt that I’m not a translation technology specialist. However, a few readers have sent me questions about translation tools in the current technology environment, wondering:

• How is AI affecting the translation software market?
• If I’m looking for a translation memory tool right now, what should I buy?
• Are more companies (whether agencies or direct clients) moving to server-based versions of translation memory tools, instead of single-license tools that you have to buy? 

These are really good questions, and here’s my number one tip for all things translation technology: join techforword (not an affiliate deal; I’ve done training for them but I pay for my own membership). Josh Goldsmith and Nora Díaz are the people you want to listen to on these topics!

How may AI be affecting the translation tool landscape?

Interesting topic, and I honestly don’t know. It’s a question for people who do industry analysis (looking at CSA or Nimdzi). In one sense, AI-based tools like DeepL are doing a lot of the work that translation memory tools used to do, and tons of agencies have switched to machine translation with a human editor. 

I would also suspect (again, based on my own hunch and nothing more scientific), that “back in the day,” owning a fairly expensive translation memory tool was seen as a mark of professionalism. I’ve definitely talked to agency owners who said, “When we have to take a chance on someone new for an important project, if they own [insert name of market-leader translation memory tool], we know that at least they’re serious about the job because that’s a big investment.” 

These days, I think that agencies are more often part of a faster, lower-margin workflow, and they’re more likely to be serving end clients for whom good enough is good enough. And I don’t mean that in a critical way, I mean that’s just the reality of where the agency market has gone. As such, I think agencies are more likely to use translators who charge less, and who don’t necessarily own a market-leader translation memory tool. For example, I’ve talked to more translators whose agency clients use server-based versions of tools like Phrase. I personally like this system, because it frees me from owning and managing the TM tool; I just translate, and the agency compiles the final file. Translation memory tools are notoriously temperamental and buggy (I like Trados, and I still feel like I’m going to scream every time I see the error message, “Object not set to an instance of an object”). 

What translation tool should you buy now?

I recently had to address this question: I’ve been a Trados user forever, but I bought a new computer (always a good nudge to think about your software installs), and I never (literally, never) use the project management or collaboration features in Trados, and I’m going to need to upgrade it soon, so it was time to re-evaluate.

Unrelated to AI, many of the major translation memory tools have switched to a subscription model in the past few years, and none of these tools are inexpensive. An installed license for Trados will now run you US $795, upgrades start at $395, and the subscription with ongoing upgrades is $54 per month. 

I translate almost exclusively for direct clients, so the TM tool is for my own purposes. For projects where the main goal is a smooth, native-sounding translation, I prefer not to use TM. For something that’s strictly informational or where the document is heavily formatted (i.e. a “clean” PDF of an official document translation), I like using TM because I can focus on the text instead of the formatting, and I’ve calculated that I work about 10% faster even if the text isn’t repetitive. I also like the automated glossary feature versus manually looking up glossary terms. 

I went hunting for alternatives to Trados, and settled on Wordfast Anywhere, and I’m happy with it so far. It costs $1 for the first month and $10 per month thereafter, so the cost is very reasonable. A key consideration with any online tool is whether it stores your documents, and if so, whether they’re on a secure server. Wordfast Anywhere does store your documents (so I don’t use it for anything confidential) but they are on a secure server. I’ve been really impressed with its PDF conversion abilities, and the TM feature fits my needs. I really like that it’s a simplified tool that does mostly translation memory and glossary, so I’m not getting bogged down with a million features that I never use. This isn’t an affiliate deal, and I’d recommend Wordfast Anywhere if you want an alternative to the more full-featured tools. 

Is MT a replacement for TM? 

MT has long been confused with TM. Back in the early 2000s, I started exploring TM tools, and I first tried OmegaT (a free and open-source took that I still love, and I find its matching algorithm to be better than commercial tools’). I loaded up a few source segments, and then wondered, why isn’t it spitting out any English??? The problem wasn’t the tool, it was that I didn’t understand the difference between TM and MT. 

To be clear, MT and TM serve totally different purposes. I like TM because it saves me from translating the same text twice. And even though I have the Pro subscription to DeepL, I actually find it very inconsistent, even within the same document: I use DeepL mostly for interpreting prep into French, and it often uses two and even three terms for the same English word, in the same context, in the same file, for example translating the English expression “big data,” as “données massives,” “gros volumes de données” and “mégadonnées” within the same document. 

However, MT and TM have a commonality: for better or for worse, they speed up the translation process. And if you’re looking to really speed up the translation process, MT beats all the other options. In that sense, MT is a real threat to the TM market. I’ve written many times about how my translation work is almost completely unaffected by the AI boom. Why? My sense is it’s pretty simple: I work almost exclusively for direct clients, and they were never that tech-focused to start out with. They didn’t really care about TM, and they don’t really care about MT, they just want a good translation that’s ready when they need it, and they want a personal relationship with a translator who they trust. But for clients who are the opposite: preferring a faster, cheaper translation, then MT is way ahead of TM. 

Again, I’m not a translation tech expert, and these are just anecdotes from the translation ether, but I hope they’re helpful as we all navigate this rapidly changing landscape!