Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters


Corinne McKay

Switching to a nettop

Desktop PCs are generally intended to last two to five years, so when my desktop turned seven I started to worry. It’s a great computer (home-built using D.J. Bernstein’s standard workstation specifications), but it’s getting a little slow, it sounds like a 747 taking off when it boots up, the front USB ports have fallen slightly inside the case and the hard drive is about 80% full. Everything on the computer is backed up on a RAID 1 system and in my online backups, but I was starting to get nervous about the possibility of a catastrophic failure. Time to go shopping!

I used to be a little skeptical about tiny computers until I bought an Asus Eee netbook and fell in love with it. So when my husband in-house tech support suggested a nettop (Internet+desktop, it took me a minute to get it!), it seemed worth a look. After comparing various machines and their capabilities and features, we settled on an ASRock Ion (I purchased mine from NewEgg but that exact model seems to be sold out). We purchased a second internal hard drive to set up a RAID 1 system and also ordered a video cable to support my second monitor. Here’s the new setup: I posed my glasses case on top of it to show how small it is:

As with most nettops, the ASRock Ion machines consume very little electricity as compared to a standard desktop. This machine was about $400 total, and we estimated that it will pay for itself in about three years through decreased electricity usage. So far I’m extremely happy with it; any other translators out there making the nettop switch?

I also treated myself to a Unicomp ultra-clicky keyboard. The model I purchased is similar to an old-style IBM keyboard and treats you to a very audible “click” when you strike the keys. I don’t mind the sound and I find that the hard-strike keys improve my typing accuracy and cause less hand strain than my old “mushy” keyboard. Plus you sound very productive when you use a keyboard that makes that much noise!


Corinne McKay

Hot off the press…

Two pieces of breaking news from the translation trenches:

  • Judy and Dagmar Jenner’s book The Entrepreneurial Linguist is now available for purchase. Judy is not only a very successful freelance translator but also has an MBA in marketing, and this book offers “the business school approach to freelance translation.” Many of us in the industry have already benefited from Judy’s Entrepreneurial Linguist workshops, so this book promises to be excellent.
  • Attorneys and translators Cynthia Hazelton and Marianne Reiner recently announced the launch of TransConnect, their boutique translation studio offering French<>English translation by lawyers, for lawyers. This looks like a great model for translation collaboration as Cynthia is a native English speaker and Marianne is a native French speaker; Thoughts on Translation will try to interview them in a few months to see how it’s going!

    • Happy Friday!


Corinne McKay

Some interesting links

Some coffee break reading from the translation/word industry blogosphere:


Corinne McKay

Test drive: the Personal Efficiency Program

I’m not generally a fan of time management literature, but during a recent trip to the local library, Kerry Gleeson’s The Personal Efficiency Program: How to stop feeling overwhelmed and win back control of your work caught my eye (published 2009 by John Wiley and Sons, 4th edition). Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m working more and getting less done, and I’ve been hearing similar buzz from other freelancers (“I feel like I could work 24 hours a day and it wouldn’t be enough,” “I feel totally and constantly overwhelmed,” “I’m at my desk all day but I can’t seem to get anything done,” etc.). So, I decided to give PEP (as Gleeson calls the program) a try.

I opened this book with a few motivations in mind:

  • My e-mail inbox is out of control. Although I have a well-designed system of folders and filters, I currently have 496 messages languishing in my inbox.
  • Lately I’ve felt more stressed about work than I’d like to feel.
  • I feel like I’m doing less and taking more time to do it. For example, I somehow managed to publish the first edition of my book when I had a lot less available time than I have now. Still, I just can’t seem to finish the second edition.

    • The foundation of PEP is the mantra “Do It Now.” For example, many of us check e-mail every few minutes, but we take a long time to respond to or act on the e-mails that we’ve read. This creates a bad situation: the e-mail is hanging out waiting for a response, and we’re using mental energy thinking about responding or acting, or feeling guilty about not responding or acting. Then, because we don’t act or respond, we start getting more e-mail (“Did you receive my message?” “Have you thought about a good time to meet?” “Did you get a chance to read the article?” etc.). It’s not hard to see how this leads to stress and overwhelm. So, instead of obsessively reading e-mail, Gleeson advocates setting aside blocks of time to process e-mail. Then, you take action using one of the 4 Ds: Do it now (respond to the e-mail or act on it right then), Delegate it, Designate it (schedule a block of time to respond to or act on the e-mail) or Discard/file it. Gleeson advises checking e-mail only two or three times a day; personally I’m not there yet because I receive too many e-mails that need a fast response. For example, my  European clients are only in the office until around 9 or 10AM Colorado time, so I need to respond to them right away. However, I’m trying to set aside 15 minutes every hour or hour and a half for e-mail, and I’ve decreased my backlog from about 10 messages per day to one or two.

    PEP also pushes you to schedule, plan and log your time more than most of us do. Here again, I think it’s worth a try. My normal time management system before reading this book was to scribble a list of to-dos for the day in my planner in no particular order and with no particular time frame attached to them. Inevitably I would end up finishing the really critical items (i.e. work deadlines) and copying everything else over to the next day (and so on and so on and so on). Now I’ve switched to using the calendar feature of my e-mail program (KMail) and I’m amazed at how much it has decreased my stress level. Although my day is highly scheduled, I find that I can actually concentrate on what I’m doing because I’m not thinking about what else I should be doing. Instead of working on a translation while thinking “I really should have answered that message,” “I really need to work on that quote,” I can put it out of my mind because I know I have a block of time set aside for that task.

    I think that effective time management has a lot to do with your personality type; for whatever reason, I’m quite good at meeting deadlines that someone else sets and not so good at meeting deadlines that I set for myself. So, I find that PEP is a good fit for me because a very detailed time schedule makes me feel that “someone else” (i.e. my scheduling program) is telling me to stick to that schedule. I also like the fact that Gleeson focuses not just on getting more done at work, but on working smarter so that you have more time for your family and leisure interests. Overall, I think that this book is worth a look if you need to take better control of your work day!


Corinne McKay

The tyranny of the sub-goal

I learned the expression “the tyranny of the sub-goal” from my husband, who most frequently applies it to chores around the house, as in “We need to paint the living room but before that we have to fix the hole in the sheetrock where we smashed the corner of the washing machine into the wall.” Painting the living room is the goal, but since both of us despise doing drywall, the hole in the drywall becomes the lingering sub-goal that holds up the whole project. I had always assumed that this expression was some sort of standard IT-guy-speak but it actually doesn’t return any Google hits, so maybe it’s an original!

I think that there’s a lot of truth to the idea of the tyrannical sub-goal, and I also think that attacking these sub-goals usually takes less time than you’ve already spent procrastinating and complaining about them.  I recently experienced this when I had to update the Colorado Translators Association bylaws for our upcoming election. I’m ashamed to even calculate (much less admit) how much time and emotional energy I had spent avoiding this task, and the whole election process was on hold because of it. Once I sat down and just did it, the total time from when I opened the file until I finished the edits was 13 minutes. Right: in about the same amount of time it takes me to brew a cup of coffee and return a phone call, I was done with the task that had been haunting me for weeks. Here are some typical translator sub-goals:

  • Website and résumé updates seem to be at the root of a lot of translators’ goal achievement problems. “I have this great marketing plan but I don’t want to implement it because I’m embarrassed to send clients to my website.” “I want to pursue a new specialization but first I have to redo my résumé and it’s taking me forever,” etc.
  • Small research tasks can also tyrannize your work life. For example, I’ve been thinking of hiring an intern but first I need to research the applicable employment laws related to paid and unpaid internships, so the idea is on hold.
  • Tasks that you despise are ripe for sub-goal tyranny. For me, it’s paperwork and accounting. This year I delayed preparing my W-2, which delayed getting my tax prep materials to my accountant, etc. etc. etc.

And some ideas for defeating them:

  • Create an external deadline. A lot of sub-goals remain unconquered because unlike our regular work, the time frame for completing them exists only in our heads. In addition, when a sub-goal has been on the to do list for a really long time, we no longer have any sense of urgency about it. The marketing plan? Well, if it didn’t get done in all of 2009, then does it really matter if it happens this week or in six months? So, create a deadline. Ask a colleague if he or she is available to proofread your résumé on Monday. Invite a friend over to usability-test your website next week. Then, you have to have the task completed by that date.
  • Admit defeat and hire someone to complete the sub-goal for you. This year I decided that although I’m generally anti-outsourcing, I had to hire someone to do my corporate payroll and I’m very happy with the results.
  • Decide that you don’t want to achieve the sub-goal. When you’re generally a 120 percenter (I love this expression, coined by Michelle Obama), it’s tough to throw in the towel on a task without feeling like a failure. However, I think that it’s important to be honest with yourself about your sub-goals. Sometimes the sub-goal remains undone because a certain project no longer seems important, relevant, fun or profitable to you. Then, cross the sub-goal off your list and let it go: and move on to something that really inspires you!