Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

time management for freelancers


Corinne McKay

Shifting perspective: from putting out fires to long-term business success

This is a guest post by Dorothee Racette, a past president of the American Translators Association. Based on over 20 years of experience as a successful freelance writer and translator, Dorothee now trains and coaches small business owners in time management and productivity. She shares her insights in her blog and invites you to follow her on Twitter or Facebook for more practical time management advice.

Shifting perspective: from putting out fires to long-term business success

One of my first jobs after graduating was a part-time teaching position in a foreign language department. As I quickly learned, one didn’t simply walk into the department office to request photocopies. The secretary, who had clearly dealt with generations of instructors, kept a large sign on her bulletin board. “Want it tomorrow?”– it read– “Order it yesterday!” I have yet to find a diplomatic way of sharing the same sentiment with certain clients.

As client expectations for fast turnaround blur the distinction between rush jobs and regular translation assignments and competition at the entry level pushes down prices for accelerated work, freelancing can seem like a never-ending sequence of high-stress projects. Of course, running a business involves responsiveness and commitment to prompt service, but what happens if the resulting work pressure becomes the “new normal” of freelance life?

Drawing a distinction between urgent and important, Dwight Eisenhower once noted that “[…] important is seldom urgent, […] urgent is seldom important.” The difference between the two concepts holds the key to shifting the perspective of your freelance business.

Working in ‘urgent’ mode

In urgent mode, you tackle the first task that comes to your attention, typically an email or another type of message. After arranging the submission details of a project offer, you jump right into the translation work. In between, you’ll probably check other messages, respond to social media posts, and absentmindedly attend to personal matters. Working in this mode is not only highly stressful, but also associated with unhealthy habits, such as skipping exercise, eating at your desk, and spending too many hours hunched over a keyboard.

While there may be few alternatives in the early stages of a freelance business, it is a good idea to periodically assess whether your work mode is still serving you in your current business situation. If your business has survived the critical first few years and you essentially have a steady flow of assignments, now is the time to make the transition to a long-term perspective.

Working in ‘important’ mode

In contrast to focusing on the task of the hour, working in important mode addresses the long-term strategic objectives of your business. Building a sustainable business requires daily attention to marketing, making business connections, managing finances, keeping up with knowledge in your chosen specialty area, and staying proficient in technology. Neglecting such background work because you are “too busy,” blocks your own advancement options to specialty areas with better working conditions and pay. In addition, a deliberate long-term perspective allows for better work-life balance decisions and frees up much needed personal time.

Here are some thoughts about making the shift from urgent to important:

1. Start the day with a little planning

Don’t allow others to start the day for you. Take control of your time with a few minutes of thinking and planning before you open your inbox and answer the first message (“Urgent! 23K words needed by tomorrow…”). Consider the details of the day’s milestones, including fixed appointments as well as exercise and social activities. When can you do your best and most difficult work, and when are you likely to feel tired or get interrupted more often? It doesn’t matter whether you record your planning on sticky notes or in apps, as long as the format is effective for you.

2. Prioritize challenging tasks

We all postpone to-do items that seem difficult or problematic in favor of easier, more rewarding ones. For example, it may be much more fun to concentrate on translation work than to deal with invoicing and account figures. Marketing can seem confusing and hard, so why not accept another assignment instead, even though it’s not very interesting or pays poorly?

Tasks of the “I really should” or “I can’t believe I haven’t” variety are easier to address in the first 30-60 minutes of your workday. Updating a profile or writing about your business fall into the ‘important’ category that ensures long-term business growth. Not only is your brain more creative in the morning, but the sense of completion also boosts confidence and has been proven to enhance productivity for the remainder of the day.

3. Establish ground rules

Time planning and completing difficult tasks are constructive ways to avoid stress. To further shift away from ‘urgent’ mode, consider establishing a few specific rules that draw the line between freelance work and private time. Instead of working whenever you can, clearly state (to yourself and others) when your work hours are. Ask yourself when you will say no and which conditions have to be met to make an exception. Stating an existing rule (“I don’t work on weekends”) is much more effective than coming up with an explanation.

4. Set up a quarterly or annual review

Periodically set aside a little time to review how your business is doing. That may involve looking at clients who ordered the largest volume and those who were less enjoyable to work with. If you added new clients in the review period, how did they hear about you, and what are the implications for your marketing efforts? Perhaps you worked with new topics that may interest you as a specialty or you noticed a shortcoming in your tools or technical setup. Above all, did you have enough free time to live your life outside of the business?

Of course, not all rush orders are the result of someone’s failure to “order yesterday.” Unexpected situations, such as policy changes, lawsuits, or illnesses can create a sudden need for language translation-and that’s where translators come in. Making a difference for a client by jumping in and providing a fast translation is a special experience – provided the associated extra effort is recognized and not simply taken for granted.

If you enjoyed this post, you can find more of Dorothee’s practical time management advice on her blog, Twitter or Facebook.


Corinne McKay

Guest post: Getting beyond feast or famine

This is a guest post by Dorothee Racette; Dorothee is a past president of the American Translators Association. Based on over 20 years of experience as a successful freelance writer and translator, she trains small business owners in time management and productivity. In her blog, she shares her insights in making the most of her time. She invites you follow her on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, or to like her Facebook page for more practical time management advice.

Getting beyond Feast or Famine – Planning for 2016

As independent contractors and freelancers, we often make the mistake of passively accepting whatever workload comes our way. We tell ourselves that “feast or famine” is part of the experience, perpetuating the myth that there is little we can do to plan ahead or manage the flow of our business. Such myths often put us at a disadvantage when it comes to optimizing our own working conditions.

Early January is a perfect time to plan your business capacity for the coming year to make targeted decisions about the work you want to accept and solicit. While there will undoubtedly be some fluctuation in the demand for your services, here are some planning steps you can take at the beginning of the year to make the most of your freelance business.

Look at past years for patterns

Your business statistics of past years (e.g. in the report function of your accounting software) probably show certain patterns. For instance, business may be slower in July and August when clients are on vacation, followed by an uptick in September. Knowing the cyclical properties of your workload makes it easier to schedule breaks, predict cash flow, and plan specific marketing activities.

The order history of past years is also a good indicator for your true daily output. It is not uncommon to overestimate the daily hours we can work without disruptions and in full concentration. (I had to learn that lesson the hard way one year when I accepted a job without looking at the calendar and had to work on a major holiday). Taking into consideration steps such as reviewing and finalizing high-quality work along with invoicing and client correspondence, your output may be smaller than you think. It is helpful to base your sustainable capacity–the volume you can reliably produce every day–on a conservative average.

Plan ahead for the year:

Armed with a better understanding of your business cycle and daily output, you can now set informed goals. Where would you like to be in financial, technical, and professional terms by the end of the year?

In many ways, time and financial planning is the easiest of these tasks. When you look back on 2016 a year from now, you will probably want to have positive memories of vacations and quality time spent away from your desk. Because you may feel compelled to work with few breaks, mark your annual vacation and other days off in your calendar now. Blocking certain weeks and dates at the start of the year will be particularly helpful in situations when you have to decline urgent projects from key clients. In addition, knowing in advance how much time you want to take off makes your income projections more realistic. Industry-specific calculators such as US Calpro can help define how much you can expect to earn.

Unless your business is still in the start-up phase, your freelance activities should yield enough income to save for retirement and other financial goals. That should also include funds to pay for professional memberships and to attend local, regional or national industry events.

With scheduling and financial cornerstones in place, you can now take a good look at the technical side of your work. Technical proficiency not only offers an important competitive edge in fields with high price pressure, but can also save significant time. Outdated hardware and software may put you at a disadvantage when it comes to working efficiently and reliably. For example, if your CAT tool version does not have an autosuggest function, you may be spending unnecessary time and effort typing the same text over and over. Similarly, the failure of your old computer that “still works” could cause major headaches in a tight deadline situation.

Learning about your equipment should not be limited to Googling an error message (“X has encountered a fatal error. Details saved to crash.txt”). Define specific steps you will take to learn more about your equipment. Are there functions you haven’t had a chance to explore? Did you hear about new apps from colleagues, but haven’t looked at them? The time invested in getting a better understanding of your work software easily pays off in higher productivity.

Professional goals are the third and most important aspect of planning ahead for the year. Without professional growth, your business is likely to remain stagnant. Since freelancers work in relative isolation, staying at the cutting edge of your field requires a special effort. If you don’t have a specialty area yet, pick the most interesting or challenging project of the past year. What do you need to learn/change to acquire more projects of the same kind? If you already have a niche or specialization, plan specific ways to advance it further, through groups, online courses or reading. Although social media can offer a lot of useful information, nothing beats face-to-face networking. Make it a point to schedule and attend local networking events, both with other freelancers and with representatives of the industries that use your services.

In addition to expanding your expertise in your chosen field, make plans now to sharpen your business skills in 2016. Freelancers who understand the principles of marketing, networking, and cost calculation are in a much better position to find good clients and make a steady income. To plan realistically, keep in mind that professional advancement requires continuous investments of time and money.

Whether you want to make new networking connections, send applications to interesting clients, share ideas at events, or write about your work practice, you will need to dedicate a portion of your working time to these goals. The good news is that the daily practice of continuous improvement is the best way to end the feast or famine cycle. Here’s to you!


Corinne McKay

Analyzing your own tendencies

Here’s a 30-second summary of this post: as a freelancer, you’ll find that some things feel effortless and some things feel like pushing a cement mixer up a hill. Analyze the difficult things and figure out how to make them less difficult, and your life will be much easier.

This post was inspired by a question from a student in one of my classes. “How do you stay so organized?,” she asked. “You seem to do a lot, but never get stressed or frazzled. What’s the secret?” And two answers popped into my head: 1) I’m probably somewhat less organized than I seem, and I do sometimes get stressed and frazzled (ask my husband!), and b) I don’t know: it just doesn’t feel that hard. I look at my day or my week, and think “What absolutely has to get done?,” then I do that first. Then I think “What should probably get done?,” and then I do that. And then if there’s any time left, I do the “as time allows” tasks. In 13 years of freelancing, I’ve never missed a deadline; a “late” day for me is when I finish work half an hour later than planned. So, when I talk to translators who report that they are routinely up until 2 AM, 3 AM, 4 AM finishing deadlines, I’m essentially never in that boat. I don’t use time tracking software, or a rigid schedule; I just eyeball it and everything seems to get done, in the available amount of time.

And there are other things that don’t feel that hard. I’m good with managing money: at my first job out of college, I made…wait for it…$750 a month plus room and board, and I had some money left at the end of the year. I’ve never carried a credit card balance in my life. In the same vein as time/productivity management, I just look at how much money I have available, and I spend a little less than that so that I can save some.

But…the fact is that everyone has facets of freelancing, or of life in general, that just come naturally. It’s hard to explain how you do them successfully, because you don’t know what you do: they’re just never a problem. Then there are the ‘cement mixer’ facets, which are things that you have to have a strategy for, because your natural tendency is to work against your own best interests. For me, food is one of those things. On the positive side, I’m a vegetarian and I love to exercise (another one of those “comes easily” things; I just don’t get what’s not to love about exercising!); on the negative side, I have the metabolism of a hibernating bear and I love good food; I’m also “fortunate” to be surrounded by people who are incredible cooks–my husband, my parents who live near us, various friends. So there’s never a lack of something tempting to eat. It’s not a crisis, but, like a translator routinely finishing deadlines at 3 AM, or never paying off the last $1,000 of the credit card debt, I gain-lose-gain-lose-gain-lose the same 10 pounds, over and over again.

For me, food is my “can’t just eyeball it” issue. I find diets depressing and counterproductive, but without a system, I chronically eat a little too much, a little too often. Because I’ve recognized this tendency in myself, I’ve developed some systems to protect against it, and to keep the chronic 10 pounds from becoming 50 or 100. I think you can apply this system to your “can’t just eyeball it” issues as well, so that if you can’t overcome them completely, you can at least keep them from dominating your life:

    • Avoid unrealistic rigidity, or anything that involves the words “never again.” You’re not going to immediately start following a to-the-minute time tracking plan, or a to-the-penny budget, or a no-peanut-butter-cheesecake-ever-again-in-this-lifetime rule. Pick small adjustments that you think you can stick to: no Facebook during the work day; no non-paying work until the paying work is done; let non-critical e-mail wait until the end of the day; put $50 in an envelope at the beginning of the month, and that’s your coffee money; leave your credit card at home in a drawer so that you cannot use it for impulse purchases.
    • But create a system that overrides your natural tendencies. For example I have some simple guidelines I try to follow: no more than two cups of coffee a day (because I drink it with cream and sugar), otherwise only water and herb tea; only raw fruits and vegetables for snacks; no eating straight out of a bag or box, only out of a single serving in a bowl, etc. To me, these don’t feel punitive: they feel like the speedometer on a car; just a little tool that helps you stay in bounds.

Whatever your problematic tendency is, you can create a system like this to help you: make a simple checklist of small adjustments that you need to make in order to be successful. Don’t look at it as a punishment, or as if you can’t be trusted to manage your own actions. In my experience, that will only make you more obsessive about the problematic issue. Just give yourself a dashboard gauge so that you can slow down when you’re five miles an hour over the speed limit instead of 30.