Prepare for Problems
May 2, 2009 by Allison Boyer
Filed under Jobs
With every project you take as a freelancer, you have to prepare for problems. Point in case: my One Prompt, One Product newsletter today.
I had signed up for a free account with a newsletter service, but so many people signed up right off the bat that I had to upgrade to a better service – and when I did that, I lost the option to import email address. That means that everyone who had signed up was no longer signed up. In a few short hours, I went from over 100 subscribers down to zero.
Image: sxc.hu
Luckily, I had planned for such a disaster and still got my first issue out on time – albeit to fewer subscribers, but it wasn’t a complete catastrophy. I had given myself some extra time to deal with any problems that came up, and I had a back up plan.
It’s a good lesson for any freelancer. Whenever you take a project, make sure you’re prepared for problems. Here are some tips:
- Don’t procrastinate. This is a hard rule for me to follow, so dont feel bad if you’re in the same boat! If you wait until the last minute to do the work and a problem comes up, your project will end up being late.
- Account for revisions. When you do a project, always plan a few minutes (or hours depending on the size of the project) to do revisions, should the client want them. If you cram things into your schedule, you’ll end up scrambling to find time to do them.
- Back up your work. At the end of every day, back up anything that’s half done on another computer or storage source. I also back up my entire inventory of writing once a month. If your computer goes down, you won’t have to start from scratch. Don’t have the money for a second computer or other storage? Email your projects to yourself.
When you do have an issue, the best thing you can do is communicate to your client what’s going on. If you don’t, you’ll only look irresponsible. When you do email you client with a problem, explain what happened, but take full blame and avoid making excuses if you want a chance at a second project!
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Drop.io is another place to back up files. It’s free and easy to use.
I find it almost impossible not to procrastinate on big projects. My everyday writing, I’m pretty good about sticking to a schedule. However when I have a magazine assignment or a bigger project, I almost always find myself doing it at the last minute. I keep telling myself that I just work better under pressure :) but that’s just an excuse.