Starts: January 21, 2016
Ends: January 23, 2016
Jenae Spry is a MIIS-certified French-to-English translator who has been successfully freelancing for a decade. She has been leveraging that experience to help freelancers as a Productivity and Performance Coach for the past 4 years and is constantly inspired as she regularly helps translators achieve success in many forms, whether it’s regaining control of their lives and business or tripling their income. She also runs the Success by Rx blog for freelancers.
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Questions: 3
Comments: 7
Votes: 4
Grey Drane
I think streamlining sums up why I'd always preferred working through translation agencies over the years. Yes, the rates are lower, but the job is kept simple: get the text, translate the text, proofread, deliver. No (or very few) client questions and odd requests to deal with. Just you and the text. Now, though, I'm considering the benefits of working with the end client directly. Not so much for the higher rates, but for the creative freedom and overall job satisfaction. What tips do you have for streamlining when working directly with the content producer? And what tools for translators (and freelancers generally) do you find bring the greatest efficiency gains? Apart from the basic TM leveraging of CAT tools, I mean.
Votes: 0
Jenae Spry
Streamlining with direct clients:
Many of your current systems might still work. You will probably need additional ones for things like marketing, networking and probably change your project management workflow. I would suggest you take a serious look at your current systems for handling your workload and start asking yourself how that would change. You may find that your current systems are just fine for the most part but that you need to create additional ones for the new or altered aspects of your business. In the end though, it's going to be hard to see everything you need to change before you jump in. Once you start working for direct clients, either use a timer or make notes throughout the day of how much time your spending on various tasks to determine which new tasks need a system. For example, you may find you're spending far too much time on e-mails or phone calls so you may need to start creating a workflow for client contact.
The key is just to take note of how your days are changing and pay attention so you can identify any new time-consuming tasks before you end up wondering where your time went. One last thing on this topic: If you don't have good systems in place for your workflow right now (which often freelancers working for agencies can get away with, because they don't need a large number of clients), make sure you have rock solid systems before you start approaching direct clients.
Tools for efficiency:
I assume you mean technology? Dragon NaturallySpeaking and ABBYY FineReader are my two crucial tools apart from CAT tools. I also use a timer to time my projects so that I'm aware of how I'm spending my time and whether a project is making me money or not.
Votes: 0
Nate Hill
I've been experimenting with timers recently. One that I like so far is Hours. What does your system of timers look like? I'd imagine that if picking up your phone could potentially be dangerous for some who are easily tempted to check email or other notifications that may have appeared while they were working.
Votes: 1
Jenae Spry
Hours looks pretty interesting but I use toggl.com...mostly because it's a web-based timer. There is just too much happening on our phones to not be distracted so I don't tend to use mine for that purpose specifically so that I can avoid having to look at it unless I want to.
Votes: 2
Nate Hill
What techniques have given your audience the most return on investment? What are the common hurdles that prevent people from successfully implementing the top techniques?
Votes: 2
Jenae Spry
For every client I have, I give them what I call the "time diet" and it's just essentially several metrics of time to determine how their days break down into billable time (i.e., time translating), non-billable time (i.e., invoicing, e-mailing, other work), and personal. This is a great way to help them see where they are spending significant amounts of time. I then help them identify which tasks are consuming most of their time and whether they can eliminate, automate or outsource those tasks. Freelancers tend to see huge gains in time this way.
I think the easiest technique to use is to ask yourself for any given task whether you can eliminate it. If it can't be eliminated, can it be automated? If not, can it be outsourced? (When I refer to "outsourcing" I mean more along the lines of determining whether you should hire a bookkeeper, maid, etc.)
In terms of hurdles, I think people sometimes have a hard time creating systems for themselves or recognizing inefficiencies but I think starting with those questions is a great way to get more organized and efficient.
Votes: 1
Kevin Dias
What are some tasks that you often see translators doing themselves that might be better for them to automate or outsource?
Votes: 2
Jenae Spry
I would say bookkeeping is the number one thing. A lot of translators spend hours and hours on receipts and invoicing and for those that have a lot of work, that's just lost revenue. At one point I was spending 30 hours a month on bookkeeping because it is not my strength. I also made the mistake of assuming that I would have to pay a bookkeeper quite a lot of money because I was basing it on the time I was spending, not the time a professional would spend. Now I have a better system, or rather my bookkeeper does, and I pay for around 2 hours a month. Not to mention the stress relief for me was priceless.
What can be outsourced also depends on how booked a translator is. If you're extremely busy, it's important not to fall into the trap often created by working from home. I wrote an entire blog post recently about how interruptions affect productivity and in researching for it, I found the effects were actually a lot more significant than I thought. I may have felt ridiculous outsourcing my laundry since I work from home, but I saw a boost in productivity because it was one less thing I had to stop and do which paid for the additional expense immediately.
Childcare is another. A lot of translators who are parents do not have childcare while they work. One of my clients ended up hiring a full time nanny after she ran the numbers and realized how much money she was losing because she was trying to multitask with her kid...not to mention the stress of trying to entertain and care for him while trying to focus on a translation.
Shopping is another example, although this is more along the lines of automation than outsourcing. I use Amazon Prime to order everything from computer equipment to hand soap and toothpaste. I save tons of time (and frustration) that would have otherwise been spent on trips to stores, searching for products, and standing in line.
Votes: 1
Kevin Dias
Hi Jenae,
It seems that one common loss of productivity is getting distracted by browsing and/or checking different "time-waster" websites (e.g. social media sites). Have you ever tried one of the browser plugins that let you specify which sites to block and when? If so, is this something that you recommend to translators? Or are there better methods to not falling into the trap of visiting these sites?
Votes: 1
Jenae Spry
I don't use browser plugins personally but several of my coaching clients have found them useful. It is something I recommend to anyone who really can't keep themselves from going to social media websites. However, I think a much more useful tactic is to just shut off all notifications. I find that it's usually a notification that causes the distraction with a lot of my clients. I shut off texting, e-mail, and all social media notifications.
One thing that has worked for me on days I find it hard to focus is to set a timer and make myself work continuously for an hour, 30 minutes, 20 minutes, or whatever amount of time I can manage and then set another timer for a break and repeat the process. A lot of the blocking plugins will serve this purpose by blocking everything for a set period of time but any timer would work.