What Does it Mean to Work Smarter, Not Harder?
June 12, 2009 by Deb
Filed under Writing Tips
The other day, after I wondered who sets your freelance writing rates, a discussion took place at the Web and Print blog. In that discussion one of the regulars asked me what it meant to me to work smarter, not harder. The obvious, of course, has to do with earning more money. To me that’s not all there is too it, though. By working smarter, I’m making a conscious choice to make sure my job doesn’t take over my life. To me it means making the decisions that ensure my success, while taking care of my family and having some fun to boot.
Here’s what I mean by working smarter, not harder.
Fewer Projects for More Money
I never accepted a $2 or $5 writing gig. I did start out low but my beginning rate was well above minimum wage. Though I was desperate to work at home, I took my time to choose the jobs that paid a little more money than the very low paying web gigs. My first two jobs were for an online magazine and as a newspaper columnist, both paying ten cents per word. Now don’t get me wrong, I had many $10 and $15 jobs when I was starting out, but now I use them to supplement the higher paying stuff. As my experience grew so did my ability to land higher paying jobs and I took on fewer of the low payers. I learned that by being choosy I was able to spend more time doing a great job on one piece than becoming a writing factory and churning out as many tiresome bits of writing as I could in a day.
Branching Out Beyond Writing
My blogging and writing have taken me to a whole new level. I’ve had a few speaking engagements and clients pay to consult with me about writing, blogging and/or social media. I was even able to land a full time telecommuting job in community management for a while. Instead of thinking blogging is the only thing I could do, I consider the skills I use as a professional blogger and freelance writer and use them to pursue different avenues.
Having Work Come to Me and Not the Other Way Around
Having a good reputation means the work comes to me, and not the other way around. Thanks to word of mouth referrals from clients and recommendations from colleagues and sites such as LinkedIn, many of my clients contact me directly. This means I’m not spending as much time during the day drumming up clients.
Eliminating Negativity
If I wanted a job that I didn’t look forward to doing every day, I’d go back to an office job. I want to get out of bed each morning, and so should you. A couple of years ago, I noticed that I procrastinated more when I was working gigs I didn’t enjoy. By taking on only projects I like, I’m not wasting a bunch of time putting off what I didn’t want to do anyway.
Creating a Residual Income Base
My blogs and ebook bring in a residual income. They didn’t earn money immediately, but they bring in a nice, steady income stream each month. By taking some time each day or week to add to my residual income streams I’m able to cut back on client based work or take on more of the personal projects I enjoy.
Building Up My Name…and My Brand
When I discussed branding a few weeks ago, some writers scoffed, some laughed, and some agreed. However, in this day and age, your brand is important. Because my name (my brand) is recognized, folks trust me and seek me out. By taking my time to network both online and off, I am able build my brand and my reputation. I have no choice but to give my all, because to not do so can lead to a very public downfall. Thanks to working hard to build up my brand, I’m able to pick and choose the clients I want to work with, take the opportunities that appeal to me, and set my own rates.
Now it’s your turn. What do YOU do to work smarter not harder?
Very well and pithily put, Deb. I would certainly do well to act more on some of these points, and I so agree with you about not getting locked in to being a writing factory for $2 a pop.
There’s something I’d add to this: before and after working on the computer, I make a point of doing something physical, non-abstract: working (or playing) outside, doing something with my hands, doing yoga…something that grounds me into physical life. Computers are great tools, but they can make you goony.
Another point is to consider when you are available for business calls and messages, and when you are not. Modern tech is a great thing, but is it really a smart idea to be on tap 24/7? And if you’re not on tap all the time, when do you want to be on tap?
I think one component of the “smarter” part is becoming more skilled at figuring out what the job really involves before you commit. Occasionally I have been outright lied to about what the client says they expect and what they then turn around and demand. Those are clients I eventually learned to ditch quickly without guilt. Unfortunately, too often clients are ignorant rather than evil. They have no idea how much work a job actually involves, so it is up to me to figure out all the components – client contact hours, research hours, writing hours, editing hours- to see if the job rate is reasonable. I know of no way of doing this except through experience and self-knowledge about how fast you research and write.
Another component of “smarter” is that I firmly believe that it is smart to primarily take jobs that will move your writing and pay rate to a higher level. If what you write isn’t good enough to use as a clip, you probably shouldn’t take the job unless you are really desperate for $$. My objection to SEO/content factory/rewrite jobs is that they rarely provide you with samples you can use to move up the editorial and economic chain. It’s an okay place to start, but even if you are doing this kind of work only for the money, it can quickly become mentally deadening and it also lets you get into sloppy writing and editing habits.
I appreciate what Deb says about branching out, but honestly, I don’t want to speak or consult. I just want to write and occasionally to edit, although truthfully I prefer writing and think I am a better writer than I am an editor.
What I do what to do is write for people care about good writing, who hold me to a high standard, and who pay well for the results because they can tell quality writing from scholck. The thing I love about freelance writing is that it is totally performance based. It doesn’t matter where or if you went to college, or your age, race, gender or preference in music. You either deliver the goods on time and to specification or you don’t.
I agree that we must pick and choose assignments, but there is a balance. Breaking into paper publications is getting more and more difficult as advertising revenues plummet. You really need to get published in paper to get to the status where others seek you out. I’m not quite there yet.
For me, the trick is finding opportunities that pay well enough to warrant my time and can provide a steady stream of work, rather than spending time searching freelance boards. For now, I need to prove myself to my family and show that switching careers was the right thing to do when I was laid off. I won’t work for the bottom of the barrel assignments, but I am taking lower paying jobs to keep busy and keep the cash flowing.
Finding the time to craft a piece that will get me in print? Hard to do when you are writing 15 articles per day! I guess I am a sweatshop worker, but my current goal is to be a writer. When I feel comfortable and established with that, I’ll start working on that masterpiece for print. I’m still working about the same number of hours I did at my office job when you factor in travel. I can live with that (for now).
I’ve only been freelancing since January of this year, but I had a couple of steady clients who paid pretty well. One of them asked me to meet him at a conference, cover the event over the course of two days and then write about it. And then he asked me to quote him a rate. Here, I thought, is a perfect opportunity to up my rate a bit, within reason, and work smarter. The conference was almost 50 miles from my home (one way), so I factored in gas, travel time, time spent at the conference and writing time. I ended up quoting him a rate that was nominally higher than what he’d been paying me to work from home. After I sent him the quote, I never heard from him again. I let a few weeks go by, and then I sent him an email telling him I was available for more work, but still, nothing. Now this may just be coincidental; maybe he just doesn’t have anything right now, but of course I’m wondering if he was put off by my rate hike. I may never know, and maybe one day I’ll start getting work from him again, but here’s just one possible consequence of trying to work smarter.
Working smarter, not harder, is different for every person out there. For some people it’s making more money per project. For others it’s related to putting out more work in their niche, rather than doing broader work. For others it’s steering clear of SEO work and only doing websites. For others still it’s getting into the magazine/paper market, and away from online content.
Working smarter, not harder, is as subjective as is the rates writers set. It’s going to be dependent upon each individual’s personal choices and preferences, as well as their living situations.
I have no desire to move up the editorial chain. As such, I’m not interested in whether or not my work is viewed by the New York Times editors, or what “high class” magazine or publication is coming to me for work. I’m not in this for the ego. I’m in this for a paycheck.
Working smarter means different things. For example, one of the ways I think working smarter affects me is that I don’t have to look for work (knock on wood). I put in the time last year to scour the job boards, and my hard work paid off. Sure, I am not getting the best rates in the world, but I also have to factor in the fact that I’m not having to spend X hours per day scouring the job boards for leads to the next assignment. I’ve got a content company who keeps me busy plugging away, churning out content. I could care less about the quality of the work. It’s a paycheck. I don’t have to spend any time looking for work; it gets handed to me. As a result, I’m working smarter, not harder.
I changed my living conditions. That was working smarter, not harder. A lot of people get stuck in the mentality of “well I *have* to have the same amenities as my neighbors” or “well the standard of living in America is X, so naturally I have to meet/exceed X”, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth. There is that old saying about your possessions eventually coming to possess you, and I couldn’t agree more. I’d say a good 95% of the people I see on forums talking about needing to make X per hour/day/article only “need” to make X because they choose to live in the environment they live in. The choose to let X be the number that dictates how hard they have to work, rather than changing their situation around so that they can be more selective about their work. To me, working smarter means taking control of your life. It meant getting out from underneath the shadow of consumerism that drives most Americans to work 40 hours a week + overtime, with only a week’s paid vacation every year, and getting into a position where my wife and I have almost no bills, and being virtually retired before I was even 30 years old.
You, and only you, are in control of your life. Rates are not dictated by your peers. Your level of work is not controlled by your boss, your client, or your editor. You are the one in control of how hard you need to work, for how much per article/day/hour you need to work.
Who controls the amount of work you are required to take? Who controls the amount of money you are required to earn per year? Who controls the consumption? You do. Change the person, and you have made the first step towards working smarter, not harder.
I choose to write content for a paycheck. I’m not in it for the glory. I love the fact I have steady work, without having to scour the job sites. To me, that’s working smarter. I don’t have to look. Yes, I sacrifice credit by ghost-writing, and I sacrifice a bit of money, but the work is handed to me on a silver platter, and I don’t have to spend any part of my day searching for it. I changed my living conditions. My wife and I left the US behind and moved to a city where we can enjoy life for a fraction of the price. My sister and her boyfriend, for example, spend around 400+ a month, just in groceries, and that’s on a budget. My wife and I eat like kings. I buy 4-5 bottles of wine a week (Italian, Greek, Spanish, Bulgarian), I cook 4-5 times a week (I write health and recipe related articles over at Green Diva Mom), and we do it all for under 200 USD a month, simply because we chose to transition to an environment where the amenities are just the same…but only a fraction of the price.
There’s a reason places like Australia are undergoing some of the highest immigration numbers in decades. People are moving in the hundreds of thousands to places where the cost of living is a fraction of what it is in the US or the UK, but where the wages are the same. Here, I can make 30k a year part time and live like a king, but in the US you can barely get by with 60k for two people, much less a family.
Who is in control? You, or your possessions?
Working smarter means understanding the saying:
“Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.”
I just made a post about this over on my blog, in fact. Hop on over to take a look. I discuss the addiction to consumption and the possessions possessing writers to the point that their rates are directly tied to how much money they need to make every year to maintain the illusion of self-worth.
Working smarter means getting out from underneath the control of your possessions. Working not for the possessions, but for the enjoyment of the task.
More on my blog
feel free to come on over and discuss!
I suppose to me working smarter & not harder would mean doing the best work in the least amout of time with less expenditures…The first time I heard this phrase was from a nursing supervisor back in the 80s who admonished me for taking a long time to complete a simple task. I was offended then as I’d wanted to be meticulous in my job performance, but, in essence I’e come to apply this gem in most things I do …
Working smarter, not harder is something everyone should incorporate into their psyche…
Clara.
To T.W. Anderson,
I completely agree with you. How much you “need” to make is determined by how you want to live and spend your money.
I live in Milwaukee, WI in a reasonably-priced apartment in a decent and safe area. I work full-time at a bookstore and have to scrimp sometimes but I’m trying to earn additional income by freelancing. Writing is really my first love, and I’d like to make a living from it.
By the way, where do you live? It sounds fantastic!