No matter what type of freelance work you do (unless it’s hourly), you probably benefit from being productive and efficient. Finding ways to complete work in less time means more time for other projects or for leisure activities. Here are few tips, below, aimed at freelance web developers and designers.

Time Keeps On Slipping Slipping

Flickr credit: gadl. [CC license.]

1. Learn what the client really needs. This will save you time in planning for the wrong features/ design/ content. Sometimes, clients tell you what they want and assume you’ll tell them what they need.
2. Leverage previous work. Maybe you have some sort of idea bank or “cut folder” of materials you didn’t use before and which you own (instead of a client). If you’re organized, you could save a lot of time reusing materials instead of starting from scratch.
3. Keep up in your niche. Knowing what’s going on in your niche, especially with new web-based tools, is worthwhile. There might be a faster, easier way “now” to do something that used to take hours or days.
4. Stay connected. Whether you use Plurk, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or something else, being part of an active social network, with an increasing number of friends, can do wonders for your productivity. Need an answer to something? Just ask, and if someone knows and is willing to share, they will. You’ve just saved yourself research time. If you’re going to work online, there’s no room for shyness, and your “friends” know this too.
5. Learn to say no. Some projects (or some clients) are just not worth it to you as far as running your business. Be polite. If you know a colleague (see the last tip) who can handle the work, refer them to your client. This is far better than taking work you just know you won’t get done on time.

Have any freelance productivity tips of your own?

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To web developers who are not also web designers, it might seem that the latter have it easier in terms of promoting themselves online. Their work is visual, and can be demonstrated fairly easily? So what can freelance web developers do to promote themselves? Here are some tips from us at Webdevlounge.

1. Website. If you’re going to promote yourself  and your work online, you need a website, plain and simple.
2. Blog. Don’t just have a website, make sure that you’re keeping it updated with new and relevant content. The easiest way to do this is to have a weblog. You don’t have to post everyday, but some consistency helps. Some possible post types are listed below.
1. Musings on the web development industry, or your experiences.
2. Tutorials. There are never enough good tutorials.
3. Screencasts. There are even fewer good screencast-based tutorials or tool reviews.
4. Podcast. A web developer’s podcast doesn’t just have to be about being  a developer. Include reviews of new tools, old IDEs, great resources, interviews or whatever else you think listeners will be interested in.
5. Reviews, interviews, previews of new tools.
3. C.V. Post your resume on your site, make it interactive or at least more than just text. Use it to sell your skills.
4. Services. Have a web page separate from your C.V. to list your services. On this page, make sure you summarize your skills clearly. Rates do not necessarily have to be posted, though you should have a rate card, if only to follow up with potential leads.
5. Ebook. Do you have web development skills that you can easily and clearly share with others? Write about it in an ebook and give that away.
6. Guest posts. Write guest posts for other web developers and designers. Invite them to do the same for you.
7. Branding. Put your name and URL on every bit of content that you publish.  If you have a business name, use that. On items such as ebooks, make sure you throw in some contact details.
8. Business cards. Include your URL on biz cards + resumes. If you go to tradeshows or live social networking events, these are good places to hand out  cards.

Share with us. How do you promote your web development skills?

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In the past couple of years, it seems that an incredible number of web design and development sites have popped up, and many of them regularly run resource lists. Here’s a look at some of what’s been published recently.

[1.] Hongkiat offers a collection of links to 100 grunge and abstract fonts from Dafont, Fontspace and others may not be “everything you ever wanted” in fonts, but should give you a head start. (Note that some of these fonts are donation-ware for commercial use.)

[2.] To go with all those grunge fonts (above), here’s a list of 40 grunge Photoshop tutorials from Smashing Magazine. (Is there a grunge revival I don’t know about?)

[3.] Noupe has a handy breakdown of links to over fifty how-to articles for AJAX developers.

[4.] DesignMag presents a list of 35 great Fireworks tutorials, ranging from how to add 3D realism to objects to designing for mobile devices.

[5.] Is there ever a lack of Photoshop tutorials online? Vandelay Design presents a list of 35 more tutorials focused on website layout design.

[6.] Smash!ng Apps gives us their choice of 35 mindblowing inspirations and resources for designers and developers. This includes tutorials and resource lists.

[7.] Whether you Twitter to microblog or to promote your blog, or for some other reason, you might be inspired by these 30 creative Twitter theme backgrounds.

[8.] CSSBuilt has selected their choice of 21 of the best CSS-based web designs for Oct 2008.

[9.] Smash!ng Apps has a list of 17 free tools for designers, many of which I’ve not heard of before. The list includes font, CSS, and color tools.

[10.] Regardless of what kind of work you are doing, here’s Six Revisions‘ list of 15 free tools for collaborating online. The tools range from desktop VoIP software to web-based project management and real-time collaboration apps.

[11.] Developers, don’t feel left out this roundup. The HTML Blog provides 10 code snippets for PHP developers.

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As print mags are getting cut from publishers lists, web-based magazines are springing up to replace them. Here are a couple of recent launches.

Click Creative

Click Creative is a free, bimonthly magazine available online in PDF format. It’s focus appears to be 2D and 3D design, photography, web and interactive media. The Nov 2008 issue is 11 pages [2.39 Mb PDF file]. The next issue is out on Dec 6/08. They’re currently looking for new cover art. Information at their website.

Groovy Mag

While Click Creative is free, Groovy Mag costs US$4.99. It’s not clear if there’s a print edition, but there doesn’t seem to be. Can they make a paid web magazine model work? Niche software magazines in print, to my recollection, always had to struggle, though with distribu tion costs being next to nothing in comparison, it’s possible that this could work. But apparently you have to log in to purchase a copy (no idea why), and payment (including credit cards) is processed through PayPal. You can get a free 4-page sampler PDF from the site.

The magazine focuses on Groovy and Grails development. If you do that kind of work, you already know what Groovy and Grails are. (If not, Groovy is a scripting language for Java, and Grails is a framework for Groovy.)

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CrowdSPRING is a recently launched marketplace for designers and buyers. This includes logo design, business cards, graphics, website, photography and more. However, it does not include any option for listing code or writing projects. Actually, when you understand how it operates, that makes sense. I can’t think of any coders or writers that would be willing to work this way, though that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

Of course, both buyers and “creatives” can participate. Buyers post their projects, along with details of what they need and what their budget is. They wait for ideas to submitted and can review, sort, rate or give feedback to the submitters. CrowdSPRING claims over 8400 creatives around the world and apparently gives a money-back guarantee that each project listed will receive at least 25 entries.

Creatives set up a profile and participate in projects at no cost. CrowdSPRING handles the billing and payment process for them.

Personally, I dislike these sorts of sites. Can you imagine putting in an effort to submit a piece of work and not winning the project? Then imagine doing this over and over. That’s just my opinion. Others prefer this. Buyers seem to get the best deal. And crowdSPRING is hardly the only site doing this, with 99Designs (now a sister to site to Sitepoint) being an earlier entrant to this alternative to freelance listings sites (e.g., Guru, eLance). At least with the latter, you’re only bidding on projects No work is done until you know you’ve won the gig.

But that’s just me. How do you feel about sites like crowdSPRING and 99Designs?

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