Is Your Computer Slow or Is It Your Internet Connection?

Weekly Newsletter for The Freelancers: Here is the latest newsletter of the week starting on 2nd of December 2019.

You might not know whether it is your internet connection or your computer, but if it slows you down in getting your work done you need to find out what causes it and get it fixed. The reason is simple, it costs you money in lost time.

FWG computer slow or is it the internet featured image

The first step is to find out what your internet speed is. PCWorld.com’s writer Nick Mediati has written an evergreen article to help you entitled How to test your home internet connection speed which you can read here. Nick tells you the steps to take to try to get it fixed if you can.

The next step is to look at your computer to see whether you have a problem there.

If you are using Microsoft windows, their support is here.

If you are using a Mac then Macworld.com have contributed here.

If you are a windows user TechAdviser.co.uk writer Roland Wadilove has contributed How to speed up Windows: which you can read here.

DigitalTrends.com writer Jayce Wagner has contributed How to speed up your Mac which you can read here.

For those who want to run Windows 10 on their Mac, Tyler Lacoma has written an article for DigitalTrends.com entitled How to install Windows 10 on a Mac which you can read here.

Where you have a more serious issue with upgrading and repairing PCs this Amazon eBook should help:

Motivate Yourself!

“Things you don’t expect come up, and you have to adapt. You can’t let it throw you off. You have to cope. Those are all really valuable skills, in life and racing.”

– Harvey Mackay

Why You Should Be Motivated to Improve Your Soft Skills as A Freelancer?

Soft skills matter to freelancers because they need to market themselves to other people so that they can build their business relationships. It seems hard to believe when you first embark on your freelancing career that this is important.

This is because you believed that working for yourself that you wouldn’t need to deal with difficult people again because that was all behind you when you left the corporate world.

Experienced freelancers know that this is wrong because a lot of your success as a freelancer and getting a steady flow of gigs depends on business development that requires soft skills like:

Leadership skills for remote workers
Teamwork for freelancing flash teams
Communications skills
Problem-solving skills
Work ethics
Flexibility/Adaptability
Interpersonal skills

There are more soft skills that you need to know about which we have covered in our Amazon eBook FREELANCERS’ 20 Critical Steps To Successful Communication which you can look inside at the index by clicking on the icon below:

Productivity Tip Of The Week

How Much Does It Cost You Not To Outsource Skills That You Have To Learn?

As a freelancer do you consider yourself in a management position? If you are new to freelancing and have just left a management position in a corporate 9 to 5 job you may think that you have left management responsibilities behind.

The most successful freelancers quickly realize that managing themselves and their time is critically important. It might not be obvious at first as you are keen to get your first gig and get some money flowing in.

However, as the gigs start to flow and you get busy you will start to realize that some of the jobs that you do are not the best use of your time. Where you are swamped by low paying jobs or parts of jobs this quite often overflows into your family time and puts you under pressure.

This is where managing your work-life balance comes in! It is here that it costs you not to outsource skills that you have to learn because it slows your productivity down.

The most successful freelancers learn this lesson very quickly. It is our job to tell you about this and help make you successful.

Chonce Maddox has written the following article for the Due.com blog which you can read here.

If you want to learn more about what you can outsource and why you should here is an Amazon Kindle eBook to help you:

Work-Life Balance Tip Of The Week

Learning to Say ‘NO’ As A Freelancer!

Leah Kalamakis owns Freelancetofreedom.com website and in her article Dealing With Overwhelm: Learning to Say No Leah makes a very valid point that saying NO is something every freelancer needs to know how and when to do it.

‘NO’ is an important weapon against being overwhelmed when you are working as a freelancer. This is especially true when you are moonlighting as a freelancer while holding down a day job.

If you don’t learn this lesson early you can risk burnout. When that hits you, it is very hard to overcome. You can read Leah’s article here.

Saying no to clients when you are starting out building your business as a freelancer and clients are hard to find is not easy.

However, you soon realize that there is something more valuable than getting clients and working frantically to reach deadlines – that something is your family and your health.

This raises the question as to how you can do this and still retain good relationships with the potential or existing clients that you have refused the offer of work from.

Kate Hamill from the Freelancers Union has thought this issue through and written Say ‘no’ in a way that gets you more gigs as an article for the Freelancers Union blog which you can read here.

There are signs that give you a hint that a gig is not a good idea that is above the fact that the work-life balance issue is feeling like work is overwhelming you.

Aja Frost has shared his ideas of what six common signs are in his article Six signs you should really turn down that freelance assignment for the MediaBistro.com website which you can read here.

Financial Tip of the Week

Have You Considered Crowdfunding That Great Idea That Will Build Your Business?

Crowdfunding is an important source of funds for freelancers to consider when they have a great idea that they want to develop. This can be as simple as an application to better manage your work-life balance or managing Facebook Ads for clients.

Often it is hard to get traditional sources of finance from banks or similar institutions which would quite often look for mortgage security to guarantee payment if you should fail.

There are now crowdfunding freelancers that will help you with your application. You can see the Upwork list here for some of the crowdfunding specialists.

For those that are not sure what crowdfunding is here is an explanation from Startuploans.co.uk which you can read here. While you are on the website don’t forget to read the success stories of everyday people who had a great idea and developed it into a business.

Often these people started out as freelancers or entrepreneurs. Most countries have now realized the importance of freelancers and the start-up economy. Those that haven’t will.

Jenny Knizner has written Entrepreneurs: 9 tips for proven crowdfunding success for www.usatoday.com which you can read here.

Skills Development and Inspiration

Image Credit Pixabay.com

We are constantly searching for news articles and videos on skills development and inspiration for freelancers as well as developing our own products.

Each week we have decided to bring you the links to what we consider are the top three articles or videos. This week we thought we would bring you some more TEDx talks on important issues for freelancers:

“Be The Warrior Not The Worrier – Fighting Anxiety & Fear” | Angela Ceberano | TEDxBedminster :

“The most important lesson from 83,000 brain scans”| Daniel Amen | TEDxOrangeCoast :

“Beautiful minds are free from fear”: Robert Grant at TEDxOrangeCoast :

There are now 5,000 skills in 90 categories that the digital economy can offer, according to Upwork’s 2nd. Quarter 2019 Skills Index which you can read here.

Number sixteen on the list is Motion Graphics. If you are like me, you will probably want to know more about Motion Graphics. I looked it up on Google and this is what it is here. What is interesting about Upwork’s list is that there are new digital skills and they are evolving very quickly. Innovation and technology are very important to countries. In Australia this is particularly important because these skills are applicable to country areas impacted by drought. The value of the digital economy to Australia is shown here.

We have been developing an Amazon eBook series on freelancing for those starting out freelancing. Here are some early eBooks listed below. Click on an icon to have a look inside at the index for each one:

Amazon News

The weekly AWS news video link to acloud.guru is here. They are the leading trainers globally for Amazon Web Services certification for freelancers.

Amazon Associates Website Case Study

As discussed in previous newsletters we are focussing on the niche website in the future because it is producing better results i.e. sales.

We have changed our strategy to include guest posts and this is one from our cybersecurity website. The guest contributor is Alex Coyne with USB operating systems and how they work (click on the link).

We will let you know when another is posted. The goal is to increase traffic and diversify product promotion. There have been approximately 30 Amazon product sales (across all our websites) in the past month due to the keyword research and skills of Mamun, my virtual assistant.