Weekly Newsletter for The Freelancers: Here is the latest newsletter of the week starting on 30th of April 2018.
This article is a continuation of last week’s about starting freelancing after the age 55.
Imagine that you are a mother, grandmother, or a divorcee who is struggling along financially and working part-time as a bookkeeper for an accountant. A family friend who is an accountant had given you the job and trained you when your husband left you.
Further, imagine your friend calls you into her office one Monday to say she has cancer and was going to retire and sell her practice.
Before you have a chance to ask the question about your future, your friend shakes her head and says, “I’m sorry – I asked if you could continue on.”
This situation happens frequently and this article by Patrick Wood entitled The good, bad and ugly truth about your career after 50 appears in the ABC News Breakfast here.
What can you do to find a job when you are over 50? Kerry Hannon gives 8 Common Mistakes Older Job Seekers Make for the AARP The Magazine and you can read it here.
This is what you can do if you decide that you can’t find employment and are going to start freelancing to generate an income:
- Freelancing Over 50: 4 Steps to Start Selling Services This Week from Ian Bond of myretirementrehab.me which you can read here.
- Freelance writing after 50 – an opportunity for a new start from the author, ib50, appears in livingbetter50.com which you can read here.
- How to reinvent yourself after 50 from Dorie Clark and the Harvard Business Review which you can read
here.
Motivate Yourself!
“If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride –
and never quit, you’ll be a winner. The price of victory is high
but so are the rewards.”
– Paul Bryant
Should You Be Motivated To Tell Your Bank You Are Moving From A 9 To 5 Employee Role To Freelancing Full Time?
It does not matter in which country you live, there are lending standards that banks need to comply with. If you live in the United Kingdom you can read them here.
Do you know why you should be motivated to find out about them? It is because they may have special requirements in regard to your bank’s obligations to you if you have a home loan when you switch from working full time for an employer?
It is important that you understand what your lender can do if you tell them you are switching from working full time with an employer to working as a freelancer full time.
Indeed, you may not be required to inform them, but what is important is that you understand your obligations under the loan contract and your bank’s obligations under their lending standards.
It is also a good idea to keep a written record of the conversation, with whom and the date. If there is a document that sets out the lending standard that is applicable to your situation obtain a copy to keep it with your written record.
If there is any remote possibility that you could be disadvantaged by what you find out you should seek the advice of an independent solicitor.
Productivity Tip of the Week
If You Use Public Transport, What Did You Do When You Were Commuting To Your 9 To 5 Job This Morning?
Work-life balance is an important issue for everyone. Essentially, it is about working smarter to lift your productivity and protect your family time so that it makes your life more enjoyable.
When I was working as a banker in the Central Business District of Melbourne I quite often had a trip on public transport for one to two hours per day. Often the public commute involved ten hours a week.
Nowadays the advances in technology allow you to use the public commute time to be productive. You can work with your global freelance team on your joint projects or on your individual projects. Here are some ideas to help use your daily commute better:
- Ashley Watson has written for Wisebread.com 10 Smart Things to Do During Your Commute (Even If You Drive!) which you can read here.
- Ruchi Bhargava has written 7 things you can do on your commute to feel better for the Freelancer.com blog which you can read here.
- Jacquelyn Smith has written 13 Things you should be doing on your commute instead of playing Candy Crush for Businessinsider.com.au which you can read
here.
Do you have ideas to help freelancers lift their productivity? You can share them by using the contact form or sharing them on our Facebook Page.
Work-Life Balance Tip of the Week
Why Cyber Security Is An Important Part Of Work Life Balance?
If ever there was any doubt about the importance of cyber security in our lives, the recent developments with Facebook should have dispelled them.
The European General Data Protection Regulation becomes law on 25/5/2018 and Facebook has given a commitment to compliance with it, not that they had a choice. This is what it means.
From a work-life balance perspective, cyber security is critical for your family and business because if something goes wrong it will have a major impact on the peaceful workings of not only your family but your business as well.
Most freelancers with a website will be using a WordPress website and there is a very useful infographic in the article about the security of your website.
The article 9 Tips to stop your WordPress website being hacked was written by Mark Walker-Ford for Red Website Design and can be read here. If other members of your family and friends have websites this is worth sharing.
For Facebook security Sheera Frenkel and Natasha Singer have written Facebook introduces central page for privacy and security settings and it appears in the NewYorkTimes.com.
Financial Tip of the Week
Do You Know How To Set Freelancing Goals And Reward Yourself?
Can you remember business planning sessions when you worked in your corporate 9 to 5 job? This also applies if you were not a part of this process and worked in a small and medium enterprise.
It was essential to have a business plan and set goals. Even sporting clubs set goals in their training for matches. However, when you are a freelancer it is tempting not to set goals because it does not seem necessary because it is only yourself.
However, it is about your income goals and that is why it matters. April Greer has written My 10 freelance business goals and tips for setting yours for Millo.co
which you can read here.
Rewards follow from achieving goals! That is the way it should be because that is what motivates you to go after the goals. It may seem strange to be saying to yourself that if you achieve an income goal for the month you will take a holiday weekend at your favorite getaway down the coast.
There are good reasons why this works. If you are not sure how or why goal setting and rewards work or even ideas for goals Kayla Sloan has written 6 Cheap Ways to Reward Yourself When You Reach a Financial Goal for Everythingfinanceblog.com which you can read here.
Amazon Associates Website Case Study and Amazon News
Amazon Prime membership program continues to expand globally and now has 100 million members. You can read BusinessInsider.com’s article here.
For all those freelancers who are interested in Amazon Web Services here is the link to the latest news video from aCloud.GURU which you can watch here.
This is the updated position of Amazon’s launch into Australia from Lifehacker which you can read here.
The history of the Case Study can be read at links to the previous newsletter issues (there is no change for this week).
We have stopped showing the links for new articles as we have discovered that it could be having adverse impacts on the search engine optimization of the website Best Sellers Hourly. We will advise you when new articles are added. They are currently being worked on.
By this time you can check our social media:
Freelancers And Cyber Security
We have gained approval from Robert Siciliano to bring you extracts from his books related to cyber security for freelancers. Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert and consultant.
He also gives self defense and personal safety seminars. Robert provides safety and identity theft fraud prevention tips and advice on multimedia channels in the United States. We have his approval to bring you weekly extracts from his books:
What is Account Takeover Fraud? (Part-3)
