I recently starting offering my writing services to fellow members of DP and on a few freelance sites. The issue I have right now is keeping things organized. I was wondering if other writers can give me some pointers here. How to setup a spreadsheet for clients? Maybe you have one that I can use the same style. I really want this to work for me, so I am eager to seek help and get advice. I really enjoy writing, its just the organization part that I need help with right now. So if you have any advice please pass it along.
I use Microsoft Outlook's Calendar, but you could use any calendar really - I should switch to Google's, but I haven't. I view the calendar as a month at a time and just fill in the projects where they fall. I can see instantly were my weekly/daily/monthly jobs fall and then fill in the gaps in the calendar with new projects as I have time. It allows me to schedule out weeks or even months in advance with ongoing projects and I can tell a client honestly exactly how long it will take to deliver materials. Since I only work evenings, my time is limited and I have it organized down to the half-hour usually. Of course you'll want to remember that you need to build in time for marketing and administrative tasks as well. I save notes about the projects by starring/flagging the emails, putting short notes with the calendar appointment I created or saving them as a text file in the folder that corresponds to the client's name on the calendar. For example, if JohnDoe gave me instructions last week for a project I'm starting this week, I put him on the calendar for the next available day and save the information I need in a new folder (saved as Clients/2009/JohnDoe) so I can get right back to it when I'm ready to actual work on JohnDoe's materials. I also tend to save files with the date included in the name to make it easier to dig back through sequentially if I need to.
I support the colleague. Microsoft Outlook's - the convenient, qualitative assistant in personal business, contacts to clients, correspondence. A good calendar with set of functions. Record of events, automatic reminders. With it it is really possible to work with set of versatile clients.
I write, and would love to do it full time getting paid, but I am overwhelmed by the amount of websites out there offering to pay writers, are there any who are reccomended by forum members.