Every few months I’m asked to present of the best technology for freelancers. As I cut my teeth as a journalist writing about technology, there are times when my peers look to me for advice. This week, I present to a group of recently retrenched journalists who are looking at freelancing for the first time in their career.
The temptation with this is to simply focus on a few choice applications, look at some specific hardware and then provide everyone with a laundry list of stuff to buy. Of course, this would be a list of what works for me – not much use to someone with different expertise, experience and access to technology.
My approach is to ensure that freelancers look at each different part of their business and get them to choose the best tools for each part of their business. Running a successful business takes more than choosing an accounts package. It’s about managing a whole bunch of conflicting priorities and managing your time so that everything you need to do moves forward. Sometimes, the worst thing a freelancer can do is work to finish one thing and let other tasks stagnate. For example, if you use your spare time to only pitch stories for current clients, you won;t build your client base with new ones.
The presentation I put together is based on one I gave at a freelancer convention with  few tweaks and updates. If you’re interested, it’s on SlideShare.
[slideshare id=15630706&doc=freelancetrainingfornewfreelancers-121213190739-phpapp01]