| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Keeping track of deadlines and wordcounts - any calendar application can do that? Thread poster: Anna Sarah Krämer
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Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 01:23
French to English
| Statistics: what for? | Nov 4, 2013 |
I keep track of the jobs coming in, my table shows me at a glance how much work I have already accepted and I know how much else I can fit in. With PMs sending me work every week, I can then send out mails to let them know just how much I can take on, to avoid them sending me stuff that I won't be able to resist, since I then find myself working till midnight and cursing myself for not being able to refuse.
I feel great when I see that I have been particularly productive, I get to ... See more I keep track of the jobs coming in, my table shows me at a glance how much work I have already accepted and I know how much else I can fit in. With PMs sending me work every week, I can then send out mails to let them know just how much I can take on, to avoid them sending me stuff that I won't be able to resist, since I then find myself working till midnight and cursing myself for not being able to refuse.
I feel great when I see that I have been particularly productive, I get to see immediately when there are downward trends, I can see at a glance whether a particular PM is sending me more or less work, and perhaps contact somebody who seems to have forgotten that I'm in business. When you just have your nose to the grindstone, working hard to produce work that's as near to perfect as is humanly possible, you don't necessarily realise that a certain source has dried up, or just how much you're now doing in a particular field. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Alex Lago
Spain
Local time: 01:23
English to Spanish
+ ...
| I guess I'm a geek | Nov 4, 2013 |
Well I did give up on paper ages ago, I had a PDA and now have a smartphone and I really don't remember the last time I wrote something down on a piece of paper.
| | | | | Google Calendar widget | Nov 5, 2013 |
I know you've tried Google Calendar, but have you used it together with the widget for your cell phone/tablet? I find it useful to have an idea of my upcoming tasks in a very visual way. The downside is that it only shows your tasks for the next week (it would be great if it showed you more, but I think it's only one week). I write the client name and the word count; I find it useful to keep track of small projects and my general workload. I also color code it by client, although I have to do th... See more I know you've tried Google Calendar, but have you used it together with the widget for your cell phone/tablet? I find it useful to have an idea of my upcoming tasks in a very visual way. The downside is that it only shows your tasks for the next week (it would be great if it showed you more, but I think it's only one week). I write the client name and the word count; I find it useful to keep track of small projects and my general workload. I also color code it by client, although I have to do this manually. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Anna Sarah Krämer
Germany
Local time: 01:23
Member (2011)
English to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Geek with a pencil | Nov 5, 2013 |
Alex Lago wrote:
Well I did give up on paper ages ago, I had a PDA and now have a smartphone and I really don't remember the last time I wrote something down on a piece of paper.
I am a geek with a notebook. I find it hard not to buy empty notebooks. And I do use them sometimes to make useful notes, but that varies with my mood and many notebooks will contain notes for my work, things I note from my MOOCs, cryptic messages to myself and many, many, little draws of robots, fish and flowers. No, if I put a piece of paper near me, it will get filled with my complete stream of consciousness, not just with a neat list of jobs.
I decided to go with what I already have: TO3000. I never thought of using TO3000 as a scheduling tool and just used it to process my invoices. But of course, it does the job beautifully. It's a neat piece of software.
Now I just need some kind of assistant that keeps reminding me to enter every job in there... my self discipline is flawless when it's about translating. But I am awfully messy when it comes to paperwork and administration. The robots and flowers always keep interfering.
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Michael Beijer
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:23
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
| 'Schedule of Client Jobs' in TO3000 | Nov 5, 2013 |
Natalie wrote:
Hi Anna,
Yes, there is such option: "Client jobs schedule". It is exactly what you are looking for.
Natalia
I second what Natalie said, just click on 'Schedule of Client Jobs', which will provide you with a pretty nice calendar view of all of your jobs. You may have to fiddle with the date range, column scale and column width a bit to get it the way you like it.
Michael
| | | | John Fossey
Canada
Local time: 19:23
Member (2008)
French to English
+ ...
| Outlook, Memotoo | Dec 9, 2013 |
Two other possibilities that I have used is the Outlook Calendar and memotoo.com. They are both similar in functionality and, in fact, can synchronize with each other.
I make a graphical bar representing a job in the Week view, with the length of the bar corresponding to the number of hours planned. It provides a nice graphical overview of my schedule and automatically synchronizes with my smartphone.
I believe the free Lightning add-on to Thunderbird will also do the s... See more Two other possibilities that I have used is the Outlook Calendar and memotoo.com. They are both similar in functionality and, in fact, can synchronize with each other.
I make a graphical bar representing a job in the Week view, with the length of the bar corresponding to the number of hours planned. It provides a nice graphical overview of my schedule and automatically synchronizes with my smartphone.
I believe the free Lightning add-on to Thunderbird will also do the same thing and can also be synchronized with the others.
[Edited at 2013-12-09 15:35 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 01:23
French to English
| Robots and flowers! | Dec 10, 2013 |
Anna Sarah Krämer Fazendeiro wrote:
Now I just need some kind of assistant that keeps reminding me to enter every job in there... my self discipline is flawless when it's about translating. But I am awfully messy when it comes to paperwork and administration. The robots and flowers always keep interfering.
Yup, that's me too, except robots don't have any hold on me. I draw cats.
The nearest I have got to a system is that I keep either the e-mail or the actual file to be translated open on my screen (usually reduced to an icon if there's too much obviously) until I get round to entering the job. This works fine for big jobs but the three-liners tend to get closed without me entering them simply because I close them once I've delivered them. Of course not billing a three-liner isn't going to make that much difference to the scheme of things, but I do feel it's important for clients to see just how many little bits you do for them (I have a few who send me stuff like that more or less every other day).
| | | | | Do it my way... | Dec 10, 2013 |
...And cut on the admin. This said, I respect and the admire folks who have the resolve, ability and humility to stay on top of it. It's probably a character flaw in me that I can't handle it. But I trim my work down to just the substance and am all the happier for it. I would likely be unable to meet the requirements to join a professional association on account of the total absence of statistics and such like. I'll probably wait until I have a couple more years of experience and apply for a wa... See more ...And cut on the admin. This said, I respect and the admire folks who have the resolve, ability and humility to stay on top of it. It's probably a character flaw in me that I can't handle it. But I trim my work down to just the substance and am all the happier for it. I would likely be unable to meet the requirements to join a professional association on account of the total absence of statistics and such like. I'll probably wait until I have a couple more years of experience and apply for a waiver, attaching tax certificates saying such and such income is all billed as translation services and telling them they can get a rough calculation on the basis of my average fees. But I'm not gonna play bookie and keep all sorts of silly statistics. ▲ Collapse
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