Time

When I started this blog, I wrote that I was going to run it according to the pomodoro technique. That is to focus on one thing for a short period of time (corresponding to an egg timer in the shape of a tomato – pomodoro in Italian). It now seems obvious that I eat plenty more tomatoes than I use the pomorodo technique, and I do not eat a lot of tomatoes…

 

The question is what you should use a blog for and what is important in life and in work. My idea with the blog was partly to find new clients, partly to show existing clients what I know. But to fulfill that purpose I would need readers.

 

So how do I find readers?

 

I suspect that I have to link to other blogs and use social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. That takes time. I will try to do that, but not right away.

 

Why not?

 

A translator usually runs a company and often performs all the tasks pertaining to a company. Aside from work you can invoice for, i.e. the language services (translation, proofreading, editing etc.) you most often will do all administration, bookkeeping, invoicing, client contact, marketing etc. yourself. That means quite a bit of unpaid work, and blogging ends up in that category.

 

For those who do not know what it is like being a translator, I thought I should write a bit about all these tasks that we spend our time on. You do not learn those things at the university. You have to discover them for yourself.

 

For example, how do you sort your jobs and keep track of what clients you have worked for during a certain month? How do you send an invoice? What should an invoice look like? How do you handle your bookkeeping? How do you get new clients? How much should you charge? There are a lot of things to write about, and I will write abou them. In due time.