This is post #4 in my ongoing series of questions from the webinar on “Getting Started as a Freelance Translator” that I presented for the American Translators Association in December. A participant asks: For a translator who doesn’t use CAT tools, what is the average turnaround/output in words per day? Short answer: If you want [...]
Archive for the ‘Productivity’ Category
Webinar question: how many words per day?
Posted in Productivity, Technology, Webinar questions on January 20, 2011 | 22 Comments »
Happy 2011: Are bad habits a form of self-protection?
Posted in Freelancing, Marketing, Productivity, Translation quality, Working from home on January 5, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Happy 2011 to everyone out there in the translation blogosphere! To start the year off, here’s a very interesting interview I came across: sports writer Bill Simmons interviewing New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell. Both Simmons and Gladwell draw some interesting parallels between sports and the rest of life, but my favorite is Gladwell’s take on [...]
Thoughts on 2011
Posted in Freelancing, Money, Productivity, Rates on November 16, 2010 | 7 Comments »
If you’re a freelancer, it’s time to start thinking about your business-related tasks for wrapping up 2010 and starting 2011 on a positive note. A few thoughts: Are you going to raise your rates? If so, think about how to raise them effectively. Are you going to raise your rates for new clients and keep [...]
Why netbooks are better than smartphones
Posted in Freelancing, Productivity, Technology on September 24, 2010 | 8 Comments »
Back in the summer of 2009, I wrote about my decision to purchase a netbook. Over a year later, my Asus Eee is still going strong and I still love it. I paid around $300 via Newegg and I haven’t had any software or hardware problems with my netbook despite some heavy use. And it’s [...]
Projects large and small
Posted in Clients, Freelancing, Productivity on September 10, 2010 | 12 Comments »
At the moment I’m working on one of the larger projects I’ve ever taken on; a bit over 40,000 words. This has gotten me thinking about the pros and cons of large projects versus small projects, as well as which type of projects I prefer working on. I’m interested to hear what other translators think [...]
The importance of down time
Posted in Productivity on July 7, 2010 | 5 Comments »
Here at Thoughts on Translation, I’ve been working on a loosely organized series of posts inspired by summer. A few weeks ago I wrote about ways to handle summer as a freelancing mom or dad; now let’s talk about the importance of down time in our freelance lives. In the not-so-distant past (I’m 38 and [...]
Handling summer as a freelancing parent
Posted in Freelancing, Productivity, Working from home on June 14, 2010 | 11 Comments »
Here in Colorado, school has been out for a couple of weeks. Elsewhere in the U.S., summer vacation is fast approaching. If you’re a freelancing mom or dad, it’s both the best of times and the worst of times! Each morning in the summer, I wake up and have a little gratitude moment: I’m grateful [...]
Test drive: the Personal Efficiency Program
Posted in Book reviews, Productivity on April 20, 2010 | 9 Comments »
I’m not generally a fan of time management literature, but during a recent trip to the local library, Kerry Gleeson’s The Personal Efficiency Program: How to stop feeling overwhelmed and win back control of your work caught my eye (published 2009 by John Wiley and Sons, 4th edition). Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m working [...]
The tyranny of the sub-goal
Posted in Marketing, Productivity on April 13, 2010 | 9 Comments »
I learned the expression “the tyranny of the sub-goal” from my husband, who most frequently applies it to chores around the house, as in “We need to paint the living room but before that we have to fix the hole in the sheetrock where we smashed the corner of the washing machine into the wall.” [...]
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Corinne McKay is an ATA-certified French to English translator specializing in international development, law and non-fiction books. She launched Thoughts on Translation in February, 2008 as a way to connect and share ideas with freelance translators around the world.
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