Before I divulge my plans for 2012 let me share a few things I’ve learned as a full time freelancer. These are practical things that helped me survive the year, from family life, to work ethics, and social life which I hope will help you too.

1. It’s a family business

I’ve learned that working as a freelancer is not a “you mentality” but it is and should be a family business. You are just working as the main character but in essence, your wife, your son or daughter has a big part to your success as supporting roles. They need to understand what you are doing in order to support you in little ways. My 2 kids know that when I put on my headset, they have to keep quiet because “George” is on the line. My wife knows that when I am slumping on my chair, I badly need a back massage.

2. Full time doesn’t apply to job only but to family as well.

It was a challenge for me to get over being an overtime father and switch to full time family man. But when you get hold of the balance you will surely be more satisfied with your work, be more happy with your family and live a healthier life. My usual line when my wife tells me that I no longer have time for them is to say that all that i’m doing is for them (which is true). But of course it’s not all about the money. Spending a few hours with the kids, teaching them their alphabet, putting them to bed and playing with them have become my goal to keep me sane and family oriented.

3. It pays to socialize

Social media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, as well as blogs are essential parts of freelancing. The first few jobs that I took were courtesy of my defunct blog “pinoyfusion”. My current work as a research person was because of comment I made to a blog. So you can see how this little things can mean really big in making yourself visible in the radar. Let the world know that you exist and that you have a special service that you can offer. Word of mouth can do wonders for your career. But as a word of caution, make sure that you know what reputation management is as well.

4. Be In the Know

I’ve learned that in order to thrive in this fast paced environment, you need to be able to cope with the influx of information, explore new things and enhance what you already possess. What I like the most about this is discovering new tools so that I can work more efficiently and more productively. It’s almost futile to reason out and say that we don’t know, because with just a simple click on Google search almost everything is at your fingertips.

5. Spend Your Money Wisely

Work can sometimes be so unpredictable and so is the income. As a freelancer, i’ve learned that our focus should not just be on the earning but also on managing those finances. It didn’t become freelancer’s top concern for no reason. If we like to master our craft, budgeting will be the one of the most important lesson we should master next to time management.

6. No is sometimes yes.

This is the best freelance lesson that I’ve learned this year. Freelancing thought me that an opportunity to work with a prospect doesn’t end when you fail an interview or your proposal was rejected. It actually ends when you think that business is only “TODAY” and there is no point in exerting effort to communicate with someone who rejected you. It thought me that business starts the very moment you decided to apply. Whether your prospect accepts or rejects at the first meeting, tomorrow is business as usual because you’ll never know when the need arises that you will become the perfect peg for the hole.

I hope you’ve learned something from what I’ve learned. I’d be glad to hear your thoughts too!

I have found 2 amazing tools which I am using for my research works. And they are both totally for free!

Mendeley

For those who are into some serious research that needs all the bibliographic sources documented, Mendeley is the best choice for you.

Mendeley is free social software for managing and sharing research papers. It is also a Web 2.0 site for discovering research trends and connecting to like-minded academics

They provide a great research management tool that is available for both desktop and web based application. Not only that, it doesn’t leave you to do the research on your own because you can collaborate with other researchers on the network. You can create your own group where you can share your resources or have it publicly available. As a web researcher for a medical practitioner and author, Mendeley has tremendously helped me in making my research more organized and accessible even if I’m not on my desktop.

Mendeley is still in beta stage as I write this. And I’m sure there are a few things that can be improved. One thing I’m particularly keen on seeing is the ability to create a subcollection folder, a more stable importer tool (I just can’t seem make the web importer work) and annotation tools.

But overall, I would certainly recommend this tool to any web researcher, whether student or professional, or a home based worker who is into extensive research.

Zotero

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool that works almost perfectly identical with Mendeley. It’s main purpose: to make life a little more convenient to researchers. It helps collect, manage, and cite your research sources and in arranging, organizing and gathering documents, website links and snapshots, articles into structured folders (The detailed list of its features are listed below). Unlike Mendeley, Zotero is currently available as a Firefox application only.

Although some may prefer other browsers like Google Chrome or Internet Explorer, getting Zotero can be one of your best reasons to switch. There are two current versions available for download version 1.0.10 which has a few limitations when it comes to features but is considered the more stable version and version 2.0b7.6 which packs more advanced features with a little tinged of risk.

The stability of the second version is still being worked out but during my usage of the service (v2) i’ve only encountered a few minor issues like the browser freezing and some notes missing.

I was looking for some annotation tool within Zotero but was a little disappointed that I didn’t find one. To resolve this, I tried checking for other Firefox addons that can highlight and add notes. What I discovered is Zotero becomes an even more effective tool especially if you use it in combination with Diigo’s highlighting option. So for now, i’m using the two in tandem.
Collaboration

Zotero’s collaboration tool works great. Other than the scare because it freezes for a few seconds, Zotero works a like a charm when I used it with a client based in the UK. All you need to do is to create a group/library invite the person you would like to share your research, then synchronize to get whatever you or your group mate have added in the group library.

You can also read the research work made by Debra Lauterback on Zotero usability and survey results on Zotero.