I have a system – and as a writer, I need it. When I started freelancing, it wasn’t hard to keep track of my clients – I didn’t have that many of them. Now, it’s different, and I need to be very organised to keep on top of my writing business. Here’s a peek at how I organised my writing.
My Filing System
First of all I have a folder called ‘writing projects’. This is at the heart of my organisation and I make sure that this folder is backed up both online and on an external hard disk. Once inside the folder I have several key sub-folders. There’s:
- a folder for bidding, which has both copies of successful bids and samples
- a folder for clients, which is further subdivided with a sub-folder for each client and, if necessary, for each project.
- a folder with copies of contracts
- an invoice folder, with archive folders sorted by year. Once an invoice is paid, it moves into the archive folder, so I always know which ones are outstanding. Each invoice has a number and two or three letters representing the client’s name. (For example, all my invoices for ParkRideFlyUSA have the suffix PRF). This makes it easy to identify invoices for a particular client at a glance.
- a personal folder – for personal writing projects, including my ebooks and anything not for clients, though increasingly I tend simply to create a fake client and include personal writing, such as my Suite101 articles, in the writing projects folder.
- an archive folder for uncategorised writing jobs from previous years
- Finally, I have a folder for my newsletter.
I also have a separate folder for the blogs I run – with a subfolder for each blog. Copies of all posts, images, themes and customizations are stored here.
The key to using this system successfully is to file regularly. If it’s not in the right place, you will never find it, in spite of the improvement in desktop search tools. Having a good filing system means I don’t have to worry about forgetting what I’ve called a job.
Planned Improvements
How could I improve it? There’s only one thing I will implement for 2010. I will include the job numbers for each project in the file names wherever possible. I already number each project for invoicing purposes, but I use descriptive names in the client folders because I’m much better with words than numbers. Linking the two will complete the circle, making project tracking even easier.
How do you organise your writing work?
(Photo by ladyheart )
I have a folder system as well where I post everything related to a project in client folders and I am using a project # on every zip file plus every e-mail related to a project, which definitely helps keep me organised. I have a master spreadsheet with project numbers and about a zillion columns related to the project with info about it (due dates, my #, client project #, rate, if it's subbed out, etc) and then I have a colour-coding system I use as well to give me an 'at a glance' look at projects due, invoices sent, invoices overdue, etc.
In 2010, I'm thinking of moving to an accounting system to take some of the manual work out of tracking income for tax purposes. I'd love to hear about others using an accounting system.
Thanks,
Dana
My recent post The Basics of Using Elance for Writing Work
I used to have one of those master spreadsheets, Dana, but now that I'm outsourcing less I note due dates in a todo list/calendar and outsourcing details in the main income spreadsheet. It seems to work, but I'll examine it again at the end of the year. I'm also considering moving to an accounting system – have you decided which one you are going for?
Sharon,
I've always been fairly organized but I must admit it took a while to get my writing organized. When it had gotten out of control, I ultimately came up with my current system.
I took the time to set up folders for email and in OpenOffice. I do have paper files and for the larger projects, I keep a three ring binder.
So far, nothing has fallen through the cracks!
George
My recent post A Roarin’ New Blog of the Week
Sounds good, George. I've tried to stay away from paper, partly because I end up with the classic editor's desk – covered in reams of it. I'm toying with the idea of making more use of Evernote to keep everything digitized.
I don't do it so much now as I mainly have regular blogging gigs, but I used to organise thigs by assigning a number to every story idea that got as far as going out in a pitch, then adding a relevant letter for each related document. So, for example, the first story pitch of the year was detailed as P0001, the research for it was in the file R0001, the draft was D0001, the filed story was F0001 and the invoice I0001. I then had a master document which listed each story along with details of its current status, updated when I got it commissioned/filed it/invoiced/received payment.
Having the same number for each aspect of the project must have been a big help with tracking, John. What did you replace that system with?
I don't really need so much of a system now as I'm working almost entirely on regular blogging gigs, so it's just a case of one folder for each client, within which I have one folder per month to keep all the filed copy, images and then the final invoice.
I couldn't live with my Moleskine. I have 2 actually… one for keeping track of my days and the second for all my writing. Moleskine #2 contains all those little thoughts and threads of ideas that come to me. I embellish thoughts from Moleskine #2 on my laptop in a folder called "topics"… this is where I develop any given piece. My laptop is backed up and using my ical I am able to schedule and organize deadlines.
My recent post Eero Saarinen – Retrospective at the Museum of the City Of New York