Below is an excerpt of my latest article, written for the EverClients blog. It’s the third in a series I’m roughly calling “Hacking Freelance”, and it goes in to the detail of why we should all track our time at a computer, and how!

Why Should Freelancers Track Their Time?

Freelancing is more connected to time than any other type of business. A lost hour freelancing affects your weekly earnings directly. Luckily, as freelancing continues to grow across the US and Europe, a stable of software is being built to assist solo-workers and small businesses.

Arguably we all benefit from better time management, but this post focuses on the currently available time-tracking software specifically targeted at freelancers, ultimately ending in my review of the top five time-tracking options.

On top of lost billable time, (and therefor money), working time as a solo-worker can easily get messy. Twenty minutes on an email to a prospect, fifteen on a skype call to a client, 47 minutes finishing off a deliverable, (if you get to finish it.) Then your significant other walks in and asks you to put up a shelf or take the dog for a walk…

Read the full article

The post Do you track your time? first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.

A fantastic side-benefit I never expected EverClients to provide is that it actually builds a habit out of bidding on new work/finding new clients. By building the process into your freelancer day, customers have told me that it gets done way more regularly than usual. It becomes “Check email, bid for 30 minutes on select work from EverClients, get on with billable hours.” – Where before it would be easy to forget for a few days and then be high and dry once your current job finishes.

I’ll also be writing a collection of articles for freelancers over at the EverClients blog, I’ve started with Why do freelancers get droughts and will cover most of the topics that I know plague freelancers. Ultimately I hope to write up into a useful e-book for Freelancers everywhere, as I’ve seen that the number of us freelancing each year is hugely rising.

EverClients – Never Search for Freelance Leads Again

http://www.everclients.com

The post EverClients – More Work For Freelancers first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.

This is a quick post about the first of the plugins. Checklist Plugin (@ ChecklistPlugin.com.)

Checklist Plugin is a quick and easy-to-use plugin which lets you add check lists to your WordPress posts and pages.
It’s designed to streamline the process of adding and managing styled check lists to your posts, which are a great way to enrich content, but often are a pain to manage as a blogger. It’s a snap at $17. You can get it here (on CodeCanyon)

I’ll include some examples in the post below, but if you’re a blogger and you want to easily enrich your posts with stylish check lists, get Check List Plugin

Example Checklists:

Final thoughts on Check list Plugin

Simple, but effective – This plugin isn’t super complex and it doesn’t add loads of load to your WordPress. I’ve purposely kept it lean, but it is very useful.

Extendible –  The developers of us out there don’t want to wade through bad code or have issues tweaking CSS of badly formed html elements. Checklist Plugin has CSS sheets in SASS and is properly formed. It’s a breeze to style new themes with CSS.

Bold futures –  This simple plugin is just the start. Rather than build out a plethora of features, I’ve kept this small. We’ll see what the wonderful users of the plugin need it to do, and I’ll build it out from there.

The post Checklist Plugin for WordPress first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.

The post 2014 Plan: Futures. first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.

Note: With big intent for 2014 I will be moving to a new blog where I can be more focused and share only the big great/painful stuff, it’ll focus on concious self development and will be the future home of this kind of post. Visit WoodyHayday.com for up to date info on this. For now, back to last year:

Books

In 2013 I read 2x more books than in 2012, I’ve been intentionally amping up my reading. 2013 was a fantastic year for inspiration and looking back over the list of titles I’m glad to say that most were solid reads. Autobiographies gave me great inspiration for living and learning, with a smattering of modern thought tethering it all to today. I was initially looking for role models I could gleam advice from, seeking to replicate – but I ultimately found so much more in a lot of these books.

Here’s my 2013 pick, I can’t recommend these enough:

[None of these are affiliate links.]

Talks, Podcasts, Videos, Music

Glad to have found all of these. Thanks to the friends who’ve shared links and the authors that have lead me to find them. The Joe Rogan Experience podcast is the most coherent thing to my vision of my own existence I have found all year, props to Joe for having rational conversations that tip the balance to positive. Add Akala & Low Key to the mix and I see a future.

• Seth Godin Q & A
• Graham Hancock – The War on Conciousness (Banned TED talk)
• The Pretotyping Manifesto
• Chris Sacca Interview
• Tim Ferriss on London Real (and this post made me smile)
• Akala – Another Reason & Low Key – My Soul
• Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, notably:
  • Lorenzo Hagerty – http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/lorenzo-hagerty
  • Graham Hancock – http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/graham-hancock-2
  • Dave Asprey – http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/dave-asprey
  • Steven Pressfield – http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/steven-pressfield-aubrey-marcus
  • Stefan Molyneux – http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/stefan-molyneux

Akala – Find No Enemy

Projects

2013 was a full year of “work”. I consulted for ~3 months, building several WordPress plugins and a few web app prototypes, after which I became CTO at SAM, building the MVP there. Towards the close of the year I’ve now reset my goals and started working on the future of StormGate and Woody Hayday, in business terms (I’m looking for software problems to fix & finishing my novel!)

Social Gallery – Social Gallery moved in to the Epic Plugins.com suite of WordPress plugins, it’s since gone on to continue to sell well and is constantly in the “top sellers this week” section on CodeCanyon. It’s now beaten 2k sales and is on its way to 3k.

SAM – Social Asset Management (samdesk.io) – I joined SAM as CTO in March 2013 at inception stage and spent six months building the first MVP. SAM is a platform for media professionals to find and manage Social Assets (tweets, instagram photos etc.) in a modern, coherent way. It’s at the leading edge of innovation in the market and I’m glad I took it to MVP. I got to stretch my legs with almost all of AWS, and up to date JS. I moved on from SAM in October but I am confident it’s going to be a big success, definitely one to watch. James (CEO/Co Founder) continues to be an inspiration.

Writing/Other/Futures – In the last part of 2013 I began experimenting with a few options. I started working towards releasing my sci-fi novel in 2014 (perhaps August – click here to get notified), but for bread and butter I’ve been working on some software projects (SaaS for freelancers, authors and many other ideas!). I also finalised a joint venture that will begin in January. I’m keen to keep a fairly open field until I find something which matches my desired conditions.

Travel

We didn’t intend to travel that much in 2013, what with moving house, twice. We started in Belgium, moved back to Hertfordshire and still fitted in West Wales, Edinburgh, Dunfermline (Carnegie!) Great Yarmouth, Amsterdam (IBC2013) and finished the year in Romania. I couldn’t think of a better place to spend some time than Sinai with good friends! Now we are back in the home counties we are having lots of great evenings out in London and a few good talks too, it was a highlight of 2013 to go to four Akala gigs, his last featuring Low Key especially.

Time Management

In 2012 I started logging time I spend on a computer against projects. This was in part for consultancy billing but developed into a total analysis of my time spent. In 2013 I logged every minute I spent at a computer, tagging the time against a project (I used Toggl, which is excellent.) The process was interesting, as are the results. Doing this is definitely a solid step towards efficacy in your everyday life.

Time logged: 2871 Hours 54 Minutes

Or: Average 55 hours a week / 8 hours a day!

Here’s the distribution of my time – the big blue section is SAM, the other projects seem to share out quite evenly!

• Email took up way less time than I had expected, totalling around 53 hours (just over an hour a week!) – I had been purposely lean on this in 2013, trying to avoid all “busy work”. Success.
• “Lunch Reading” took up a bigger chunk than I had expected, though was still less than most people traditionally spend on lunch breaks.
• I spent more time in the gym than I remembered!
• I spent less than 100 hours playing computer games (Command and Conquer, Battlefield) – Again I was trying to keep lean here.
• Several little projects produced fantastic returns per hour overall. I wonder how this scales.

2013 Summary

The post 2013 Annual Review first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.

I’d like to announce that Social Gallery – the Ultimate Social Lightbox plugin for WordPress has been acquired by Epic Plugins.com (announcement here.) It’s been fantastic to build Social Gallery up as a product and a useful tool, having sold over 1500 copies and many, many add-ons it’s been very well received and helping it grow has been a ball.

Thanks to each and every one of you who has used and promoted Social Gallery – you’re all awesome.

Epic Plugins is a great home for Social Gallery, it fits nicely into their growing suite of fantastic plugins, I thoroughly recommend checking them out – each and every one is hand crafted by Mike – the chief of Epic Plugins and a top dude.

The post Social Gallery Acquired by Epic Plugins.com first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.

Freelancing is hitting new heights. More people than ever are leaving traditional employment in search of self-directed consulting. Whether you freelance or hire this can have profound effects on the way you do business.

Freelancing can open up new markets, change prices and costs. Freelancing can develop much more talent, talent which can be easily accessed and verified through growing marketplaces.

I’ve spent time on both ends of the client-freelancer relationship. I’ve hired freelancers and I’ve freelanced, I still freelance at StormGate for a portion of my time.

Freelancing is becoming a career choice; lots of people are breaking off and setting up shop, but whether you’re a veteran consultant or you’re just starting out, if you approach freelance work with a youthful exploration you will uncover fruitful connections. Likewise as clients, freelancers can be more than just hires; they are often hard working entrepreneurs and can offer other business value.

As a freelancer you have decided to offer a boutique service. What you are producing may be boring business logic or beautiful branding; whatever it is there is a very distinct value beyond its delivery.

Your customers have come to you for an exceptional reason. They like what you’ve done before. They have chosen you over others. Winning freelance jobs has become like battling through an interview process and successful freelancers must win jobs week after week.

In a way freelancers are employees of multiple companies, but far from the traditional, 9-5 sense. The bond between freelancer and client is tenable, once established it’s often as strong as any employment contract. Freelancers can feel an affinity with a company; arguably they represent a new form of stakeholder. As freelancers and as clients we are a lot more connected than we think.

My piece ends with a call for freelancers to play their position, the word Free in Freelance is integral!

As clients self-starting freelancers are invaluable, what’s more they could become employees, partners or students.

As freelancers we can be flexible where big companies can’t, we can care more about progress than profit, we can invest in ourselves and we can freelance for happiness.

There is flexibility in freelance.

Follow me on Twitter @woodyhayday to read more stuff like this in future, I’ll also refresh this blog soon so it might move to a new home

The post The Flexibility of Freelance: Web Designer Magazine first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.

Just a quick post to say that yesterday evening I released the free version of Social Gallery. As Social Gallery has been so popular (now over 700 copies sold on CodeCanyon) it seemed only fair to share some of the awesome out to the WordPress.org family (and to the non-profit’s and such that asked me for assistance.) This “Lite” free version of the premium Social Gallery gives the major functions of Social Gallery but just has all the frill chopped out – it’s still a great way to get more engagement out of your blog images and will no doubt help lots of WordPress fledgling bloggers get more likes & comments on their content. I’m glad to release this free version so as it can be used by all!

If you want to try out Social Gallery Lite you can get a copy over at WordPress.org:

Or read more about this free version release on the Social Gallery Plugin.com blogpost.

Happy Social-Lightboxing to all!

The post Free “Lite” Version of Social Gallery released! first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.

Owing to the fact that I just wanted to get everything down and perhaps because it was my first ever, my 2012/2013 review ended up a pretty mammoth document. I’ve published bits I would like to share here, the actual review though covers as many angles of my life as I can compute

If you haven’t ever done a personal annual review I urge you to give it a try – it doesn’t even matter if it’s later in the year – it’s a great way to take stock and remember your big-picture intentions.

I hope to get around to a project this year which will delve into such human “systems” in far more detail (I want to write a book on it) – but from this first year alone I can tell you there’s a lot of value in this process, give it a try!

I’m Woody Hayday and here’s my 2012 Annual Review:

(Stolen from my very own facebook)

Books

I didn’t read a whole lot in the first half of 2012 but endeavoured to catch up with myself by the end of the year – in my eagerness to absorb M.Scott Peck’s fantastic “Further along the road less travelled” and the Dalai Lama’s “The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality” at the same time I blew my own mind out of the back of my head in January. This was totally unhelpful to my overall flow of reading (this year I’m avoiding heavy stuff when I need to keep motivated.)

Here’s my pick of my 2012 reading – some fantastic books here, I can hardly give them enough praise:

• Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charles T Munger – This coffee table sized book has more value in it than 80% of business book’s I’ve read, combined. Phenomenal wit  and fantastic, rational truth’s. Learn: Margin’s of Safety & Framework of Models.
• Seeking wisdom – From Darwin to Munger – A more consise edited version of Poor Charlie’s Almanack – you can read one or the other but you might miss 20% of the good stuff overall. This is incredibly dry until about half way through, but persevere!
• Letters From a Stoic by Seneca – Phenominal wisdom from 2000 years ago, shame most of humanity is too preoccupied to absorb it! Absolute imperative read.
• Winning Concepts by Dave Gannaway – Simple, positive, 80’s businessman attitude building
• The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine – American & French Revolution commentary never had such retort, fantastic example of a semi-modern genius rationale, highlighted to me the vacuum of non-correction which seems to exist around societies, specifically Great Britain.
• Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place by Malcolm Lowry – Fantastic, mad literature that’ll catch you off guard.
• The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde – A classic, bored me until it won me over in it’s penultimate pages.
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Storified advice on following your dreams. Well written and enjoyable, a great, stealthy way to get positive drive on a big project.
• The Universe in a Single Atom by The Dalai Lama – The Dalai Lama is responsible for several great books – this one is a step heavier than some since and covers the convergence of eastern spirituality and wisdom with modern science, quantum physics and such. Immense but heavy!
• Further Along the Road Less Travelled by M.Scott Peck – If you haven’t read “The Road Less Travelled” read that and come back to this a year later. It’s dense with reality, wisdom and psychology in the best way possible, but in being so I also found it overwhelming (perhaps I read it too fast.) This is one I’ll re-read for sure.

[None of these are affiliate links.]

Projects

Mixing client web development consultancy via StormGate with my own projects, 2012 was still a less fractured year to those before it. I committed to a few major projects which I will mention here but I also didn’t manage to get round to a few I hoped to (finishing off that novel) – C’est la vie!

ChooseFest – The largest project I took on in 2012, ChooseFest is “A festival search engine that matches your music tastes to a better festival” and was fairly successful, closing the year with 600+ users and some really great feedback. Long-tail search engine rankings and a viral nature have carried it well into 2013, where it should continue to grow. Unfortunately work on this one was cut short early in 2012 due to other things getting in the way, I hope to work more on it this year.

Social Gallery – A side project founded from a client’s request, Social Gallery is a WordPress plugin which adds a “facebook style” social lightbox to your blog images – it’s pretty kick ass as you can see. Though this started out as a small experiment it’s been fantastically recieved and is now on it’s second version. It continues to sell well on CodeCanyon. (Branding on this one was done by the fantastic MRK Designs.)

Other noteworthy side projects: Remote backup & health monitoring system for shared hosts (I can now get insane value by using the best of the shared hosts coupled with this setup.) Sales Rocket Pro – this client project had some nice gamifaction intentions! Easy Envato Assistant (tiny project but useful.) Base CRM Contact Form plugin. Seedr’s listing for ChooseFest (temporarily postponed). Lots more including several innovative facebook integrations, a Facebook HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery animated game, a handful of mobile related WordPress plugins and lots of other alpha release’s that I can’t reveal yet

Travel & Health

Compared to previous years I only took a fraction of time away from work this year – I was back and forth between Belgium (Gent) and the UK fairly regularly, with trips to Romania and Denmark. I also got a great week of strategising in a log cabin in the Ardenne. I was glad to see lots of my friends and family visit in Gent, but otherwise had wanted to maintain focus on work. I also hit Wilderness Festival which was cool.

I started out the year averagely healthy and ended it about the same – my intention had been to pursue the slow carb diet and continue to do MED workouts at the gym, alas I let work get the better of me and did not maintain this. I did manage to run my first 10k (the Gent Staad Loop) though, which was exciting.

2012 Summary

It was a full on year of development, I probably produced more lines of more elegant code, drank more coffee and blogged less than any other recent year. Overall I am happy with the outcomes achieved, what else is there to be, after all ChooseFest turned out to seal the end of a fantastically large learning curve, Social Gallery a surprise hit and I managed to find 3 or so books which have utterly transformed my outlook. I should hope to remember that any future successes should be proportionally devoted to Charles Munger, Seneca and my special way of learning: the practical art of digging yourself holes you then have to climb out of.

I hope to realise enough success in coming years to confidently share the hell of a ride it’s been so far.

Have a phenomenal 2013!

P.S. You may get a 2012: Looking Forward post too, if your lucky!

P.P.S. I borrowed this post title from Chris Guillebeau’s 2012 Looking Forward (hope that’s OK Chris), if you haven’t read anything of his stuff check out his latest book $100 Startup, it kicks ass.

The post 2012 Annual Review: Looking Back first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.

Facebook-Style Photo Viewer – Social Gallery

Social Gallery is a WordPress plugin which adds a fancy “Facebook-style” photo viewer to your blog images. It’s a bit of an improvement on the existing lightbox plugins which have served their time well but really haven’t been innovated in too long. This WordPress plugin came about through the combined timing of a client requirement and a schedule collapse, but the end product has ended up working out quite nicely (you can see it in effect by clicking the image below.)

Click this:

(Photo is one of mine I found lying about in WordPress – Aberaeron, West Wales)

What your seeing is version 1.0, you can see the full website here and buy it for $14 here. Future versions will have some fancy additions such as Disqus comments (as well as Facebook comments) and more clever ways to feed content into its sidebar.

Social Gallery rides off the wave that is Facebook, using a similar photo-viewing style to give your users a better media experience as well as garnering the benefits of association with Facebook. If you think about it 900+ million users will be familiar with this way of viewing images so it makes sense for more of us to adopt it, Social Gallery is a really easy way to add this functionality to your WordPress.

Features:

• Facebook-style lightbox
• Get More Likes & More Shares
• Get More Comments
• Engage your Visitors
• Adds Facebook Comments
• Familiar to Facebook’s 900+ million users
• Easy to Install

If you want to know more just hop over to SocialGalleryPlugin.com

The post Facebook-Style Photo Viewer WordPress Plugin first appeared on Woody Hayday | Blog.