Certain occupations tend to elicit more "favor asking" than others: tax accountants, auto mechanics, and website designers come to mind. And in my experience, people who create websites are usually very giving people, often working nights and weekends for free. The problem is, as a website creator, it's easy to focus on the people or cause you are helping and forget those things that you are sacrificing in the process.
The Problem
Helping people is good. I don't know of any website creator that would say he doesn't like helping people. However, what some people don't realize is that by helping one person, you are precluding helping others. Two examples of this come to my mind:
- Scenario 1: You have a good day job at a design firm, a wife, and are mildly active in your church or community. Occasionally, you have to stay late at work, but that's the nature of any design firm. Life seems somewhat busy, but you still find it hard to say "No" when friends or family ask for some "quick design" work. You enjoy their gratitude when you finish their project and it's good to know that your skill set is helpful to others. But in the meantime, you spend less time with your family, you turn down other opportunities to help others in the community, and you find yourself tired of websites at the end of every day.
- Scenario 2: You're a young married freelancer making a decent living, looking forward to starting a family, and hoping that your income will reach a level to start your own firm. Maybe you have even bigger plans: early retirement, philanthropy work, a non-profit organization. Along with your ambition comes a strong work ethic and thus, you always stay late at work, volunteer for special projects in your community, and always say "Yes" to friends or family who need help. There's nothing wrong with this (helping others is always good), but at the same time, you need to remember that one day, you may wake up a much older person with little or no progress made towards your initial plans.
Unfortunately, life is short and we all age sooner than we want. So there are a few things to remember when deciding what projects and opportunities you choose to work on:
- Know Your Goals: People who reach their goals always sacrifice to reach them. So figure out what your goal is: starting a family, helping friends, having a lot of fun, creating an online business, making money, helping your company, etc. Then try to keep this goal in mind when deciding what you spend your time on. Remember, you can't do everything, so have a priority list and try to stick to it.
- Always Look at Both Sides of the Equation: It's easy to think "I just spent 10 weekend hours really helping an acquaintance for free," but forget to remember "I have 10 fewer hours to spend with my family, build my own business, or work at the community center." Often times, once you consider both sides of the equation, you find that you're helping mostly strangers at the expense of helping those who matter most to you (family, employees, etc.).
- Reassess Your Goals and Time Often: It's easy to forget your goals or for your goals to change over time. So spend a little time on a periodic basis (I like the first of the month) to see what's keeping you busy, where you stand in relation to your goals, and how you can improve the way you spend your time.
So how do you keep focused and away from too many distractions? Here are a few tips that I have found helpful:
- Be Honest About Expectations - When you do choose to help someone out, be honest with them and don't always try to be the self-sacrificing nice guy. Let them know how much it will cost (it's not wrong to charge them), how much time it could realistically take, and your limitations for future work. You're not helping anyone by promising deadlines you can't keep and work you can't finish.
- Find Gracious Ways to Say "No" - People will understand if you tell them you don't have enough time. Just be communicative and clear, and be sure to offer some alternatives for them. Tell them about eLance.com or Guru.com. Try to be helpful and still remain firm in your decision.
- Find Ways to Help People Without Doing Everything - I used to try creating entire websites pro bono for friends or acquaintances who "needed" them. But oftentimes, they would end up not really using the site or having many edits down the road that took up lots of time. So instead, I spent a few hours creating a document that walked them through the steps of creating a new site (including resources like Yahoo Small Business and Template Monster). The document still noted that they probably needed one hour of a developer's time (for which they should expect to pay), but this simple document freed up many hours that I used to spend doing "everything."
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