When you’re a freelancer or solo-worker, one of the most important parts of your job is controlling cash flow. Getting invoices paid can sometimes be a pain in the ass, especially when you’re working with smaller companies and new clients.

Over the past few years I’ve managed to keep a good cash flow with only a few late payments, here are my top tips for making sure that you get your invoices paid in a timely manner.

Start with a contract

As with everything related to business, you should start with a contract. My contract has a section devoted to payment terms and a payment schedule. I only contract for my web design business, it’s not a normal thing for smaller wholesale orders.

Get a deposit

For my service based web design business I take a 50% deposit upon the signing of the contract. The projects I work on are generally around the £2-3k mark, so I really need that initial investment & security from the client.

I’ve never had a problem with getting this deposit from the client, it’s pretty standard practice. You can be flexible with your deposit terms if the client isn’t super comfortable with dropping the full 50% in the first instance – I’ve split the full project cost over various deliverable points of a project before (25% on contract, 25% on wireframes + design, 25% on development and the remaining payment on “go live”).

I’d also say that in the case of large wholesale orders for product based businesses (the kind where you have to heavily invest in raw materials) then definitely get a deposit! Why shouldn’t you? I’d also suggest sorting out a contract for those orders, too. Cover your damn ass!

Send out your invoices straight away

It goes without saying that the sooner you get your invoices out, the sooner you’ll get paid. You might want to send your invoice as soon as you finish up on a project or send out a contract, or you might keep a list to send out all your invoices on Friday morning (oh, is that ever a good end to a week!). Either way, make sure you’re prompt with the sending of invoices!

Make sure your invoicing system leaves no room for confusion

I use an accounting system that includes a really neat invoicing set-up. It alerts me when invoices are overdue, it numbers invoices appropriately (so that I can reference which invoices are outstanding), and it lets me keep track of the accounts of each client. Kashflow gives me a really quick at-a-glance look at who owes what and leaves no room for confusion between me and the client.

If you’re sending out a lot of invoices it can get quite confusing very quickly, make sure you have a system in place so you can easily see what’s what with your outstanding invoices.

Include all the key information on your invoice

Make sure that everything, EV-ER-Y-TH-IN-G, the client could possibly need to question is available on the invoice:

• The project reference
• A breakdown of costs (if appropriate to the project or order)
• Your address
• Whether you’re VAT registered
• Your company number
• Your payment terms
• The payment reference
• A purchase order (if appropriate)
• The invoice date
• The due date
• Your bank details
• Other payment options
• Your email address and/or phone number

Make it as hard as possible for your client to claim a lack of information as a cause for late payment

Know your Net 30s from your Net 60s, and find out your client’s usual terms

My payment terms are generally Net 30 for product based orders, but a little different for my service based stuff. I ask for my deposit invoice to be paid ASAP after the contract is signed, and state that work can’t started until the deposit is in place (although to be fair I sometimes start anyway for clients who I know are good for it). My final invoice after the “go live” part of the web design process is contractually requested to be paid no more than 14 days after the invoice is sent (I sometimes change that depending on client discussion).

Make sure both you and your client are aware of the payment terms, and make sure you’ve discussed any different terms with clients. I have some wholesale customers who work on 60 day terms (ouch!), but I know they’re good customers and will pay, so I’m okay with it. Don’t let lengthy terms ruin your cash flow though, 60 days is A LONG time not to get paid for something.

Email your invoices and prompt the client the day after late payment

I send all my invoices by email. It’s 2015, people, no one needs a paper copy. Kashflow lets me send my invoices directly from the dashboard, which is super convenient and I can keep track on when I’ve emailed invoices to the clients.

If an invoice is overdue I tend to send a friendly reminder email (and another copy of the invoice) the day after the payment was due to arrive. I’m not a dick about it, things happen, people forget, it’s usually an innocent mistake and people are mortified that it’s slipped off their radar.

Stand your ground

Sometimes people are wankers and don’t pay, though, even after your friendly reminder. Every attempt at contacting leads to silence, and you can try calling, sending out paper invoice, and they still don’t pay.

It’s time to bring in the contract they signed at the start of your project. It’s time for strongly worded emails and a mention of claims and lawyers. It might even be time for naming and shaming (but be careful there, don’t do anything rash that might invalidate any claims/get you in hot water).

You can start introducing interest on to the invoice once it’s gone beyond its payment date, and you can start to look at more serious routes of claiming the money that you’re owed.

Here’re some helpful links for when things go really sour:

• Gov UK – Make a Claim
• Gov UK – Business debt and bankruptcy
• Money Saving Expert – Small Claims Court
• Which?  – When Should I use the small claims court?

Have you ever had to chase a late payment? Do you have any tips for making sure you get paid on time? I’d love to hear them!

The best thing about running a blog, a product based business and a service based Web Design business, is that I can shower my clients with my own personal experience. With the clients I work with, and the majority of projects I work on, I’ve actually been there and done that, reaped the rewards and trudged through the failures. I can tell my clients what’s worked for me, alongside giving them advice seated in experience rather than speculation.

Recently I’ve been working a lot with Shopify, both for new clients and existing clients. In the past I might have suggested other ecommerce solutions to my clients, in fact I’ve built a fair few ecommerce sites on Magento, WordPress (with Woocommerce and Jigoshop), Big Cartel, OsCommerce… you name it!

I’ve enjoyed working with Shopify on my client’s shops so much that I decided to move my own shop over there, too. I was previously on Magento and not really enjoying it, before that I was on Zencart. While both served their purpose, I’m super glad that I’m now running through Shopify.

Here’s why Shopify is winning for me at the moment

• Ease of use. Compared to Magento, and even Woocommerce, Shopify comes out on top for me (and for my clients) because its admin area is bomb-awesome. It’s really easy to use, both for seasoned web people and for those with just a little web knowledge. If you can send an email, you can use Shopify’s admin area.
• Security. I’ve had a few issues with Magento over the past few years, and even with the strictest security settings I had a client’s store get hacked last year. There seemed to ALWAYS be security patches and updates coming through for Magento, which didn’t give me much confidence in it. Shopify, however, is hosted on their own servers so you don’t need to worry about security – you’re paying them to deal with that for you! You also don’t need to worry about purchasing an SSL certificate as the payment system is all taken care of on the Shopify side.
• Templating system. For me, the templating system on Shopify is really easy to use. I won’t get too in depth about it, but I will say that it’s a lot more flexible and easy to understand than the system for Magento (and even Woocommerce).
• Updates. With any hosted ecommerce solution (Woocommerce, Magento) you’re going to need to run updates. With both Woocommerce and Magento, I’ve had some seriously shit experiences (Magento was determined to break every. damn. time. an update was run, and Woocommerce would update and break the theme). Shopify, however, runs all of its updates on its own server, so you don’t need to do anything. It’s bliss. BLISS.
• SEO. Since moving to Shopify I’ve definitely noticed an increase in SEO. The site load time is really fast, which I think is a big contributing factor, and I was sure to use a theme that was well made for SEO.
• Updates Pt 2. Shopify is continually rolling out new features. I kept seeing all these cool new things appearing with my client’s shops, really great features that make the day-to-day running of the shop really fun. There’s even a really cool new feature where you can sell directly on Pinterest using your Shopify store as a feed (not yet available in GBP, unfortunately).
• Choice. Shopify does have a monthly cost attached (I believe it’s totally worth the fee), but you can choose between three levels of subscription, each one with different benefits and incrementally lower fees. I have clients successfully running stores on all three levels, and one of my clients has even gone so far as to use Shopify for her brick-and-mortar POS. I use the Professional (middle) level subscription, which gives me more than enough features for my needs.
• Apps. The Shopify App store lets you add “apps” to your shopify shop to extend its basic functionality. Some of these are free and others are premium, but they let you customise your shop to your own specifications. It’s not as in depth as customising with Magento (you can really get into the nuts and bolts with that one), but that might be a good thing!! My “go to” apps are Mailchimp, Product Reviews and Order Printer.
• Support. I’ve found the level of support for Shopify to be superb, and that’s just from me requesting features from a developer point of view. They’re always quick to respond on email, and really want your input on making their product better. My clients have also been in touch with the Shopify support team and had nothing but good things to say.
• Community. There’s a great community forum around Shopify, and chances are if you’ve got a question, it’ll have been answered there.

These are the not-so-good things I’ve found about Shopify

Unfortunately it can’t all be smooth sailing, and there are a few little irks that frustrate me with Shopify. I’ve notified the Shopify team about a few of these and as they’re always rolling out improvements for the system, I’m hoping that some of them will be addressed soon. None of these were game changers for me, but they might be for you…

• You can’t have sub-categories (or “collections” in the Shopify vernacular). This is a bit of a bummer as I really wanted to subcategorise my jewellery “Jewellery > Necklaces”, “Jewellery > Brooches”. Instead, you need to create all collections as top-level items and then just fib a little in your navigation.
• The front-end (admin facing) theme customiser isn’t as good as it could be. This is just me being a spoilt and picky developer, but I can certainly see room for improvement here.
• The basic order printer is very basic. I use integrated labels to ship items (so I print out an order on one piece of paper that has labels for you to peel off with the address) and needed a way of customising the invoices to work with this. In the end, I needed to use an (albeit free) app to achieve this level of customisation.
• Email isn’t supported through Shopify so you do need to have email hosting elsewhere. You can either use Google Apps, or a small hosting package through a host of your choice (I always recommend Krystal or A Small Orange).
• The blogging system on Shopify isn’t that great, but it’s not built to be a blogging platform after all. For my clients I tend to build a blog subdomain running WordPress.

So there you go! That’s why I moved my shop to Shopify and why I’m very happy with the service they provide. I’ll continue to recommend Shopify to my clients, and hey, if you want to hire me to help you set-up your own Shopify store (even if it’s just getting you going with a default theme) then do get in touch!

Disclaimer: I’m a Shopify Partner, this means that if you sign-up for Shopify through any of my links then I stand to get a monetary bonus. I do honestly love the service though, which is why I use it for my own product based business. 

You’ve got a mailing list for your business, right? You should have, anyway. It’s a great way of collecting customer and client leads, and yourself on their radar. Mailing lists have been around forever, unlike twitter/instagram/facebook/periscope. They’re not going anywhere fast.

I’ve been working on building the mailing lists for my two businesses for the past few years. They’ve got a fair number of subscribers, and I send out occasional newsletters about sales, blog updates, new products etc. I get a fair level of engagement, and a low unsubscribe rate.

My lists are on Mailchimp, I looooove Mailchimp and have been a long time fan. You might have yours on Aweber, Mad Mimi, or any of the other mailing list providers out there. Chances are you pay a certain amount each month, or per send, for your mailing list. It’s usually dependent on the number of subscribers you have and can sometimes come to quite a hefty business expense.

So here’s what I did last week…

I removed around 25% of the subscribers from each of my lists.

Whhhaatttt? From the lists I’ve been building for years? Isn’t that like, a whole year’s worth of subscribers?! Pretty close, actually. But here’s the thing…

I removed subscribers who hadn’t opened, let alone clicked through from, the last 5 email campaigns they’d received. 

Considering the frequency I send out emails that’s around 6 months worth of no engagement. I was paying hard earned money to send emails to these addresses that either:

• Deleted the email without opening
• Had it disappearing into spam
• No longer used that account

What a waste!

(NB: open rate tracking can be a little unreliable, but it’s a good starting point with clearing out your list)

Here’s what’s awesome about having a list clear out

Clearing out your list this way means that the stats from your remaining subscribers should be much improved (your open rate, click through rate, and overall enagement percentages will increase), which is AWESOME if you have a business that relies more on engagement than subscriber numbers (and let’s be honest here, it’s the engagement that counts).

It also means that you’re not gonna be invading the inbox of someone who obviously doesn’t want you there anymore (Bye, Felicia!). They might come across you again at some point, and it’d be better for them to think “oh! I thought I was subscribed to that list, I better sign-up again” than “Ugh, there’s that annoying brand that I keep trashing in gmail”.

You’re list is less likely to be flagged as spam. Chances are, if someone’s trashing your newsletter without engagement, it won’t be long before they report your emails as spam. Erk.

And of course, they amount you spend on your list each month will decrease until you get your list back up to the same numbers.

My Challenge for you!

Go take a hard look at your lists. What’s your engagement like? How many people didn’t open any of your last 5 emails? What about the last 10?

Mailchimp has some really great segmenting tools to allow you to create groups based on the engagement of your subscribers, which is even more powerful than open-rate. You can read more about how that works here.

You could also try and run a campaign to re-engage those subscribers who haven’t been very active lately, maybe offering a discount, or a special reward for opening the email.

Either way, I want you to give your list a good hard clean. Dust off those cobwebs, make your list even more powerful for your business, and engage with the subscribers who really want to get your emails!

This post isn’t sponsored by Mailchimp by the way, I just really, really like their service! The links to mailchimp throughout the article are affiliate links, though, so clicking them and signing up for Mailchimp could yield an affiliate bonus for me. 

I don’t do calls.

Well, hardly ever. If I can avoid a call, I will.

Calls suck. They suck time, they suck because I work from home and get a billion deliveries a day, and they suck even harder when you ask for video on Skype (because I don’t feel the need to dress fancy for my colleagues, the dog and cats). But mainly it’s the time thing.

Don’t get me wrong, Skype has its uses, mainly in the text-chat capacity. And if we’re kicking off a project and you want to chat around some ideas, then I’m usually pretty happy to schedule call then, but otherwise? …

Let me break it down further…

• Calls, of any kind, require scheduling. We have to block out time from both our schedules. While 10am on a Monday might be convenient to me, it might not be to you.
• Calls over-run, we might have said ‘this is just a quick call’, but that soon turns in to 40 minutes!
• We’ll spend at least 10 minutes going over niceties, getting our shit together, and saying goodbye. During those 10 minutes we both could’ve been doing something way more awesome.
• Unless we’re taking endless notes (which prolongs the length of the call anyway), everything’s lost once it’s been said. The written word is so much better for referencing after the fact.
• You might have an in-depth question about something relating to a bit of web development you need, things like that usually require a little research – totally not easy to do whilst on a call.

A call just pisses at least an hour of everyone’s time up the wall. And you know what’s worse? When we have to email to follow up after the call! Dude! That should’ve been the only bit of correspondence we needed.

So, if you try and schedule a call with me to discuss your potential project, I’m gonna be pointing you towards your email. If you insist that we chat, then I’ll have to charge you a consulting rate for the duration of the call. Time is valuable for both of us, and it’s totally not cost effective for me to dedicate an hours worth of time to a project that might not even make it to my table!

“But Kim!” I hear you exclaim, “How can we figure out if you can work on my project if we can’t talk on the phone?! How do I possibly know what to include in an email!”.

I’m glad you asked!

You see, I’ve been doing this making-websites-for-other-people thing for a few years now, and I know what questions to ask. Infact, I have a fabulous form that you fill in! Actually, I have two! I have one that I have you fill in to give me the low down on what you want me to do, and I have another for you to fill in when we kick off the project.

The answers on these forms give me all the information I need, and they even work in your favour — you get to sit down and really concentrate on what you need from the person you’re hiring, whether that ends up being me or someone else.

I know a lot of my peers will scoff at my not taking calls, bad client relationships they say, but honestly? It’s never been an issue in my business. I’ve conducted huge projects just via email and project management systems, and I’ve also been sat silent for 2 hours on group calls in big agencies (man, I do love billing for those two hours, though) when I could’ve been doing something way more productive.

If calls work for you and your business, and you’re 100% sure that there’s not a better way of communicating that’ll save both parties time, then great! Carry on! But me? I don’t do calls.

Creative block. Ah. It hits us all at one time or another. Usually when you least want it to, you know, in the middle of a massive project with an imminent deadline. Sometimes it can last only a couple of hours, other times you can go weeks without having a new idea. It. Sucks. 

I had a serious case of it earlier this year, after the rush of Christmas and the constant factory-style making of jewellery, I was worn out. Any thought of actually creating something new was met with a big, huge, sighing “Meh” from my brain.

I’ve been “making stuff” long enough to learn a few tricks for pulling myself out of this creative rut, though, and here’s what I do:

1/ Get messy

I work on the computer most of the time so it’s always refreshing to work with actual, tangible materials. Clay, watercolours, fabric, paper, it’s all good! This year I’ve been playing around with watercolours a lot more, which is one of the reasons I chose them for my #the100dayproject. Crack out those Conté Crayons that you bought back in art school, grab some paper, and get drawing. Not sure what to draw? read on…

2/ Make marks

Mark making is a wonderful exercise for the exhausted creative brain. Grab your material of choice (paints, charcoal, pencil, micron) and make some marks. Make patterns. Doodle. Just get something down on paper. You can’t go wrong here, which is one of the biggest blocks of creativity (“But what if it looks shit?”), there’s no right or wrong, you’re just… making marks. No one expects you to make a masterpiece here, it’s all about freeing up your creative lockdown.

3/ Music

I always find that evocative music always gets the creative juices flowing. For me, that’s usually stuff about mountains, journeys, and fiction. Bands that I always turn to include Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Coheed and Cambria, and (more recently) Of Monsters and Men. But hey, even the Beach Boys with their immersive world of California could do it!

4/ Take a hike

I don’t mean just walk to the shops. I mean get out into nature, on a real hike (or nicely preserved public footpath), where there’s open sky, no distractions and a lot of time for thinking. If you can, try and leave your phone at home and take a notebook instead. Jot down any ideas that come to mind, and I mean anything. The fresh air, exercise and overall goodness of being outside is the best panacea for the stalled creative.

5/ Work through it

Still struggling? Work through it. You just have to keep making stuff. Even if it’s shit, you must carry on. For every 100 rubbish ideas and pieces of work, there’ll be one perfect rough diamond that just needs a little more attention. The most important thing you can do it to keep on making.

Extra ideas: dance break, read fiction, watch a classic film, do your taxes*, attend a conference or workshop, PINTEREST BINGE.

And don’t forget, when you’ve beaten the block then buy yourself a fucking donut – you’ve earned it!

*clinically proven to induce procrastinatory creative ideas 

Oh hey, you can keep up with my blog over on Bloglovin, that way you’ll never miss a post.

Ah, Google. Holding the fates of search traffic in its hands. The next Google algorithm change on April 21st means that your site’s mobile friendliness is going to be taken into account.

Let me break it down…

Google’s Algorithm

Google’s algorithm is a program that uses several bits of information to display the relevant results when you do a search. Google uses things like keywords, content age, your location and PageRank to decide what to display. The next algorithm change on April 21st 2015 is a move towards showing content that displays nicely on the device the searcher is using.

Mobile friendliness as a ranking system

Google will use your website’s mobile friendliness to decide where it should appear in the search results on mobile devicess. This is huge because so much traffic now comes from handheld devices. Check your stats on Google Analytics, I know that my site gets approximately 25% of its traffic via mobile.

Why are Google doing this?

Google want their users to receive the best quality search results possible, and that means serving them content that will display nicely on, and be optimised for, their devices.

How do I know if my site is mobile friendly?

The easiest way is to use the free tool that Google has created, the Mobile-Friendly test. By entering your URL, Google will check to see if your website is already mobile friendly.

If you get this message, you’re all set.

If you get this one, you’ve got some work to do (you won’t even believe what website this was, a huge, huge blog).

Help! My site’s not mobile friendly!

There are a few ways to fix this, and it all boils down to what platform you’re running your website with. Briefly, here are a few fixes for common set-ups. Google have also created a great resource on the options available for you, read that here.

Self Hosted WordPress

1. If you’re thinking of upgrading your theme, or getting a custom design, make sure you’re getting mobile friendly (or responsive). The base themes (twentyfifteen for example) are all mobile friendly.
2. You can use a plugin that will server a different version of your site to mobile uses. Jetpack and WPTouch are two such plugins.
3. Convert your current theme with the help of a developer. This can be messy, though, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

Blogger

The easiest fix for Blogger is to simply turn on your mobile template. Blogger provides one by default, and whilst it’s not the prettiest of templates, it does what it does. Head to your blog template settings, and click the gear icon under the “Mobile” template. Then select a mobile template. Voila!

Of course, you can also go down the route of using a mobile friendly template in the first place, which will look way better than a default Blogger template!

Things to keep in mind

Based on the previous few years, mobile traffic is only set to increase. While you might want to put a quick fix in place now, it’s imperative that you take time to consider how your website behaves on mobile devices from now on in. That means making sure that your site looks bomb-awesome on all devices, not just desktop. I’ve offered responsive web design as standard for the past few years, and I’ve really sung its praises to all my clients. If you’re set to start working with a web designer any time soon, make sure your site’s going to perform well across all devices.

One of the most common questions I get asked about web design and development is how I came to do what I do. Did I go to school to learn how to make websites? Where did I learn the ins and outs of WordPress? Here’s the first in a new series, starting with my story, sort of like X-Men Origins.

Since I started messing around on the internet back when I was around 13, I’ve always tinkered with HTML and CSS. From an early starting ground of Geocities, to wanting my livejournal posts to look prettier, I became pretty competent with how the whole HTML thing worked.

I didn’t go to school for web design or development, I actually studied “Interactive Arts” at University – it’s basically Fine Art with a modern slant. Throughout my degree, which was very much self led anyway (read: we did whatever the fuck we wanted), I started building websites. I wanted to make a website for one of my projects which is where I discovered self-hosted WordPress sites.

I spent a cold, grimy, Saturday afternoon in Manchester during my third year of University installing and setting up WordPress on an old domain. Luckily Adam was out with friends, my first foray into WordPress was sooo frustrating. Lots of swears. But, when it was there? And working? Ah. I was kinda hooked from then on in. 

While looking for work as a fresh-from-university-graduate (with a ridiculously unemployable degree), I stumbled across an advert for a Front End Web Developer. I didn’t even know that that was a thing! The job description seemed to fall inline with what I’d self-taught myself over the years, so I applied.

I interviewed, did a website building test, and got the job. While not technically qualified, I proved I could do what was needed which was, apparently, more than a lot of the graduates in the actual web design/development field could. Plus, my two bosses had completely irrelevant degrees too, and they both ran web design/development companies.

I spent a happy 4 years working at Common Agency in Huddersfield, learning as I went, and becoming somewhat of an expert at Wordpress simply by trial and error. Common Agency turned their sights more towards app development, and I started getting itchy feet for something new. I quit the day job in 2011 to concentrate on my own freelance web design and development career, and to work more on my brand, Finest Imaginary.

The rest, as they say, is history.

I’m still learning how to be a web designer/developer, the learning never stops. That’s one of the things I love about this side of my career, there is always something new to learn. Technology has moved on so much since I started being a web designer/developer, there was no such thing as RWD (or we didn’t have a name for it, at least) or mobile optimisation back then, and I’m pretty sure I used to build my earliest websites with iFrames and tables. Erk.

The moral of my story? Don’t think that not having a formal education in something means that you can’t be successful (unless you want to be a surgeon or something, then it’s pretty necessary). If you want to be a web designer then just get stuck in. Make websites. Learn stuff. There’s a wealth of free, brilliant advice and tutorials available on the internet, I’ll be sharing my best resources next time!

I mainly work On-The-Internet, which means there are an untold number of distractions that can turn my productivity scale down to 0.

Shiny new thing! Doge! Weasel on a woodpecker! (I mean, come on!)

I also work from my home office surrounded by fun things such as laundry, 3 crazy animals that want playing with, and Netflix. This week I’m going to be concentrating on increasing my productivity without totally altering the way I work, want to join in?

There’s nothing extreme or bullshitty here, no massive life-altering changes, just small things that’ll help you be more productive for maybe 1-2hrs in your work day. That might seem small, but it adds up to over a day’s worth of work over the course of a week!

1// Only answer emails/check your inbox at certain points during the day

This one always works for me, as I’m quick to jump on emails as soon as they hit my inbox. I always find myself glancing back at the gmail tab and checking if anything’s come in. Instead, I’m going to be checking my email first thing in the morning, and replying to anything that needs a response, and then having another check in at lunch time and the end of the day.

Previous daily time spent on email: 1.5-2hrs, new daily time spent on email: 1hr.

2// Checking in with RescueTime to see where I’m getting most distracted.

Have you used RescueTime? It’s a great app that really lets you see (in time and percentages) how productive you’re being. My big distractors are Facebook and Twitter, so I’m going to aim to decrease the amount of time spent on those each day.

Previous daily time spent on twitter/facebook: 1.5hrs, new daily time spent on twitter/facebook: 1hr.

3// Have some Pomodoro sessions

The Pomodoro technique is great, but I find it pretty intense. I work flat out during the 20-minute stretches, which yeah.. is brilliant for productivity, but then I feel exhausted after a couple of hours. I’m going to aim to do 3hrs of Pomodoro each day this week.

It’s hard to give a time for this kind of thing, but I would say (based on RescueTime graphs) it makes me about 25-30% more productive during those sessions, leading to an increase in productivity of around an hour.

4// Schedule time for workouts/laundry/non-work things

You might typically class these as distractions, but scheduling in time for non-work things during a working day often makes me more productive in all aspects. If I don’t schedule things in, I end up trying to do 10 things at once and not doing any of them well. Whereas, if I schedule 15 minutes to laundry-sort, or 20 minutes for a workout, then I set myself to task and don’t waste time.

Again, hard to pin-point the actual productivity increase here, and really.. workouts & laundry, though not productive in the making-money-work sense, are productive by way of having-your-shit-together. Here, it’s more about scheduling things in and making sure things get done, leading to less stress, rushing and “ARGH LAUNDRY” anxiety. 

5// Add more to your to do list that you think you can achieve

Having a big daily to do list might seem daunting, but it also revs you up for crossing off as much as you possibly can. The days when my to do list is a little bare? I end up taking it easy and just doing what’s on there. Beef up your list, and make sure you’re listing out small, achievable steps for each of the day’s goals.

Other tiny ways to be more productive:

• Reward yourself with a coffee/tea/biscuit whenever you’ve finished something big.
• If you have an idea mid-work, write that shit down and leave it for later. It’ll still be there.
• Listen to a playlist that gets you in the zone, this might be one of Spotify’s “focus” playlists, or an album you can have on in the background.
• Recognise your productivity traits and use them to your advantage. Whenever I’m in a “get shit done” frame of mind, I always yank my hair up into a high-pony. Sometimes you have to put the cart before the horse, so by yanking my hair up my brain goes “oh, right! let’s do this!”. This analogy got really horsey.
•  Stay hydrated! Your brain will thank you by being more alert.

Do you have any small changes that make you more productive? I’d love to hear them! Let me know in the comments :)

When was the last time you backed up your WordPress database? Or files?

…

Mm-hmm.

We’re all guilty of it.

As much as I love WordPress, it can be dodgy. Plugins can be corrupt, causing all manner of problems to arise within your database. There are security holes that can allow hackers to cause irreversible damage to your files and database. And then, of course, there’s good old fashioned human error.

One way or another you need to backup. Here are my top tips for making sure you’ve got the safety net of a backup for your WordPress website or blog.

What is a backup?

A backup is a carbon copy of your WordPress website. Your WordPress website consists of files (that you can see via your FTP, these are your themes, images, and WordPress itself) and your database (this is where all the information is stored). A backup can consist of just files, just the database, or both.

Here’s what WordPress has to say about backups.

NB: I don’t usually backup plugins unless they’re premium/have been adjusted in any way. They’re generally easy enough to re-download, and it saves some time/space by leaving them out of your backup.

Regularity

The regularity of your backups depending on how often you update your website. I tend to go for a weekly backup of the database, and a monthly backup of files. It might sound tempting to do a daily backup, but this can cause a lot of server load and is generally unnecessary (but if your hosts offer it, then awesome!).

Most backup plugins offer you control over when and what you backup, and offer their advice on regularity.

I’d also suggest manually backing up at least once a month, and checking that your automated backup solution is still working correctly!

Before and After

Along with a regular schedule of backups, you should take time to backup before and after any updates. That includes WordPress core updates, plugin updates and theme updates. Better safe than sorry!

Check if your hosts offer a free backup

There are some really great dedicated/managed WordPress hosts out there, and many of them offer backups as standard. WP Engine, for instance, offer a free daily backup of both your database and files.

It’s not just the dedicated WordPress hosts, either. My host of choice here in the UK, Krystal, offer daily backups with all of their plans.

Where to store your Backup

Depending on your backup method, you can store your WordPress backup in a variety of places. The most usual place is on your server, where your actual WordPress install lives. This isn’t ideal, and I really wouldn’t recommend relying on just this version of your backup.

To be safe, you should have your backup stored in a variety of places, here are a few options.

• Your server
• Your computer
• Dropbox
• An external drive
• Google Drive
• A different server

The more backups, the safer your ass.

The Best Plugins

Don’t worry if your host doesn’t offer backups, there’re a variety of other ways that you can backup your site using some free and premium WordPress plugins. And even if your host does offer backups, I’d always suggest going ahead and generating a backup of your own elsewhere… just in case.

Here are a few of my favourites to get you started, but there are plenty of other options available (give “best wordpress backup plugins” a google, and check out recent round-ups).

Updraft Plus is an awesome – possibly the best – free plugin that makes backing up your WordPress site super easy. There are LOADS of options with this plugin, including backing up to Amazon S3, Dropbox, and your email.

Another of my favourite free backup plugins is WordPress Backup to Dropbox. This is a free plugin, and connects your WordPress site with your Dropbox account, creating automated backups on a regular schedule.

A premium plugin that’s definitely worth a look at is BackupBuddy, offering some great features alongside automated backups, BackupBuddy makes automated backups easy as pie, and does all the fun stuff of storing your backups on external storage areas! In fact, this is the plugin that I use.

VaultPress is another premium (paid for) service, but it’s one of the best Wordpress automated backup plugins.

For instructions on manually backing up your WordPress website, check out the information over on WordPress itself.

What to do with your backup if your site dies

Your backup will let you restore your WordPress website without much stress. The plugins above offer instructions on restoring your site (and most of the time the restoration process depends on the plugin you’ve used), and your hosts will also provide instructions (or do it for you).

It can get quite technical, so don’t be afraid to reach out to a developer if you’re struggling.

 TL;DR

• Backup with regularity
• Don’t rely on automated backup plugins, take the occasional manual backup through that plugin too
• Store your backups in a variety of places
• Always backup before any updates to your WordPress site