Polychronic or Monochronic?

And What Does This Have

to Do with Freelancing?

Hey friends, don't worry, these aren't diseases! Understanding these concepts can help you understand yourself and your clients (especially from different countries) and organize work effectively and comfortably for both sides.

Polychronic and monochronic refer to how people perceive time, which varies by cultural background. Some cultures are predominantly polychronic or monochronic.

In monochronic cultures, time is linear. Being late, missing deadlines, or interrupting someone at work is unacceptable. In polychronic cultures, time is more flexible. People don't mind interruptions and aren't as strict about punctuality.

For example, Europe and North America are typically monochronic. Latin America, Arab countries, and parts of Africa are more polychronic.

When an individual's perception of time matches their culture, it's perfect! But in today's world, we travel a lot. If a monochronic person finds themselves in a polychronic country, they might feel overwhelmed by the chaos and lack of strict schedules. Imagine visiting Spain or Italy, where people don't rush, and plans often change because the bus driver decided to have coffee with a friend.

On the flip side, a polychronic person in a monochronic country might find life more pleasant, enjoying the structured environment without being in a constant hurry.

Let's dive deeper into the characteristics of polychronic and monochronic people.

Polychronic

 

  1. Time Perception:
    • Time is continuous and unstructured.
    • It flows like an endless river from past through present to future.
  2. Work Style:
    • They don’t structure their work time.
    • They switch between tasks as they please.
    • They can meet deadlines but don’t follow a strict schedule.
    • They dislike detailed plans.
    • They work based on internal feelings rather than a strict schedule.
  3. Multitasking:
    • They handle multiple tasks simultaneously.
    • Switching between tasks stimulates them and increases efficiency.
  4. Punctuality:
    • They are often late.
    • Exact time and dates aren’t important to them.
    • They don’t understand why punctuality is considered a virtue.

Polychronic Freelancer

  1. Work Schedule:
    • They work at any time of day when they feel inspired.
    • They mix work time with personal life.
    • They might take breaks during the day for personal matters and return to work in the evening.
  2. Project Management:
    • They handle multiple projects at once and switch between them.
    • They might delay deadlines.
    • They adapt easily to project changes.

Example: A polychronic designer works on three projects at once. They might start the day working on a logo, then switch to a website, and finish by working on a mobile app in the evening. They may take a walk or meet friends in between, then work late into the night.

Monochronic

  1. Time Perception:
    • Time is divided into fixed segments.
    • It’s discrete, measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days.
    • Time can be organized, quantified, and planned.
  2. Work Style:
    • They make detailed plans and to-do lists.
    • They organize their time daily.
    • They work on one task until it’s complete.
    • Switching between tasks is inconvenient and inefficient for them.
  3. Punctuality:
    • They highly value punctuality.
    • Being late is seen as disrespectful.
    • They get anxious if someone else is late.

Monochronic Remote Worker

  1. Work Schedule:
    • They set a clear work schedule, like 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
    • They separate work time from personal life.
    • They minimize distractions during work hours.
  2. Project Management:
    • They focus on one project at a time.
    • They carefully plan work stages and stick to deadlines.
    • They may feel stressed by unexpected changes in the project.

Example: A monochronic programmer starts work at 9:00 AM sharp. They list tasks for the day, work on one project, and take regular breaks. If a client requests an urgent task switch, they might feel uncomfortable and ask for time to finish the current task first.

In today's globalized world, collaboration between people from different cultures is common, especially in remote work. This often leads to clashes between monochronic and polychronic approaches to time and work.

Imagine a scenario where a Swiss client (monochronic) hires a Ukrainian freelancer (polychronic with some monochronic traits):

  1. Project Planning:
    • The Swiss client creates a detailed project plan with clear deadlines.
    • The Ukrainian freelancer might see this plan as flexible, thinking deadlines can be adjusted as needed.
  2. Communication:
    • The Swiss client expects daily reports at a set time and quick responses to messages.
    • The Ukrainian freelancer might provide reports irregularly when significant progress is made and respond to messages with delays if busy with other tasks.
  3. Work Schedule:
    • The Swiss client assumes the freelancer’s workday matches their time zone.
    • The Ukrainian freelancer might work at times convenient for them, which may not align with the client’s expectations.
  4. Project Changes:
    • The Swiss client expects all changes to be discussed in advance and included in the plan.
    • The Ukrainian freelancer might make changes during the project, believing it will improve the final result.
  5. Deadlines:
    • For the Swiss client, a deadline is a fixed date that must be met.
    • The Ukrainian freelancer might see the deadline as a guideline, flexible if unexpected circumstances arise.

This situation can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts. The Swiss client may view the Ukrainian freelancer as unreliable and unprofessional, while the freelancer may see the client as overly strict and inflexible.

For successful collaboration, both parties need to be aware of cultural differences and find compromises. They could agree on regular but not daily reports, set a flexible schedule with specific hours for meetings, and identify key deadlines that must be met while allowing flexibility in other project aspects.

These examples show how different approaches to time and work can impact freelancing and remote work, creating both advantages and challenges. Understanding this information can help you build an effective communication system within your team. We’ve written more about this in our previous posts.

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7 Principles

of Effective Communication

Communication is key to success in freelancing. It’s often more important than the quality of the work itself because without clear communication, you can’t convey the value of your solutions and proposals.

The quality of your communication determines if you can establish long-term relationships with clients. From our experience, communication has two crucial parts: WHAT you write and HOW you write (or speak). This represents you in the moment and works for long-term relationship building with clients. Communication shapes the client's perception of both the process and the results of your work.

In today’s article, we’ll focus on email communication skills. This guide will help freelancers improve their communication skills, avoid common mistakes, and build strong professional relationships with clients.

Principles of Effective Communication

Since we all work remotely, it’s impossible to know and see what the person you’re working with is doing, planning, or thinking. Your task is to provide the other party with up-to-date information on what’s happening now and what the next steps are.

1. Timeliness and Transparency

When working remotely, it’s essential to keep clients informed about your actions and plans. This helps avoid anxiety and uncertainty among colleagues or clients. Respond to messages as quickly as possible, even if it’s just a brief update on your next steps. Don’t disappear from the conversation without explanation – let them know when you’ll be back in touch.

For example: "I’ve received your task and will start working on it in an hour. I’ll be in touch by 3 PM with some preliminary results. If you have any questions before then, please let me know – I’ll be checking messages."

Such transparency helps reduce uncertainty, improve coordination, and foster more effective collaboration.

2. Attention to Detail

Misunderstandings often lead to incorrect assessments and negative consequences. Lack of attention, missing details, and reluctance to clarify can seriously impact the quality of your work and your relationship with the client. Moreover, a negative communication experience can affect the client's overall perception of your work, leading them to seek problems in everything you do.

Therefore, practice active clarification and asking questions. Remember, due to different experiences and cultural backgrounds, what’s obvious to you might not be obvious to your counterpart and vice versa. Don’t hesitate to rephrase the client’s tasks or requirements to confirm your understanding.

For example: "To make sure I understood your requirements correctly, let me repeat: [paraphrase the task]. Did I get that right? Is there anything that needs further clarification?"

This approach helps avoid misunderstandings early on, saves time and resources, and shows your attentiveness and professionalism.

3. Constructive Feedback

By asking questions, you can demonstrate your competence, gain a deeper understanding of the project, and assess the client's readiness to collaborate. Questions can lead the client to important details they hadn’t considered or highlight something they were unaware of. This also helps you gauge the client’s engagement and willingness to collaborate.

For example: "I noticed that [observation]. Have you considered [alternative approach]? This might help with [potential benefit]. What do you think about this?"

4. Cultural Sensitivity and Professional Tone

This principle is especially important when working with international clients. Many cultures place a high value on politeness and manners, which directly affects their perception of your professionalism. What might seem excessive to us could be a norm in their culture and etiquette.

  • USA: They appreciate informality and a friendly tone. They often use first names even in business communication. Show enthusiasm and a positive attitude. Example: “Hi John! Thanks for your great feedback. I’m excited about your ideas!”
  • Germany: They prefer formality and directness. Use titles and last names until they suggest switching to first names. They value punctuality and detail. Example: “Dear Mr. Müller, thank you for your detailed analysis. I have reviewed all the points carefully.”

5. Emotional Engagement

It’s pleasant to communicate with someone who is engaged and lively. Expressing emotions can make communication more effective and help establish a better connection with the client. However, consider the cultural context, as the acceptable level of emotional expression can vary.

6. Clarity and Structure

This principle is critical for effective communication, especially in writing. Take notes of all important details from your conversations with the client. At the end, provide a brief summary of all discussed points.

Clearly structured information is easier to understand, reduces the risk of misunderstandings, and saves time for both you and the client. It also demonstrates your professionalism and respect for the other person’s time.

7. Constructive Conflict Resolution

Quick and constructive responses to problems help prevent conflicts from escalating, maintain client trust, and find effective solutions. Focus on solving the problem rather than finding blame, which shows your professional maturity and result-oriented mindset.

Email Writing Algorithm

Here’s a quick guide from our team on how to write to a client:

  1. State the Essence: Clearly outline the main points.
  2. Add Explanations: Clarify any details that might not be obvious.
  3. Politeness: Use polite words and phrases.
  4. Emotions: Add emotional reinforcement to the message.
  5. Check for Errors: Review the text for grammatical and stylistic errors.

Effective communication with clients is the foundation of successful freelancing. It helps avoid misunderstandings, ensures process transparency, and creates strong, long-term working relationships. By following these principles, you can improve the quality of your work and get more satisfaction from collaborating with clients.

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Principles of Constructive

Problem Discussion

in a Team

We all know that good teamwork relies on effective communication. It helps us understand each other better, resolve conflicts, and boost productivity. At Etcetera, we pride ourselves on being ethically-driven and friendly when it comes to tackling internal processes and communication. So, let's dive into how we handle team interaction!

One key aspect of successful communication is following the principles of constructive issue discussion. We're taking a page from Andy Grove, Intel's founder, with some simple yet effective methods to tackle problems head-on, find their root causes, and work out solutions together.

But before we dive into these principles, let's make sure we understand the problem thoroughly. We need to figure out what happened, what circumstances led to it, and why it occurred. Listening to all involved parties helps us get a full picture and separate the symptoms from the root cause. Only by understanding the nitty-gritty details can we effectively apply the principles below.

Timeliness

Let's give feedback right away when something happens, not weeks later. Instead of asking, "Why didn't you do this last week?" when the person has already forgotten, it's better to ask, "What happened yesterday, and how can we fix it?"

Global Solutions

Focus on preventing the problem from happening again in the future, not just fixing the immediate effects. After dealing with the immediate fallout, analyze why it happened and find a systemic solution.

Directness

Discuss the problem with the person responsible for it, or it'll keep happening. This helps address the root cause, not just the symptoms. For example, if delays keep occurring due to lack of coordination, involve the person responsible for team coordination, rather than just the one who misses deadlines.

Facts, Not Generalizations

Provide specific facts instead of vague statements, and be clear about the problem. People aren't mind readers. Instead of beating around the bush, let's solve the problem here and now. Instead of saying, "You're always late," it's better to say, "The fact that you were late o for our last meeting led to "

Solution Focus, Not Blame

In constructive discussions, we're not looking to blame. Our goal is to solve the situation. Criticize specific actions, not the person as a whole. Don't accuse or attack; instead, focus on why certain actions or thoughts weren't effective in this situation. That's what we're aiming for.

Following these principles will help us address and solve problems effectively, preventing them from recurring. This fosters better understanding, boosts productivity, and cultivates a friendly atmosphere within the team.

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Etcetera winter 2023-2024 in numbers

Last week, we had our usual seasonal meetup, where we had talk about the latest news from Upwork and all the cool stuff our agency achieved over the winter. Here's the lowdown for you!

Upwork updates

Since the start of the year, Upwork has introduced some changes​ with Boosted Proposals, updated success scores, and the Freelancer Plus subscription bump.

  • Upwork is going through some interface changes – something every user has noticed, and it’s been a bit of a hassle to adjust to.
  • We discussed changes anonced mediation policy changes on Upwork in details. We have all about it in our article!

What's Been Happening at Etcetera

We celebrated 7 birthdays!

And we're super excited to welcome back some familiar faces. Two awesome specialists rejoined our team, and we truly appreciate it when you choose us and come back for more.

Our Sales Funnel results aren't as strong as last season, but we're already steering towards improving all our metrics. As always, all the numbers are in the pic.

Right now, we’re on the lookout for new team members. Next week, we’ll be posting about the latest vacancies. But if you can’t wait, check out our website here.​

Spring plans are pretty straightforward for us.

Upwork halted the REST API, which impacted our entire automation, and unfortunately, the new GraphQL API doesn't provide the necessary features yet because it's still incomplete . So, we're adapting and exploring new avenues for efficient operations, while also awaiting the updates we need.

We're still on the hunt for our perfect Head of Sales Department and gearing up to improve our conversion rates in the next season

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The Most Common Problems with Clients:

Red Flag or not?

There are many articles on the internet about clients' red flags in cooperation. But some of these red flags can be dealt with, and we'll tell you about the most common problems with clients.

Over 9 years of working with clients on Upwork, we have formed our vision, and in this article, we will share it with you.

Unrealistic Expectations

There are cases when clients want results without investing enough budget. Sometimes, this indicates undervaluing the freelancer's work, but other times, there may be a lack of understanding of the technical side of the task or project from the client's side. What seems like a simple task to the client for a few hours can be long-term work with results.

How to deal with it? If the problem is that the client poorly understands the task, you can explain in detail the complexity of the task and the work plan. Also, providing a detailed estimate from your side will help the client understand why so much time and money are needed for this task. In our team, we believe that honesty and realism from our side - is the best way to cooperate and it helps to prevent a lot of problems.

Poor Communication Skills

Pay attention to this point if you want not only to make money from the project but also to live happily during the work on it. If the client communicates unclearly or behaves disrespectfully, it is a serious reason to refuse cooperation.

We believe that quality communication is a key factor in collaboration, and in our article "4 Basic Communication Rules at Etcetera", we talk about the principles that each team member learns during onboarding of our agency. Although they may seem trivial to some people, in fact, it's impressive how these 4 details can have such a big impact on achieving great results and avoiding conflicts.

Unjustified Changes in the Project

Such clients can be divided into two categories - the first category makes justified changes, and the second - chaotically introduces changes that are not needed.

How to deal with it? In this case, it is important to explain to the client how their changes will affect the project budget, and that a significant part of the work already done may turn out to be a waste of time. If the client is willing to pay for changes and take responsibility for the risks, then it is worth continuing cooperation. Clients who cannot justify the changes in their thoughts are unlikely to be satisfied with the result of your work because their views have changed, and you have done the work according to the initial agreements. It is better to avoid such situations and part ways as early as possible on a good note.

Distrust of the Freelancer's Expertise

Of course, at the beginning of cooperation, a slight distrust from the client may be present. But if the client starts excessively controlling every step you take, not listening to your proposals, not being satisfied with the result because their expectations do not match reality, and you constantly prove that you are trustworthy - this is a serious red flag.

How to deal with it? From your side, you can offer an alternative: either the client starts to trust you more as an expert, or - end of cooperation.

Reputation

Before starting work, it is important to check the reviews about the client to form your own opinion about their reputation. However, don't be too categorical about negative reviews. Each person has their view of conflicts, and one or two bad reviews are not a reason to refuse a client. But if you notice a negative pattern in the reviews that repeats or a review about the client's actions that do not correspond to your values, then it is worth being cautious.

Also, try to use the time before opening the contract to form your own vision of cooperation with this person.

We hope this article will allow you to choose clients more qualitatively and, as a result, have an effective and pleasant cooperation.

On our website, there are more articles about clients and approaches to them to improve and simplify your work in freelancing, for example, how to identify client needs or the article "Who are Etcetera clients?" where we analyzed 45 of our regular clients over the past 3 years and shared the results.

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Another season flew by, and Etcetera's team gathered traditionally to discuss our results and plans!

We discusses main Upwork updates from last 3 months:

  • Optional scheduled rate increases in hourly contracts – read more here: https://etcetera.kiev.ua/blog/upwork-september-updates/.

  • Boosted Profiles. We have been testing this feature in Etcetera as soon as it became available, but we can’t say that we saw any significant results yet. Did you?

  • Upwork Chat Pro Waitlist: It’s still unclear what this entails and none of those who enrolled in the waitlist got any information. But anyway, it won’t hurt to join if you haven’t done it yet.

Team Celebrations:

  • Happy Birthday to 9 team members who had their birthdays during the fall.

  • Etcetera now is a team of 34! We welcomed new comers with worm words for everyone.

Other Etcetera Highlights:

Short Sales Funnel Update

This season we saw a slight increase in revenue, more open contracts, and new clients. Check out numbers on the image!

Market trends

Despite the usual rise in opportunities during autumn, there are 25% fewer jobs in our niche on Upwork now compared to the summer season. This could signify a more tough competition among freelancers in design and development, which we need to consider. So, we plan to grow our sales team and work on improvements to the conversion next season.

Stay tuned for more exciting developments from Etcetera.

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7 Challenges

In Managing Remote Teams

And How To Solve Them

Managing remote teams can be complex. Here are the 7 main challenges you may encounter and pro tips from Etcetera PM expert Elen 11 years of experience with projects in various industries on how to deal with them:

1. Remote work itself is the first challenge

Technical issues like power or internet outages can make a person disappear from work without any way to reach them. While this issue becomes even more extreme in Ukrainian context, last winter also taught us that this challenge can be solved. Many of our freelancers have power generators, ecoflows, or even starlink. And they know all nearest cafes and coworking spaces that have shelters, power and internet at any time to stay connected.

So, as a PM, your task is to support your team with finding best backup solutions for technical emergencies.

2. Personal schedules and time zones

Freelancers are not 9-5 workers, so dealing with different time zones and the fact that some people only wake up at noon, and work all night can be tricky for team communication and alignment. There are a few tips on how we tackle this issue:

  • First, try to find a common time slot what works for everyone for regular meetings. Often this also depends on the client’s time zone.
  • Second, establish a rule for response time, for example, we all know that if we receive a message in working hours we need to reply within an hour. Even if we just reply “got it, will address tomorrow”, this still helps to keep the communication going.
  • Last tip is to NOT include everyone is ALL the meetings. Of course, sometimes the whole team needs to meet. But often it’s just the designer-developer or developer-QA who need to discuss something. Avoid trying to find the perfect time that works for everyone when it’s just 2 people who need to talk.

The task for PM in case of such challenges is to control the communication and make sure the team receives and replies to all the messages in time.

3. Personalities

Another challenge (which is also common in not-remote teams) is that team may not get along. Some people just have incompatible personalities and it’s really hard for them to work together.

Here are a few tips to solve this:

  • During team selection process for a particular project, if you have 2 people with similar expertise, chose the one who has good relations with the rest of the team in this project.
  • Regular team-building activities can enhance bonds. Try to get to know the people you work with better outside their work environment. Even in online, this has proven a great tool for Etcetera and we have regular online drinks, online board games club, offline meet-ups.
  • Besides events, try to implement small rituals and inside-jokes for every team you are working with. In some long-term projects, we have nicknames for each other. In other projects we have a tradition to exchange photos every Friday. These small things really help people to get along better and improves their cooperation.

4.  Organization and control

Multitasking between multiple projects is common in remote teams, so it’s hard often to control what everyone is doing and if they are working at all or sleeping because the neighbours had a loud party all night. While personal responsibility is one of our main team values, even with it, you need to have some kind of control over the team to meet the deadlines and reach all the deliverables.

Elen says, the best solution to add control to in managing remote teams is regular routine check-ups. Either small 15 minute calls every morning, or having everyone send you a list of tasks for their day will give PM a way to monitor the performance and enough flexibility to adjust if something gets out of control. Which brings us to the next point👇

5. Emergencies

Stuff happens either you are woking in office or remotely. But in case of remote teams the main challenge is not knowing someone has an emergency that can impact work. The only solution here is make it a must that in force majeure situations, team members inform their the team. If someone has an emergency, then must tell immediately before it’s already out of hand, allowing PM to adjust tasks distribution and if needed communicate the delay to the client.

6. Technicalities

Working on multiple projects often means using multiple tools. Some clients prefer Asana, others use Trello, Notion or just send all the task in a Skype chat. While this is not a major challenge, it can cause certain inconveniences and sometimes problems with reporting the progress.

There are a few solutions, Elen recommends:

  • First option is automation and integration. Thankfully, almost all modern tools support import, export and automatic transfer of tasks. So, select a preferred platform, integrate it with others and the team will not need to jump between different tools.
  • If the tool that client uses does not support integration, the next option is to try to convince the client agains using it.
  • If the second option doesn’t work and the client insists on using some weird unique tool that noone has heard of, then team building helps 🙂 You gather with the team, complain to each other, share emotions, and then try to figure out how this tool works together. In some cases, PM will take on the task to input all the information in the tool, allowing team to focus on their work.

7. Burnout and its detection

Spotting a decrease in a team member's productivity can be challenging when you don’t see them in person next to you. Even more challenging is helping them deal with it. Because Elen believes, PM’s job is not just tracking project performance and deliverables, but the emotional state of the team as well.

A short test to detect burn out is usually some ‘stupid’ question asking the team to explain how something works. This will show you if the team member is enthusiastic enough to teach, share knowledge, educate on their subject. If not - they may need some incentive to put the light back in their eyes.

Facilitating learning and development can restart people’s engine. A great way to do it is to offer a common problem to brainstorm. Discussing the issue, coming up with creative ways on how to solve them, researching the subject gets the team involved and they start caring for the project that they are doing. The ultimate goal here is to prompt someone to development in their field because they are genuinely interested in it. Sometimes, they just need reminding of it 😉

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Upwork report insights

“Unveiling the Work Innovator’s

Blueprint for Success”

In its recent research report Upwork identified three core attributes that set apart high-performing companies which are doing things differently than its competitors. They are calling this “The Work Innovator Framework.”

Let’s dig deeper on what it means?

After surveying 1,900+ global business leaders, Upwork found three core attributes that differentiated how Work Innovator leaders of high performing companies think and operate.

  1. Put new technology to work throughout your organization.

    The leaders from the Work Innovator companies personally try, learn, and adopt new technologies rather than relegating the task to IT to figure out.

  2. Open your culture to flexible talent.

    For business leaders, this requires a deep organizational change to create an ecosystem where all types of talent can thrive.

  3. Create distributed team best practices that set your organization up for success.

    Leaders who establish and communicate remote expectations, role clarity, and async operational best practices are more than twice as likely to trust their teams to get their work done.

  • Gen AI talk is everywhere, but the research found that only 51% of leaders are embracing new technologies, such as AI.

  • Only 53% of leaders are using flexible talent. But those who do create an environment where flexible talent models thrive, are 111% more likely to believe their teams have the right skills mix to meet their goals effectively.

  • Companies leading in distributed work practices are 83% more likely to report their organization as agile.

  • When asked whether their department had effective internal communication skills, 91% of Work Innovators responded affirmatively, compared with only 71% of their peers.

“Research consistently demonstrates that the ‘how’ of work is more pivotal than the ‘when’ or ‘where.’ The organizations poised for future success are laser-focused on this ‘how,’ leveraging data and insights to guide their efforts.”
— Dr. Rebecca Hinds, Head of Asana’s Work Innovation Lab

Do you want to become the Work Innovator? The research found four distinct actions leaders can take that directly drive performance gains and enable work innovation at your organization:

  1. Using data and gen AI for decision-making across the organization.
  2. Developing strong internal operational practices that guide how the company communicates, collaborates and orchestrates work across the organization.
  3. Trusting in one’s workforce to do great work, regardless of location or worker type.
  4. Having a strategic orientation toward caring for workforce needs across the company’s talent ecosystem.

Find more insights and numbers in the images below

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Free Online Courses

From 5 Top US Universities

Do you still think that studying at Harvard or Yale is too expensive and not accessible to mere mortals? What is we gave you a list of 5 completely free resources where you can take courses from world best universities - would you use the opportunity?

1. Harward University – https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog

They have 136 free courses on all kinds of topics from computer science to the history of Imperial China. Plus, many other courses in art, design, data science, business, programming and other cost a very reasonable amount like $30.

2. Yale University – https://oyc.yale.edu/courses

Free access to 40 open courses on: American, African American Studies, Astronomy, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Biology, Economics, Languages, Environmental Studies, History, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, and Sociology.

3. MIT Open Courseware – https://ocw.mit.edu/search/

This is probably the most extensive resource with 2490 results, most of which on Engineering, Social Science, Science, Humanities, Fine Arts, Business, Mathematics, Computer Science, Literature, Physics, and History. But they also have a lot of niche courses in anything you can imagine from Hydrodynamics to Desalination and Water Purification and Tennis.

4. Carnegie Mellon University – https://oli.cmu.edu/independent-learner-courses/

They have both free and low-cost courses for Independent Learners on Arts, Business, Computer Science & Programming, Data Science, Languages, Engineering, Technology, Design and more.

5. Stanford University – https://see.stanford.edu/Course

Stanford Engineering Everywhere is a course portfolio with Stanford’s most popular sequences: the three-course Introduction to Computer Science, taken by the majority of Stanford’s undergraduates, as well as more advanced courses in artificial intelligence and electrical engineering.

Which university did you always dream of going to?

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How to create

financial estimates

as a freelancer

The most worthwhile projects are often the ones that can feel overwhelming at the start. Looking at such projects from the freelancer’s perspective can feel that it’s impossible to estimate time and money they will take to deliver.

But from the client perspective, its crucial to know the budget and understand how much they’ll need to invest. That is why accurate financial estimates are super important for freelance work. Both under- and overestimating your workload can risk the success of the project and positive cooperation with the client.

There are two secrets of correct financial estimates: WBS and decomposition.

  1. WBS stands for work-breakdown structure.

Originally developed by US Department of Defense, WBS is now widely used in project management. It’s a visual, hierarchical and deliverable-oriented deconstruction of a project. Each word here is important:

  • visual – WBS is usually a chart with project objective at the top, then dependencies and sub-dependencies below;
  • hierarchical – you structure the work in a way that you know which steps happen first, which next and how they depend on each other in order to reach the main goal;
  • deliverable-oriented – you only put tasks in WBD which have a tangible deliverable and avoid actions for the sake of actions.

WBS will help you understand your project and see the main big goals and deliverables.

2. Task decomposition

It is breaking down complex processes or tasks (that we defined in step 1) into smaller, more manageable parts.

This is when you start to create your estimate and base it on the tasks, defined during decomposition.

  • You assign each task a realistic time to perform it. Best practice is to make sure each task is not taking longer than one working day (8 hours). It needs to be very clear how you will do it and if it takes “around a couple of days” – then it’s not good and you need to decompose further.
  • Now that you know all the step-by-step actions required for a project, you can estimate the budget based on required hours.

*Do not forget to allocate additional time (somewhere around 20%) for revisions.

At our agency, we usually have two financial estimates.

Pre-sale estimates may include time to investigate if there is unknown part of the project that requires us to look into it further. Then after all the unknown parts were investigated and figured out, we send clients a more detailed estimate before each contract.

Thanks to this process, our estimates of utmost accuracy and clients don’t end up at the middle of the project done with all their budget already spent.

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Gen Z: Steering

the Future of Workforce

In its latest report Upwork uncovered fresh insights on how Gen Z is shaping the future of workforce – bringing unique perspectives around skills, flexibility and the type of work arrangements they want.

Here are their main findings:

  • Gen Zers are more likely to work for companies that engage knowledge freelancers: Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Gen Zers say they work for a company that uses freelancers; this compares to 67% of millennials, 58% of Gen Xers, and 53% of baby boomers.

  • Younger generations are more likely to engage freelancers in the future: 65% of Gen Zers and 78% of millennials say they plan to use more freelancers over the next five years than they do today.

  • Gen Zers recognize that freelancers are part of a full talent strategy: In fact, 61% of Gen Zers believe that using freelancers is a very effective lever for building talent pipelines, which compares to 47% of millennials, 35% of Gen Xers, and 37% of baby boomers.

  • Gen Zers plan to keep remote work around: Nine out of ten Gen Zers and 82% of millennials said they are much more likely to redesign work toward remote as a key recruiting lever. This compares to only 71% of Gen Xers and 59% of baby boomers.

Why this shift in the future of workforce? Gen Z seeks:

🎯 Passionate work
🛤️ Control over personal career paths
⏳ Flexibility in schedule

For them, freelancing helps meet these goals!

Additional insights showed:

  • 27% and 29% of Gen Z and millennial freelancers create influencer-styled content.

  • 46% of Gen Z believes freelancers are cost-effective; 33% said freelancers provide a higher quality of skills and 38% of Gen Zers said they have more confidence in a freelancer.

  • Gen Z professionals are fastest to reskill for a new hard skill (like learning the latest coding language). It takes them on avarage 3.6 months, while the rest of the generations believed it would take at least 5 months.

In a nutshell, Gen Z is leading change, promoting flexible, passion-driven work that breaks away from traditional norms.

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Happy World Productivity Day!

8 tips how to

improve productivity

Did you know that 20 June is World Productivity Day? We believe a calendar is the least expensive and most effective tool to improve productivity.

Here are 8 simple tips how to improve productivity with a calendar

  • Sync your work and personal calendars across accounts & devices. For those who have 2 jobs + 3 freelance gigs – sync ALL your calendars together and turn on reminders, so that you don’t miss anything without switching to and from different accounts.

  • Block larger periods of time for similar tasks instead of having a chaotic calendar that forces your brain to switch between different tasks every few minutes. For example, dedicate 1 hour in the morning to check email, then 2 hours of focus work and a series of meetings in the afternoon. Don’t forget to schedule breaks between the blocks! Which brings us to the next tip 👇

  • Start planning with the rest time (lunch, walk breaks, holidays). First add them to your calendar and then structure the work tasks around the rest time accordingly.

  • Block focus time when you are most productive during the day. Make sure to turn off notifications and other distractions when you focus on the most important task of the day.

  • Less perfection, more flexibility. Planning the day in the calendar doesn’t mean you have to stick to every minute of it and freak out if something doesn’t go according to schedule

+ A few of more obvious and simple productivity tips which you should be already doing, but the post wouldn’t be complete without them:

  • color code the tasks according to priority,
  • share your calendar with colleagues,
  • plan a time for planning.

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Summary of Payoneer 2023

Global Freelancer Insights

Report

Have you seen Payoneer's “Global Freelancer Insights Report” for 2023? We have collected the main insights in this post.

  • 46% of the freelancers saw an increase in demand for their work, indicating that businesses are more and more relying on freelancers.

  • Over two thirds of freelancers believe demand for their talents will continue to grow in 2023.

  • Finding new clients is consistently ranked as the top challenge of freelancers.

  • 55% of freelancers have taken on more work in response to the rising costs of living, 41% have raised their rates, and 32% have expanded their client base to new countries. This creates opportunities for businesses to hire the skills they need remotely.

  • The average hourly rate for female freelancers is $22 compared to $24 for men.

  • The gender pay gap is narrowing slightly (90 cents to $1) and is significantly smaller than the gap reported in the general population (77 cents to $1).

  • The fields of programming, marketing, project management, and web design saw the most significant increases in demand over the past year.

  • 38% of the respondents reported an increase in their hourly rates over the past year, that is a few digits lower than previous years and correlates the crisis on the market.

  • 70% of freelancers find most of their work through online marketplaces.

  • Over half of all respondents have considered either full-time or part-time employment in the past year.

See more graphs and interesting numbers in the carousel!​

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How Ukrainian businesses

thrive during war.

Report from Payoneer

Following its 2022 ‘Business in Times of War’ report, Payoneer carried out a follow-up study with more than 2,300 Ukrainian small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) across multiple industries including IT, manufacturing, education, agriculture, and others, to understand how they are maintaining, and even growing, their businesses one year on.

We’ve collected main numbers and insights for Ukrainian business:

  • The war greatly impacted on the plans of Ukrainian SMBs, with 77% saying it impacted their plans a great deal, and a further 20% saying it impacted them a little. Only 3% of Ukrainian businesses say they were not impacted by the war.

  • 69% of businesses now have all staff based in Ukraine. 25% of Ukrainian still have some staff based outside Ukraine.

  • 56% of businesses are planning to maintain their current market position. Moreover, 30% of them aim to grow and scale their businesses in the coming year, despite the ongoing turmoil and immense challenges.

  • 36% of Ukrainian businesses are planning on hiring more staff this year, slightly less than their expected plan in last year’s survey (38%).

  • 77% of businesses are still unaware of governmental support programs.

  • 44% of businesses have enough of their own resources to pursue their business goals.

  • Financial investment is the most important element required for Ukrainian SMBs to achieve their business goals. This remains a consistent requirement as reported in our last report.

  • 50,382 businesses have received over UAH 154 billion thanks to the Affordable Loans 5-7-9% program. But 56% of SMBs still lack enough resources of their own to pursue their business goals.

  • International donors also provide financial support, such as EU4Environment program and the USAID Competitive Economy Program. However, only 23% know about international or state sponsored support programs and even less (19%) turned to them for help. 

See more numbers in the images!

So proud of our businesses and hope they will thrive even more in future!

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FREE courses for Ukrainians

from TOP world professors

Do you want to learn for FREE from top world professors at Oxford Brookes Business School, Berkeley College of Engineering or Cornell University?

Today we’d like to tell you about Ukraine Global Faculty, that is engaging a global faculty to provide Ukrainian students and professionals with access to state-of-the-art online lectures and master classes.

Contributors of UGF commit to 3 hours of lectures per semester (online) that you can listen online.

We’ve made a list of the most interesting (in our opinion) upcoming free courses for Ukrainians:

They have a lot more courses on Art, Law, Health, Business and Maths. You should totally check them out!

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