What I learnt at my first job!

At my first job, after my postgraduate studies, I had a colleague called Olga. Her surname, age etc. are not significant here but she was one of the kindest people I have ever met and  thinking of her I would like to talk about the kindness of people who have nothing to gain from helping you.

Olga was in a way my mentor, although none of us thought of it like that at the time. I might have had the knowledge to do my job well in the company where we used to work but I had no clue about working environments, co-worker relationships, how to deal with demanding bosses or how to balance work and personal life. She woudl make me take breaks when she could see that I was about to crash

How to publish a cook-book

Inspired by my talk with Nadia, over at @greenrootskitchen, a personal chef and vegan enthusiast.

So you’ve got a few cool recipes, an audience with raving reviews of your food – an idea about a book has been forming, and it has got you thinking, “Oh well this could be something great, but how on earth is it going to get out of my head and become an actual book?”

First of all, you have to answer the one question that is the same for most kinds of books: are you planning to publish traditionally or are you looking for self-publishing options?

Summer Essentials for Translators

1. Deadlines

Because you know you can’t work if everyone is on the beach and you keep dreaming of mojitos and tan lines. NOTHING MAKES ME MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN THE LAST MINUTE is probably my summer mantra and I’m not ashamed of it! I need to be super focused to work!

2. Coffee

To wake up in the morning, to get a fix at midday, to stay alert on the afternoon and to stay… away from alcohol if you have still work to do in the evening. Gin and tonic with lots of ice or just a chilled glass of white on the balcony – I struggle to keep these evil thoughts away when I’m on my desk sweating with a book translation!

3. Lots of fruit

Reason? See above! Plus, they are good for you even if you would rather murder a chocolate cake with ice cream between projects.

4. Time off!

To recharge batteries, feel human again, convince yourself you’d rather be working than lounging on that sunbed doing nothing at all. Yes, you need some time off in order to be able to go back yo work with a clear head and to be more productive.

5. Motivation

Because you have to remind yourself that you love your work and enjoy doing it and as an extra bonus it will bring you the money to go to that travel on your bucket list / buy something you have been eyeing for your boyfriend/girlfriend / or just simply enjoy a day off next week.

If you have any more tips for staying on track during the summer please share the wisdom!!!

xxx

Foteini

Are you ready to go freelance?

June 9 was National Freelancer’s day in the UK and even though we don’t celebrate it in Greece I was planning to take some time off to look into  some CPD and translator training courses as well as ponder about some changes I want to make in my translation agency. However, and brilliantly illustrating the fact that a freelancer can never rest,

Translator training summer courses

Personal and professional development is all the rave lately – and not without reason. Our hectic schedules and limited time, though, do not allow for much of any of those two. Or do they?

This summer consider doing something for yourself and your business – enrol in a summer course! It is fun and useful at the same time! You get to learn a lot of new things, fulfil your potential, get out of your comfort zone and enhance your knowledge and expertise in your field!

If you are still not convinced read my post on 10+1 reasons why you should enroll in summer course this year 🙂

10+1 reasons why you should consider doing a summer course

Being a solo-preneur is hard and not only due to the amount of work one has to shoulder but also because it makes it extremely difficult to take some time off from work to relax and think clearly about the business’ next steps and/or changes. Freelancers are constantly worried about work: deadlines when they are busy and famine when they are not. So what about taking some time off without the guilt of falling back on business issues? How? By enrolling on a summer course.

The most important advantage is that a summer training course combines change of scenery (i.e. instant mood lift and relaxation) with learning and professional development. 

The drawback would be

The Soundtrack of Dreams -Dreamology by Lucy Keating

The science of dreams is an exciting and largely unmapped territory.

According to Freud, dreams are coded desires or symbols, while for Jung, they are a bridge towards the unconscious. Other scholars consider them to be a mental procedure, while some, such as Hartman see them as a kind of therapy. All views have a common element: they view dreams as a kind of “language” from ourselves to ourselves.

The only solution for translator’s block!

A TIP FOR TRANSLATOR’S BLOCK.

Translators, freelancers, creatives of any art…. We all have felt it. When the deadline is approaching quicker than Khaleesi’s dragons  but your progress is slower than George R.R. Martin’s writing pace of the next GoT book! You really want to give it all and finish the masterpiece you are translating in a few hours, then open a bottle of wine and chill out waiting for the big translation award committee to come knocking on your door with your nomination! OK I might have taken it too far but you really want to reach the finishing line and get.some.rest.But you can’t. Everything is going wrong. You catch a cold, your neighbor calls and wants to talk about cooking, there’s a power cut or you just plainly have-run-out-of-energy! And the bad news is, you can’t do anything about it but slowly drag your sorry self around the housemoaning «I have so much to do» without really doing anything!

Do you know what the only solution is?

– TAKE A DAY OFF!

Or just an evening. Even if you think you don’t have the time, just do it. You will be so productive the following morning you will gain the «lost» evening in a few hours. Make sure you don’t spend all time stressing about the job, though -just pretend it doesn’t exist for one afternoon. Do something for yourself, relax, exercise, order take out or go for a drink. You will feel so nice and energized the following morning, you will fall in love with your job again! Trust me, it works!

It works for me even when I really don’t think I can afford losing an entire afternoon (how will I manage to catch up with all those pages?). It really pays as you wake up in the morning fresh, a tiny little bit guilty (just enough so that to not press snooze) and happier than the day before – because you did something for yourself and you do not feel that your job is draining all your energy anymore!

What do you think? Have you tried it? How do you deal with translator’s (or writer’s) block?