A Freelancers Look at Rework by 37 Signals (and Giveaway!)
Rework, the new book by 37 Signals founders Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, at first glance may appear to be directed at the traditional worker or business. While some of that may be true, there are a lot of lessons for traditional freelance businesses and businesses of one to take away from it. It is important to remember that 37 Signals started as a traditional freelance web design consultancy. Their web based software business was born out of a need for tools they wished to have to improve that business. Therefore, Jason and David certainly understand the unique advantages and challenges of the Freelance world.
Rework itself is broken up into many little nuggets of information and inspiration. None are more than a few pages long. Therefore, it is easy to pick up, unpack a few pages of things to think about, and come to later. Nearly perfect for those if us who’s time has a billable hour value attached to it. As intimated, most of the sections are fodder for thought and application more than any step by step lessons. There is a little bit of everything in here. Thoughts on why estimates in general suck (because we usually try to estimate a whole as opposed to breaking it into smaller chunks), thoughts on when to grow your business (only when it hurts), thoughts on getting proper sleep (shouldn’t you be taking a nap right now?), and more. It really is one of those books that has at least a couple of things that speak deeply enough to anyone that it makes the whole well worth it (and it’s a pretty good whole to start with).
The Giveaway!
We feel Rework is a valuable addition to any Freelancers bookshelf. The folks at 37 Signals were kind enough to give us a copy to review and give away to one of our readers. Here are the rules:
- Next Monday, we will be selecting one person, at random, from our followers here in Tumblr or on Twitter to receive a copy.
- We will announce the Twitter or Tumblr name in a post here on the blog and on Twitter.
- That person will have one week to get in touch via our Submission Form and let us know where to send it.
- In case it is not clear, you must follow to win.
We plan on doing a giveaway once a month for the foreseeable future (so keep following). We have some great resources already in hand or lined up with more on the way (books, classes, software, etc). These are all things we really feel will help you become A Better Freelancer and we can’t wait to share them with you.
