| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: In your opinion, what is the most time-consuming, non-translation tasks? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "In your opinion, what is the most time-consuming, non-translation tasks?".
This poll was originally submitted by Châu Nguyễn. View the poll results »
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Some tasks are time-consuming and I love them: invoicing, for instance, means that the job is done and that money is on its way. Others are time-consuming and I hate them: reading and signing NDAs - there's more to a translator's life than wasting time on offers of collaboration that will never materialize.
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 12:01
Spanish to English
+ ...
Admin/Billing.
Which reminds me...
[Edited at 2021-07-01 22:23 GMT]
| | | | Kevin Fulton 
United States
Local time: 06:01
German to English
Although I retain all receipts and maintain a spreadsheet to record my taxable income and related expenses, dealing with tax-related matters is very time consuming. I have to pay quarterly estimated taxes based on the previous year's net income. It's a PITA, and an even bigger pain when preparing my annual income tax statements both for the federal government as well as the state of Michigan where I live.
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| Personal and home maintenance | Jul 2, 2021 |
Washing, showering, waste elimination, dressing, laundry, shopping, washing up, tidying up - all the other daily activities needed to counter the increase of entropy that characterises our existence. What I call "the relentlessness of life".
Well, the question did not specify business tasks, just "non-translation".
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I think this speaks for itself. And yes, taxes (Kevin's topic).
| | | | | Other: tax preparation | Jul 2, 2021 |
Definitely. Here in the U.S., declaring an office at home means itemizing just about any expenditure on the home and then dividing it by the portion of space devoted to the office. Declaring use of the car means listing every expenditure on the car and dividing it by the proportion of miles driven. And so on. The job usually takes me several days.
Invoicing is mostly automatic with my clients these days. Keeping track of jobs just means making entries in the spreadsheet.
[Ed... See more Definitely. Here in the U.S., declaring an office at home means itemizing just about any expenditure on the home and then dividing it by the portion of space devoted to the office. Declaring use of the car means listing every expenditure on the car and dividing it by the proportion of miles driven. And so on. The job usually takes me several days.
Invoicing is mostly automatic with my clients these days. Keeping track of jobs just means making entries in the spreadsheet.
[Edited at 2021-07-02 05:45 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Prevaricating | Jul 2, 2021 |
Prevaricating when faced with the occasional job I can’t easily get out of and really, really don’t want to do.
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I empathize with all of you who handle bookkeeping. Because of all the hassle and stress with taxes I stopped doing my own bookkeeping some years ago and decided to get an accountant to deal with that. Preparing the documents to be sent to him takes just one hour per month. He’s worth every penny (I should say every cent) I pay him…
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:01
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Teresa Borges wrote:
I empathize with all of you who handle bookkeeping. Because of all the hassle and stress with taxes I stopped doing my own bookkeeping some years ago and decided to get an accountant to deal with that. Preparing the documents to be sent to him takes just one hour per month. He’s worth every penny (I should say every cent) I pay him…
I like keeping my own books. Every month it's a opportunity to organise all the papers I've thrown into my "bookkeeping" box, go over them, get them organised, review what I've been doing, and update the spreadsheets that enable me to track my income and outgoings and that make everything easy when tax return time comes around (which I also do myself). It takes me an hour or less: an hour I enjoy. No hassle, no stress. But maybe that's because the UK tax system is very straightforward and is always kept as simple as possible. When I lived in Italy it was hell.
[Edited at 2021-07-02 09:11 GMT]
| | | | Liena Vijupe
Latvia
Local time: 13:01
Member (2014)
French to Latvian
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It takes me about 1h each month to prepare invoices and send them, I have an accountant to deal with taxes, reports and everything else.
Other options are generally easy to manage too (like not posting on this forum). E-mails and other admin tasks though... I could have already done half of my work for today, but I haven't even started yet because I spent all morning writing e-mails, scheduling new jobs, noting them in my calendar, preparing the files and registering all details for tracki... See more It takes me about 1h each month to prepare invoices and send them, I have an accountant to deal with taxes, reports and everything else.
Other options are generally easy to manage too (like not posting on this forum). E-mails and other admin tasks though... I could have already done half of my work for today, but I haven't even started yet because I spent all morning writing e-mails, scheduling new jobs, noting them in my calendar, preparing the files and registering all details for tracking etc. And now I'm spending extra time to write about it here, since it's not going to change anything very much at this point... ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Marketing and acquisition | Jul 2, 2021 |
Obviously, this includes CV and profile building, but it's much more. It's also being active on professional social media, actively approaching potential clients, the onboarding process with interested clients (negotiating rates and conditions, making test translations, filling in forms, etc.) and attending networking events (online and - hopefully soon again - offline). I spend at least one hour each day doing these things; sometimes considerably more. This is my secret - well, nothing secret a... See more Obviously, this includes CV and profile building, but it's much more. It's also being active on professional social media, actively approaching potential clients, the onboarding process with interested clients (negotiating rates and conditions, making test translations, filling in forms, etc.) and attending networking events (online and - hopefully soon again - offline). I spend at least one hour each day doing these things; sometimes considerably more. This is my secret - well, nothing secret about it, in fact - of a successful one-woman shop with a diverse, trustworthy client base, ongoing interesting work and a comfortable income.
Edit: and yes, one of the things is I should fix an issue with my profile picture that won't show everywhere on the site; just sent a support request about it to the ProZ staff
[Edited at 2021-07-02 11:27 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Edith van der Have wrote: Edit: and yes, one of the things is I should fix an issue with my profile picture that won't show everywhere on the site; just sent a support request about it to the ProZ staff [Edited at 2021-07-02 11:27 GMT]
... you should save a copy of the existing one on your HD in a minor resolution (and size) and try to upload again? That would my idea before waiting ages for a response from staff. Hope that will help!
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Matthias Brombach wrote:
... you should save a copy of the existing one on your HD in a minor resolution (and size) and try to upload again? That would my idea before waiting ages for a response from staff. Hope that will help!
Yes, that's it! Thanks so much for your kind help! I'll close my support request. You could apply for a job at ProZ in the meantime
| | | | Mario Freitas
Brazil
Local time: 07:01
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| Other - non-translation-related tasks | Jul 2, 2021 |
I'm a very organized person (Virgo  ), and I really don't take too long with finance, invoicing and statistics. I have all spreadsheets very well organized, easy to work with, and interlinked to each other, so I enter my jobs when I receive them, and that automatically generates several other entries for the other tasks. It takes me about 15 to 30 minutes per day for these tasks, a couple of hours on the 25th and on the 1st each m... See more I'm a very organized person (Virgo ), and I really don't take too long with finance, invoicing and statistics. I have all spreadsheets very well organized, easy to work with, and interlinked to each other, so I enter my jobs when I receive them, and that automatically generates several other entries for the other tasks. It takes me about 15 to 30 minutes per day for these tasks, a couple of hours on the 25th and on the 1st each month for the invoices and respective emails, and another couple of hours per month to update all statistics and the pre-preparation of my income tax statement for the following year. I also take a couple of hours per week to clean up my TMs and TBs and make a double backup of everything.
But I voted "other" because the tasks that consume more time in my routine are actually home tasks, like cooking, washing dishes and clothes, taking care of our pet, and the like. My wife is a lawyer, and she's not home during the day, so all these are my tasks.
[Edited at 2021-07-02 12:00 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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