Category Archives: Business Skills

Top 3 Apps to Increase Productivity This Year

Even after seven years of freelancing, I still look for new ways to be more productive during work time. The more efficiently I work, the more I can truly enjoy my time off — instead of thinking about what I still need to get done.

So, here are my top three apps for increasing productivity:

  1. Expensify (iOS + Android) – During the year-end break, I finished up my bookkeeping for 2013. Although I’m happy that it improved over the previous year, it wasn’t up to the level I want. Ideally, I would like mileage and expense logs to update instantaneously, so I never have to spend time catching up. Finally, Expensify offers a streamlined solution. I can quickly snap a photo of a receipt, categorize it, and specify whether it’s a billable expense, all in the same upload. For business mileage, all I have to do is hit a button at the start of a trip and let the GPS track me. All my data is available from the Expensify website and I can easily export it Excel. Bonus: My CPA suggests that keeping up-to-date logs is the best way to benefit from all possible deductions.
  2. Timesheet (Android) – Until now, the time trackers I had found just didn’t fit my style. The Printable CEO has good Pomodoro-type printouts, and there are a ton of programs to help you log project times. But I test drove Timesheet on a recent forensic-transcription project (Preciso’s newest service offering, yay!) and it turned out to be the project tracker I was waiting for. It lets me annotate work completed during each time period dedicated to a project. It gives me analysis across a project and allows multiple projects.The widget on my phone makes it easy as pie easy to start and pause tasks. As an added bonus, having the break timer ticking was a nice motivator to get back on task.

    Timesheet - Productivity for Translators

    Timesheet – Productivity for Translators

  3. Facebook – Surprised? Well, my suggestion is actually to take Facebook (or your time sink of choice) and uninstall the app from your phone. We all have those sites we like to check in on for one or two or forty minutes when faced with a work task we’d rather not do (see #1, in my case). It’s time to take control and save these sites for a hard-earned, guilt-free break. At minimum, turn off all notifications so you only log in when you’ve decided you have some time for it.

These are my favorite productivity boosters right now. My sister, who works from a home office as a mortgage underwriter, just started using Timesheet and loves it. Do you have a favorite timekeeping app for Apple? Other productivity apps we should know about?

Announcing ATA’s Savvy Newcomer blog

After spending some time with UT Arlington students last month, my mind has been churning with ideas to help people interested in joining the profession. I’ve consulted many resources over the years, and many gems are freely available. But it would take a real commitment to retrace my steps and collect them into a little online guide.

Fortunately, right on time, the American Translators Association announced a new blog with this exact purpose. One of the first posts addresses a very common question: how does one find that first paid translation job?

With a diversity of industry contributors, I’m sure this blog will quickly become a point of entry that demystifies those normal newcomer questions.

UT Arlington – Choose Your Own Adventure – Professional Translator/Interpreter Resources

It was a great pleasure to visit my alma mater, UT Arlington, today, and talk with a great group of students and professionals.

Here are direct links to the resources I mentioned during the talk:

One thing I’d like to underline is that it’s easy to feel a little lost starting out in this profession. Don’t be afraid to find your own path, but also know that there are many, many colleagues who will be happy to give you tips and help you along.

Finally, if you’re ready to start going through the steps of setting up your translation business, I recommend you check out Corinne McKay’s online course, How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator.

Correction: My slides included incorrect information for passing scores for the Texas Licensed Court Interpreter exam. The minimum passing score for a Basic license is 60% and the minimum passing score for a Master license is 70%. I’m grateful to the colleague who alerted me to this error.

Should Translations of Official Foreign Documents Replicate the Original Formatting?

Many websites offer speedy, inexpensive translations of official foreign documents such as birth certificates. This is not one of them.

Personally, I find these documents interesting to translate because each country’s documents are so different. For people belonging to an earlier generation than mine, for example, their birth certificate might be a narrative written by a priest in the official municipal registry.

But, I don’t do this type of work often because it can take me a full hour to translate a one-page certificate, between deciphering handwriting and tracking down the meanings of obscure abbreviations (sometimes from government entities that no longer exist). I give a customized estimate for each document and I don’t believe my rates are unfair for the thoroughly researched translations that I provide, but my rate for an hour of translation is still higher than what I see at the pre-paid, one-price-fits-all sites. Of course, quality might suffer with one of these more economical alternatives, but a quick-and-dirty translation may be sufficient as long as the vital statistics are right (though it’s unethical to certify such as a “complete and accurate” translation).

Something that does raise caution flags in my mind, however, is the practice of providing a translation as a formatted replica of the original document. Once, responding to a question on whether to format such translations, my beloved translation professor, a sworn translator from Spain, responded:

Soy traductora. No soy diseñadora gráfica.

(I’m a translator, not a graphic designer.)

Six years later, I still hear her voice and the simple conclusion she impressed on her students. It seems obvious, but sometimes in our eagerness to please our clients, we forget our real function. We translate the meanings of words. Generally, I don’t believe a translator should spend a lot of time messing with text boxes and images unless this work is contemplated as part of a service package (with a higher rate than translation alone) or paid as an hourly add-on service.

More importantly, replicating official documents could bring a risk of allegations of producing false documents. I learned that in Spain, sworn translations are text-only and fully justified, with dashes filling out any unused space on each line to prevent tampering. The only graphic elements in the translation are the translator’s seal and signature. Seals, signatures, logos on the original are described in bracketed translator’s notes: [This document is printed on official watermarked paper. There appears in the upper left-hand corner a seal that reads…]

Now, such sworn translations (and sworn translators) must fulfill much more rigorous standards than certified translations in the U.S., it’s true. But I think it’s in our best interest to play it safe by providing written translations, not replica documents. I have never seen a requirement from any government entity that the translation resemble the original, so why take the risk? At Preciso, the policy is to provide a translation clearly marked as a translation, with a certificate that bears the translator’s name and the title, in Spanish, of the original document.

What do you think? Am I missing an important reason to replicate the original document?

 

 

 

Blogging 2.0

After a wonderful learning experience (read: “Oh, WordPress can delete everything just like that?”) over the weekend, previous blog posts are temporarily unavailable. Sorry! We are working hard to get them all back in working order.  Favorites like the Paperless Interpreter Part I will be restored ASAP, with Part II soon to follow.

Thanks for your patience.

Saying Adiós to 2012 and Setting No Goals for 2013

This little business has me doing fantastically interesting and varied work all over Dallas/Fort Worth and sometimes beyond. And it just keeps getting better. This year was off the charts and I am thankful.

Professional translators improve their skills

Inspired by this article in the Harvard Business Review, rather than specific goals I’m going to look at what I want to spend time on in 2013:

  • Continuing education. From a course on advanced legal editing to a workshop on improving my speaking voice, regular continuing education has been worthwhile both to improve my skills and, best of all, to get to know more people. Interpreting is solitary work most of the time so these relaxed learning days are refreshing and a great way to keep improving my game.
  • Pro bono services. This year I got to provide almost four weeks of conference interpreting and bilingual multimedia services for nonprofit groups.
  • Mentoring. I believe that we are all able to reach back and help someone who is not quite as far down the road as we are. This year I got to help two local interpreters improve their skills and earn higher rates, share advice with a translation student at my alma mater, and continue providing real-world practice for my intern.
  • Criminal cases. Although I’ve interpreted hundreds of hours in administrative courts and almost as many in civil cases, so far I’ve been timid about criminal matters. But the criminal cases I have taken have gone great, with very good feedback from defendants, attorneys, and judges, so for 2013 I’ll stop giving preference to civil cases.
  • Translation. Interpreting is exhilarating but even after extensive preparation you always drive home from an interpreting job thinking about things you could have expressed better. Translating documents, on the other hand, affords me the chance to be a writer, mulling over the best way to phrase a sentence, researching a little more, sleeping on it and tweaking the text till I’m totally satisfied.
  • Non-work. As I ease back from my habitual emphasis on productivity and advancing toward goals, I want to spend more time on spiritual edification and personal interests like photography, guitar, Crossfit, and homemade ice cream.

Does your outlook for 2013 look similar? Is there anything you definitely want to spend more time on this year?

Hat tip to Catherine Christaki, Greek translator, for sharing the Harvard Business Review article on LinkedIn.