Perspectives on the Future of Work: April 18

Upwork’s weekly column brings you the latest news on hiring and working with freelancers, freelancing, and the future of work.

Tech.Co | How to Survive Your First Year of Entrepreneurship

Whether you’re launching a startup or a freelance business, the statistic that Alumnify CEO AJ Agrawal cites at the beginning of his article is an intimidating one: Most entrepreneurs give up within one year.

To increase the odds of your not being among them, he offers the following tips:

• Have a solid goal beyond “be successful.” “A common mistake is that people have no real idea what they want to accomplish or why they are doing this,” he said. “It leads to them doing something without any meaning or purpose in mind.”
• Maintain a solid work ethic. Don’t let unexpected or early wins lull you into the belief that you can afford to take it easy.
• Delegate tasks that don’t play to your strengths.
• Be open to risk, but assess the pros and cons first.
• Be prepared to make some sacrifices. “Many entrepreneurs simply can’t stomach the idea of living lean and living with a constant jittery feeling that they are going to fail,” Agrawal noted. “Comfort is not something you are going to experience often in this line of work.”

Inc. | 7 Outsourceable Tasks That Are Stealing Your Productivity

“Stop wasting time on tasks that don’t fuel growth,” wrote Sujan Patel, co-founder of Narrow.io and ContentMarketer.io. The freelance economy enables businesses of all sizes to find professionals with the skills to support them—freeing both time and energy.

Engaging freelance talent can enable you to better focus on key responsibilities, strengths, and strategizing, which will benefit both your business and your mental health. Among the tasks Patel suggests delegating:

• Scheduling, bookkeeping, and other admin.
• Research—especially as those experienced in gathering data can compile relevant information much more quickly than you probably can.
• Graphic design and other presentation preparations (unless graphic design is what you do, of course).
• Personal errands.
• Content marketing and social media management. “You never want to slack on your marketing,” Patel wrote, “so the best thing to do is outsource it.”

Does the idea of relinquishing control of even these tasks make you uneasy? “Choose your least favorite task or a big time-suck (like writing) and outsource it on a trial basis to see how it goes,” Patel advises. “Then you can best determine the value of outsourcing on your own.”

What future of work news or trends have caught your attention recently? Tell us about it in the comments below.

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