You know what feels great? Earning your first big chunk of cash as a professional freelance writer.
It makes you feel like you made the right choice – like quitting your 9-to-5, branching out on your own and blazing your own path was the best thing you’ve ever done.
But if you’re just starting out, it can feel like that day is a long way away. If you’re starting off with content mills and bidding sites, you may very well be working for pennies – and that can take a while to add up.
Fortunately, those aren’t your only options. You can earn $1,000 as a freelance writer fast – long before your mortgage is due and the tax man comes calling.
Here’s how to do it:
Find A Few Clients In Need
Scour your LinkedIn network and check out the websites of local businesses and companies.
Is there any group with a less-than-stellar website? You could probably beef up their web content and make a big difference.
Are any of your connections starting a new job? Find out if their company could use content help.
Is someone in the market for employment? Offer to write copy for their personal portfolio site.
Ask For A Per-Project Rate
If you want to reach $1,000 fast, forget billing hourly. Instead, propose a flat, per-project rate for your clients.
Factor in how much time the project will take you, as well as your experience and skills, and come up with a fee that’s fair (but profitable!)
Exceed Your Deadlines
Sure, that new client might give you a month to complete their new website content, but do you really need that long? More importantly, do you want to wait that long for your payment? The quicker you get to work, the quicker you get paid!
Get Deposits And Ask For Milestone Payments
If you’re working on a particularly large project, a great way to get your cash early is to ask for a deposit or collect milestone payments.
With a deposit, you’ll ask for a certain percentage of your total fee upfront. This is to reserve your time and protect you from getting stiffed. With milestone payments, you can have the client pay you for each chunk of content you turn in – maybe per webpage your write, per blog post or per eBook chapter.
Make Payment Easy
Finally, don’t make payment a hassle for your clients. Get a PayPal and Venmo account, and nix the old mailed, paper checks you’re used to. Bill clients via email, and let them pay you instantly and seamlessly online. It’s better for both you and them.
Earning your first $1,000 can seem like an uphill battle but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you want a proven, step-by-step system to earning your first $1,000 and more in a short period of time, check out Maggie Linder’s Freelance Profit Academy. This program has become very popular among freelance writers and has produced hundreds of success stories. Check out the Freelance Profit Academy here: CLICK HERE
Welcome Writers, this could really be inconsequential.
According to a 2019 report, 57 million Americans work as freelancers. It’s a lifestyle that comes with lots of flexibility and, with a median hourly wage of $28, the potential to outearn 70% of non-freelancers.
However, being consistently productive outside a traditional 9-to-5 office setting doesn’t happen automatically. You must learn how to manage your time effectively.
After all, as your own boss, you work on multiple projects and deal with several clients at once. In addition, you’re also continually hustling to find and secure more work.
It’s easy to see that, if you can’t make efficient use of your time, you’ll be unable to maximize your professional output and, as a result, your earning power will be limited. For any freelance struggling with time management, here are seven tips for making the most of your workday.
1. Build Detailed To-Do Lists
Arguably the most valuable tool for managing your time as a freelancer is creating to-do lists. Some best practices for creating these lists include:
Include specific project notes and technical requirements from different clients.
If your list is all-digital, link to in-progress documents.
Use color-coding to help visually organize your work.
To-do lists are polarizing in and of themselves. Some studies claim that these lists can be a graveyard for non-urgent tasks. But, with time being such a finite resource for so many freelancers, it’s almost never a good idea to “wing it.”
The reality is that your to-do list setup only has to work for one person: you. Whether you use apps like Evernote or Google Keep, or simply jot information down by hand, knowing exactly what you need to work on is an indispensable part of strong time management for freelancers.
Just make sure there’s enough information in your to-do list, not just titles or jumbles of words. Everything, including important links or comments from clients, needs to be at your fingertips.
2. Create a Realistic Schedule (and Stick to It)
Once you’ve got a to-do list up and running, the next logical step is to break your day or week up into time blocks by creating a schedule.
How long those individual time blocks are, and how many you fit into a single day, will vary depending on your preferences. The key is understanding how much you can realistically get done in a given amount of time.
Some time constraints are scientifically unavoidable. The general rule of thumb is that the human mind can only focus on any given task for 90 to 120 minutes at a time.
With that in mind, listen to your body’s natural rhythms and maximize what you can do in those shorter spurts. Once you find that sweet spot, stick to it by establishing a routine.
Don’t forget—you’ll also need to make time to hunt down new projects and clients, creative brainstorming, marketing, networking, and much more.
3. Find an Optimal Work Environment
Now that you’ve got the “what” and the “when” figured out, it’s time to tackle the “where.”
Your work environment, just like your to-do list and schedule, should cater to your strengths as a freelancer. Some professionals need absolute silence to do their best work. Others prefer working to the hum of a crowd in a cafe or communal workspace.
That said, some universal environmental elements, regardless of the location, must help your productivity rather than hinder it. Here are some important ones to keep in mind:
Make sure your chair is comfortable. These days, most freelance work involves sitting in front of a computer or mobile device for several hours a day. Back pain, leg numbness, or any other physical discomfort can be distracting and needless to say, impede your productivity.
Invest in a good pair of headphones. If you prefer working in public places, noise-canceling headphones are a must. They give you the ability to filter out most ambient noise if you need to.
Find good lighting. Working in a room that lacks natural daylight can be fatiguing, as can working next to the wrong kind of desk lamp. This may also mean investing in a computer monitor with a decent color spectrum and viewing angle.
4. Go Offline to Minimize Distractions
Even the most self-disciplined freelancer can be jarred by a sudden notification or buzz from their phone. And if they occur frequently enough, these distractions may drain several productive hours from your day.
One solution: going offline during your work hours.
Of course, setting aside time during your day to manage your various inboxes is important. But, when it’s time to settle in and knock items off your to-do list, avoiding notification pop-ups or incoming message alerts is paramount.
If you can’t help but peek at your emails or scrolling through social media, try one of these apps:
Freedom is the best-known option, although the features in its free version are limited.
Hocus Focus is a great free tool for Mac users that only lets you view one window at a time.
Other effective free alternatives to Freedom include FocusMe and SelfControl.
Let’s face it—any device connected to the internet hosts dozens of websites and applications that compete for your attention. Nip that timesuck in the bud and go offline when you work.
If you don’t, managing your time around all of those distractions will be nothing short of impossible.
5. Break Larger Projects Down into Smaller Tasks
Another crucial time management challenge for freelancers is mastering the art of breaking up larger projects into smaller tasks.
This practice, also called “chunking,” adds another layer of time management depth to your existing to-do list and schedule. Trying to tackle a project that’s too big or time-consuming as a whole can diminish your focus and drive.
A common misconception about freelancers is that they’re multitaskers. But multitasking implies simultaneous work, often with mediocre or average results. Productive freelancers who are efficient with their time don’t try and work on everything all at once. It’s not feasible.
Instead, here are some ways you can break your projects down into manageable pieces:
Create a work plan. A work plan breaks a big project into smaller objectives and deliverables, helping keep you on track when something requires more attention to detail.
Devote all your attention to one task at a time. Sometimes, solving your productivity issues is really that simple. By focusing on a singular task, you have far more control over the speed and accuracy of your work.
Avoid switching tasks often. If you fall into the trap of “task hopping,” you’re really just multitasking in a fragmented fashion. Once you begin a task, try and complete it before starting another one—or, in some cases, at least finish a rough draft.
Work with self-imposed deadlines. You’ve married your to-do list with a schedule for a reason: you have client-imposed deadlines. Within those timeframes, use self-imposed micro-deadlines to keep the clock ticking and your attention on point.
Once your projects become collections of bite-sized tasks, you’ll be amazing at how much you can get done in a day or week.
6. Take Enough Breaks
One of the downsides of working your own hours is that, unlike a standard 9-to-5 job, there are no built-in breaks. Instead, it’s on you to remember to take them every day.
When you get into a good rhythm, the idea of breaking away from your work can feel counterintuitive. However, stepping away from your task actually helps you consistently perform at a higher level.
Leave workaholic tendencies at the door and ensure that you pencil enough breaks into your time management strategy.
7. Avoid taking on more work than you can handle
Let’s end this post off with the most uncomfortable of these time management tips for freelancers: saying no.
By its very nature, freelancing involves dealing with the ebb and flow of available work. Sometimes saying no to a project or client is scary because you don’t know when that next call or email will come your way.
Despite this, in ideal circumstances, you owe it to yourself to say no. To bad projects that won’t pay you what you’re worth. To bad clients who don’t value your time or skills. To anything that won’t be worth your time.
This also encompasses projects that don’t align with your goals as a professional. Every piece of freelance work you produce should eventually become part of a portfolio that helps you get the next job. In that sense, projects need to help you advance your career, not just get paid.
For those who have a difficult time saying no to new projects, consider making a decision tree. This visual can help guide you in the decision-making process for each new opportunity that arises. For instance, you might want to ask yourself:
Do you have time to take on additional work?
Does this project align with your skills and/or interests?
Will it benefit your portfolio?
Does the project offer fair compensation?
Don’t just jump at every paying customer who waltzes into your inbox. Otherwise, your to-do list and calendar will be clogged with work you don’t care about. That, above all else, is a huge waste of your time as a freelancer.
As more and more people get online on a daily basis, the way people are advertised to shifts along with the move. In 2005, people logged around 10 hours online per week week.
In 2014, that number jumped to over 20 hours, with 16-24 year olds spending the most time online, around 27 hours. Today, the number continues to grow as a Pew Research study notes that 81% of Americans spend at least some time online on a daily basis. In short, people are spending rather a lot of time online.
The more time spent online, the more things there are to do from reading the news, scanning social media and shopping. In 2016, 1.6 billion shopped online for goods and services, but that number is expected to reach 2.14 by 2021 according to forecasted trends. As a response, the marketing world has altered its course and begun to focus where the consumers are: online.
Today, brands slip in on your social media feeds, marketing is directed at you, through your device, often based off of your history or likes. It’s an elegant system if you’re a company, and it’s perfectly personalised if you’re a consumer.
All of this is of course very good news if you’re already in a digital marketing job or considering entering the digital marketing jobs market – it’s a market that is only going to continue to grow.
What is digital marketing?
Even if you’re involved in digital marketing you might not realise quite how broad the industry has become. So we’ll take a quick look through what digital marketing is today and how influential it is on consumers.
Digital marketing is simply any sort of marketing on electronic devices. Since most people are spending time online, it’s marketing catered to each individual.
The history of digital marketing
This aspect of marketing includes more than marketing on Facebook or personal websites, digital marketing has been around for over 100 years, begun when the Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio.
He sold show tickets to a Met opera after broadcasting it through the radio, but the technical definition of what he did wouldn’t exist until the 1990s. In the 1970s, Ray Tomlin sent an email, and that technology would forever alter marketing and the consumer. Officially, digital marketing began in 1990 when FTP sites created the Archie Search Engine as an index.
As consumers have changed, so have digital marketing methods. Massive changes were made in the 2000s and 2010s as the internet gained more daily users and as smartphones became prevalent. Opportunities for advertising now exist in people’s hands.
But, with the rise of personal devices came issues.
The switch to online shopping caught many companies off guard. As late as 2000, many UK retails neglected to even register their domain names. Marketing automation helped marketers, but moved slowly integrating adaptability to personal devices.
Today, there are concerns about customer privacy and data protection. As the world of digital marketing evolves, so will the issues being faced and how they are handled.
Digital marketing campaigns made up of search engine optimisation (SEO), content marketing, influencer marketing, e-commerce marketing, and more require experts in these fields to best cater to consumers.
While many of these digital marketing jobs require a technical ability, they all still require many traditional job skills such as teamwork, personal modiviation, and excellent verbal and written skills. Today digital marketing is as much an art form as it is a science.
Of course, some of the newer jobs, such as virtual reality developer, will require an intensely high tech background that comes from years of learning. Just as every person has a unique skill set, so does every job in digital marketing, and there is probably a place for you within this field that fits your qualifications.
Most popular digital marketing jobs right now
Social Media Marketer
With the influx of social media comes more and more jobs. As a social media marketer, your job is to help companies interact with consumers across the wide array of social media platforms. You’ll give input on social media campaigns designed to attract new customers, and retain current customers with.your knowledge of analytics and consumers.
Bot Developer
Today fewer people are willing to make a phone call for help and instead head to a company’s website for assistance. As a bot developer, you’ll be overseeing the creation and interaction of a chatbot with customers. Your chatbot will converse and hopefully sell products to customers or nudge customers towards a buying decision, making your contribution invaluable.
Digital Marketing Manager and Director
Overseeing and implementing digital campaigns is the job of digital marketing managers and directors. Tasks include organizing and managing a budget, planning out the project, setting milestones, and more.
To be a digital marketing manager and director, you must have stellar communication and organization skills, as well as staying firm with decisions and excellent delegation skills. Typically, this job requires a considerable amount of experience, but the payoff is excellent.
Content Manager and Strategist
A content manager and strategist can often work on developing content for a variety of marketing needs. They will have a solid knowledge of creating keyword orientated content, in addition to organizing and managing it.
They will know how to write well, channeling a wide variety of information into concise and informative content that will reach people effectively.
Email Marketing Specialist
If your writing is stellar, and you have a background in marketing, copywriting, or editing, this highly specialized job field may be for you. An email marketing specialist is part of a specific area of content development and marketing, and will probably be in charge of launches, campaigns, or PR activities.
As email is a strong and effective way to reach consumers, this job requires a persuasive method of writing. Not just any person can be an email marketing specialist, you must be able to showcase your excellent writing and editing skills and be prepared to work quickly and efficiently.
Data Analyst
A data analyst organizes and examines data, whilst preparing it for a company to interpret and apply it to their own digital marketing campaigns. As a data analyst, you must have a technological and computer science background. You understand programming, data optimization, and machine learning.
User Experience Designer (UX Designer)
A user experience designer or UX designer is involved throughout the design and development phases of a websites creation. Bigger websites may even have a UX team to ensure ongoing user experience improvements on their website properties.
Many tend to shift towards the technical or the design aspect of creating, but they must understand the website from a marketing aspect.
Additionally, they must understand their audience, as well as the product or service they are promoting via the website. A UX designer often takes on the lead roles in project management, and caters to a website usability throughout the process.
SEO and SEM Specialist
SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) specialists are vital to a digital marketing campaign. Their knowledge is made up of both digital and technical aspects. As search engine algorithms fluctuate, so do businesses, and a person with SEO and SEM experience cannot lag behind in this speciality.
While businesses, particularly ones in e-commerce, will always need someone in SEO/SEM to maintain high ROI, this job requires a considerable amount of experience and knowledge. The payoff is fantastic though, and SEO/SEM jobs command a high price.
Internet of Things Marketing Specialist
With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) comes more and more jobs. An IoT specialist will understand and corral data collected from computing devices and be able to create a campaign from those devices to users of each device.
As personal computing devices grow, so will the needs and requirements of IoT specialists.
Virtual Reality Developer
This is definitely a highly technical role, but the paycheck should equal the technical requirements necessary for this gig. It is both new and highly specialized, but you must have strong creative skills.
A background in visuals, technology, or special effects would be helpful, as well as a very strong creative vision with an eye to the future. Many predict that virtual reality is the future, so you’ll be on the cutting edge of technology.
Where to look for digital marketing jobs online
The best resource for digital marketing jobs would be found on the internet itself. Here are some of the best ones sites out there, from smaller websites, to the largest.
FlexJobs offers a variety of different job options in either full or part-time capacities. Their blog gives helpful advice, but more importantly, their research companies section allows you to research and ensure that a particular company and you would be a great fit. For professional, flexible jobs, FlexJobs is the site for you.
Use Marketing Hire for specific searches in the marketing field. While the website feels dated, they have the info available in a wide variety of sources from podcasts to summer internships. Their free videos and webinars are helpful as well. They state that they display jobs from HP, Microsoft, and Nike and more, as well as smaller firms, making them an excellent resource for reliable digital marketing jobs.
Digital Agency Network features jobs from all over the world, from Charlotte, NC to Vancouver, Canada. Their mission is “… to support the digital marketing industry and enhance the intelligence, expertise, reach and effectiveness of digital agencies, companies, and individual marketers through online platforms, consultancy, events and training.” Additionally, the ability to showcase work through DAN gives you the opportunity to display your talent, depending on your field.
Glassdoor is a behemoth in the job searching industry, and many employers use this site. While the jobs posted here will always have a high concentration of competitiveness, it’s a valuable resource to use. Additionally, you can search for jobs worldwide and in specific fields, so it offers more options than some of the smaller, specialized sites. Most importantly, Glassdoor allows you to assess your salary, making it an invaluable resource as you determine what to charge for your services.
Just the task of looking for digital marketing jobs is a full-time job in itself. Looking to save time and just get to the best jobs? Enter: SolidGigs.
For a mere $2 to try it out, SolidGigs scours the internet for the best jobs online and sends them directly to your email. It leaves you to just apply and do what you love (not searching for jobs). Not only that, they have a library full of resources to help you become a better freelancer.
If you’re looking for a wide variety of information on digital marketing, the Drum is the website for you. They have an equally wide array of job postings from design to PR. Their email newsletter offers useful information about the market, while their comprehensive social media helps you stay connected and informed. This is a worldwide job posting site.
Surprisingly, Mashable has a thriving jobs board that allows you to select your job title, location, and then organizes jobs by employers. It doesn’t display nearly as many helpful options about perfecting your CV or your specific job market, but it does have jobs available in marketing/PR. As a big name in digital talent, Mashable offers a unique way to find your perfect job.
If you’re looking for worldwide jobs, Creativepool is an excellent resource. They also cater towards freelancers and contract roles, but permanent roles are also available. Their magazine offers a wide variety of career advice, making this site and excellent and unique resource for job hunting.
Fiverr isn’t technically a job board, but it’s a great way to stay connected with others in the digital world. If you’re a freelancer, signing up will help you find short term projects, with a starting fee at $5. With a broad user base, and guaranteed payment, Fiverr opens up opportunities for the short term to give you experience and possibly help you transition into a full time job.
Utilizing the jobs on Facebook feature may display possible jobs in the digital marketing sphere. While this is a relatively new feature, it might prove helpful for people in the tech world. The advantage is that it is connected to your social media already, making it simple to upload your CV and connect with others.
Lastly, no comprehensive list of job sites would be complete without including Indeed. As easily one of the largest and most recognized names in the job search world, Indeed offers a wide variety of job postings across the world. Their job resources are helpful and it’s very easy to upload your CV and apply to an assortment of jobs.
Other ways to find digital marketing jobs
By staying up to date on LinkedIn and following companies relevant to your interests, you will stay abreast of changes and possibly find yourself ahead of the competition for a job.
Even Twitter can be beneficial, as long as you’re active on it and not derogatory or demeaning. Utilizing the background information that is available on social media may also help you better understand certain companies and hopefully help you ace that interview.
If you use social media in applying for jobs, remember to keep your social media clean and try to paint yourself in a positive light. Using social media to attack others, act violently or erratically, or use hate speech is not just unkind, but will probably keep you from getting a job in the digital field.
More often employers today use social media as a way of checking on possible employees to make sure they measure up. Think of your social media as an extension of your CV.
Do you really want your future employers to see your drunken comments and pictures from your holiday in Cancun? Probably not. So use this time to clean up your accounts.
Tips on landing digital marketing jobs
So, you have your dream job in mind, you have resources for finding your job, now what?
Do your research on the companies you’re applying for to make sure you’re going to be a good fit and that you and the company are aligned in values and culture. Before you send in your cover letter and CV, make sure they’re unique and will stand out from the crowd.
Have a friend proofread your documents to make sure you use proper grammar and spelling. Stay honest and tell the truth. Be positive, but don’t add in falsehoods to your CV. And lastly, check in, but don’t stalk. Prove yourself as a go-getter, but if the job is a bust, move on to another company.
Best of luck on your digital marketing journey!
Armed with your newfound knowledge and skills in the digital marketing, you should be set to land yourself a job in digital marketing. While you’re waiting for your job, keep practicing your skills and stay relevant online to keep yourself qualified for your new digital marketing job.
How are you Geniuses, this may really be worth reading.
According to a 2019 report, 57 million Americans work as freelancers. It’s a lifestyle that comes with lots of flexibility and, with a median hourly wage of $28, the potential to outearn 70% of non-freelancers.
However, being consistently productive outside a traditional 9-to-5 office setting doesn’t happen automatically. You must learn how to manage your time effectively.
After all, as your own boss, you work on multiple projects and deal with several clients at once. In addition, you’re also continually hustling to find and secure more work.
It’s easy to see that, if you can’t make efficient use of your time, you’ll be unable to maximize your professional output and, as a result, your earning power will be limited. For any freelance struggling with time management, here are seven tips for making the most of your workday.
1. Build Detailed To-Do Lists
Arguably the most valuable tool for managing your time as a freelancer is creating to-do lists. Some best practices for creating these lists include:
Include specific project notes and technical requirements from different clients.
If your list is all-digital, link to in-progress documents.
Use color-coding to help visually organize your work.
To-do lists are polarizing in and of themselves. Some studies claim that these lists can be a graveyard for non-urgent tasks. But, with time being such a finite resource for so many freelancers, it’s almost never a good idea to “wing it.”
The reality is that your to-do list setup only has to work for one person: you. Whether you use apps like Evernote or Google Keep, or simply jot information down by hand, knowing exactly what you need to work on is an indispensable part of strong time management for freelancers.
Just make sure there’s enough information in your to-do list, not just titles or jumbles of words. Everything, including important links or comments from clients, needs to be at your fingertips.
2. Create a Realistic Schedule (and Stick to It)
Once you’ve got a to-do list up and running, the next logical step is to break your day or week up into time blocks by creating a schedule.
How long those individual time blocks are, and how many you fit into a single day, will vary depending on your preferences. The key is understanding how much you can realistically get done in a given amount of time.
Some time constraints are scientifically unavoidable. The general rule of thumb is that the human mind can only focus on any given task for 90 to 120 minutes at a time.
With that in mind, listen to your body’s natural rhythms and maximize what you can do in those shorter spurts. Once you find that sweet spot, stick to it by establishing a routine.
Don’t forget—you’ll also need to make time to hunt down new projects and clients, creative brainstorming, marketing, networking, and much more.
3. Find an Optimal Work Environment
Now that you’ve got the “what” and the “when” figured out, it’s time to tackle the “where.”
Your work environment, just like your to-do list and schedule, should cater to your strengths as a freelancer. Some professionals need absolute silence to do their best work. Others prefer working to the hum of a crowd in a cafe or communal workspace.
That said, some universal environmental elements, regardless of the location, must help your productivity rather than hinder it. Here are some important ones to keep in mind:
Make sure your chair is comfortable. These days, most freelance work involves sitting in front of a computer or mobile device for several hours a day. Back pain, leg numbness, or any other physical discomfort can be distracting and needless to say, impede your productivity.
Invest in a good pair of headphones. If you prefer working in public places, noise-canceling headphones are a must. They give you the ability to filter out most ambient noise if you need to.
Find good lighting. Working in a room that lacks natural daylight can be fatiguing, as can working next to the wrong kind of desk lamp. This may also mean investing in a computer monitor with a decent color spectrum and viewing angle.
4. Go Offline to Minimize Distractions
Even the most self-disciplined freelancer can be jarred by a sudden notification or buzz from their phone. And if they occur frequently enough, these distractions may drain several productive hours from your day.
One solution: going offline during your work hours.
Of course, setting aside time during your day to manage your various inboxes is important. But, when it’s time to settle in and knock items off your to-do list, avoiding notification pop-ups or incoming message alerts is paramount.
If you can’t help but peek at your emails or scrolling through social media, try one of these apps:
Freedom is the best-known option, although the features in its free version are limited.
Hocus Focus is a great free tool for Mac users that only lets you view one window at a time.
Other effective free alternatives to Freedom include FocusMe and SelfControl.
Let’s face it—any device connected to the internet hosts dozens of websites and applications that compete for your attention. Nip that timesuck in the bud and go offline when you work.
If you don’t, managing your time around all of those distractions will be nothing short of impossible.
5. Break Larger Projects Down into Smaller Tasks
Another crucial time management challenge for freelancers is mastering the art of breaking up larger projects into smaller tasks.
This practice, also called “chunking,” adds another layer of time management depth to your existing to-do list and schedule. Trying to tackle a project that’s too big or time-consuming as a whole can diminish your focus and drive.
A common misconception about freelancers is that they’re multitaskers. But multitasking implies simultaneous work, often with mediocre or average results. Productive freelancers who are efficient with their time don’t try and work on everything all at once. It’s not feasible.
Instead, here are some ways you can break your projects down into manageable pieces:
Create a work plan. A work plan breaks a big project into smaller objectives and deliverables, helping keep you on track when something requires more attention to detail.
Devote all your attention to one task at a time. Sometimes, solving your productivity issues is really that simple. By focusing on a singular task, you have far more control over the speed and accuracy of your work.
Avoid switching tasks often. If you fall into the trap of “task hopping,” you’re really just multitasking in a fragmented fashion. Once you begin a task, try and complete it before starting another one—or, in some cases, at least finish a rough draft.
Work with self-imposed deadlines. You’ve married your to-do list with a schedule for a reason: you have client-imposed deadlines. Within those timeframes, use self-imposed micro-deadlines to keep the clock ticking and your attention on point.
Once your projects become collections of bite-sized tasks, you’ll be amazing at how much you can get done in a day or week.
6. Take Enough Breaks
One of the downsides of working your own hours is that, unlike a standard 9-to-5 job, there are no built-in breaks. Instead, it’s on you to remember to take them every day.
When you get into a good rhythm, the idea of breaking away from your work can feel counterintuitive. However, stepping away from your task actually helps you consistently perform at a higher level.
Leave workaholic tendencies at the door and ensure that you pencil enough breaks into your time management strategy.
7. Avoid taking on more work than you can handle
Let’s end this post off with the most uncomfortable of these time management tips for freelancers: saying no.
By its very nature, freelancing involves dealing with the ebb and flow of available work. Sometimes saying no to a project or client is scary because you don’t know when that next call or email will come your way.
Despite this, in ideal circumstances, you owe it to yourself to say no. To bad projects that won’t pay you what you’re worth. To bad clients who don’t value your time or skills. To anything that won’t be worth your time.
This also encompasses projects that don’t align with your goals as a professional. Every piece of freelance work you produce should eventually become part of a portfolio that helps you get the next job. In that sense, projects need to help you advance your career, not just get paid.
For those who have a difficult time saying no to new projects, consider making a decision tree. This visual can help guide you in the decision-making process for each new opportunity that arises. For instance, you might want to ask yourself:
Do you have time to take on additional work?
Does this project align with your skills and/or interests?
Will it benefit your portfolio?
Does the project offer fair compensation?
Don’t just jump at every paying customer who waltzes into your inbox. Otherwise, your to-do list and calendar will be clogged with work you don’t care about. That, above all else, is a huge waste of your time as a freelancer.
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Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.