14 Time Management Tips To Make You A More Productive Freelancer

If you want to work as a freelancer, you need to be as productive as possible. Time management is not a skill you need. It is a necessity. Fortunately, you can develop time management since there are numerous strategies and tactics that will help you out.

Your productivity will surely be improved if you just try to do as much as possible from what is highlighted below. Just remember to take it slow. Gaining time management skills does not happen overnight. You will most likely struggle with some things but if you stick to it, everything will be as you want it to.

So let’s get to it.

Use To-Do Lists

To-do lists are very practical. They are great for freelancers because they help in organizing work for a specific time frame, like a week or a day.

Practically, you create a list with all that you have to do for the day or for the week. Some even create to-do lists for an entire month.

The problem is that to-do lists can quickly become really complicated. They might make the entire workload seem too much, overwhelming. The secret is to break down the list into the most practical steps. Then, you plan out goals for the month, week, or day. It is the goals that will keep you on track.

Further Reading: 15 Tips To Make An Effective To-Do List

Take Breaks

You cannot be productive when your pace is always set at full speed. You have to take breaks. In fact, you usually need plenty of breaks.

Keep in mind the regular office work environment. You naturally get up from time to time. You go to the bathroom, attend meetings, talk with your co-workers, eat, drink, and so on. When you are at home, many of these tend to be neglected. Because of the fact that you are alone, it is so simple to simply forget that you should take a break.

The best thing you can do is to take a break. To make sure that you actually do, put that into your daily schedule. Breaks help so much more than you might initially think when it comes to increasing productivity. Use them to stretch and to have a mental reset.

Use A Calendar

Having visual aids is very helpful when doing any type of work. The calendar can help you to break down the entire work day into manageable chunks. Time can be arranged into segments. This lets you know what task you work on or should be working on. You always know what you have to do next and even when a break is coming.

An often unmentioned advantage of using the calendar is that you can figure out when you go over the time allotted for a task. This gives you information you cannot really gain with other tools. It will tell you there is a problem with how much time you allotted for a task. So, you can then figure out if you need more time for such a task in the future or even that there is something wrong with you, like not being able to concentrate (it happens).

Prioritize Your Work

You will have several things to do throughout the day. Not all of them are important in the sense that they can be handled at a later time.

A key time management skill that many fail with is to make sure all tasks are properly organized. This practically means that you want to do the most important tasks first. If you do not, you will end up scrambling when it comes to meeting deadlines or finishing very big projects.

As an example, I would love to write a lot for this blog, create videos for my YouTube, and stream more. But, because of time complications, these became tasks that are rarely even handled. There is simply other work that brings in more money. I need to prioritize that.

Further Reading: 7 Steps For Prioritizing Your Workload

Stop Multitasking

For a number of years, we saw people in practically all industries promote multitasking. Unfortunately, this is not something you want to do if you work as a freelancer. It was proven that multitasking does not work.

Long story short, when you multitask, you end up missing things. Also, you do end up spending more time on tasks than you would have if you were to take them one step at a time. You can focus so much more on one task and properly use your energy to complete it.

Our brain tricks us into thinking that we get more done when we multitask. Do not be tricked by it! Just stop multitasking.

Eliminate All Distractions

When you are at home, working as a freelancer, it is so easy to be distracted. You end up browsing social media on your phone or maybe respond to some messages your friends sent. Whenever you do something else, it will take some time to become focused on work again. This is how people lose a lot of time as freelancers.

The best thing you can do is put the phone in its airplane mode. You can even turn it off if it is too distracting. Also, you want to remove all potential distractions you might have, like chores or the TV set. I personally even put Discord in “Do Not Disturb” mode and close all messaging apps as I work.

Obviously, if you are afraid something urgent might come up, you can leave your phone on. Just disable all automated notifications and make sure the phone is physically out of reach.

Track Work Time

This is particularly useful when you do not have enough freelancing work experience.

Tracking time does not just mean you want to track how much time you spent on your work. It also comes in as a very useful aid when it comes to improving time management skills.

Track the time so that you can identify patterns in your work. You can quickly see how much time you need to complete a specific task. This in turn helps you to accurately organize the calendar. Your workload is much easier to visualize and, in the future, you can charge realistic hours for every single project you are hired to do.

Reward Yourself

With regular office work, there are rewards constantly coming in. Usually, people do not even realize this is happening. For instance, you might receive compliments, get free pizza, or bonuses. Working at home as a freelancer removes all that. So, it is your job to reward yourself for the good job you are doing.

Whenever you accomplish a big goal, give yourself some sort of reward, something that motivates you or that you really like. For instance, you can get some food you really love or go to a park you absolutely love.

Constantly Monitor The Workload

There are several moments when workloads become overwhelming. This is when it becomes very difficult to be productive and remain focused. Overworking does bring in substantial amounts of stress that negatively impact your ability to get the work done.

Monitor the workload at all times. This lets you quickly know when you took too much time on something.

It is practically impossible to do high-quality work when you have too much to do and deadlines are close. You need to learn how to say no and not pick up extra work. This is impossible to do if you do not monitor your workload since you do not even realize that you made a mistake.

Build Your Unique Dedicated Workspace

When you go to an office, you know where you work. When you are at home, you can so easily get distracted if you do not have a dedicated workspace. There are so many freelancers that just open their laptop, put it on their lap as they sit on a couch, and do some work. This is a very bad approach that actually makes you lose a lot of time. Working in your bedroom or in really tight space is a bad idea.

Obviously, there are situations in which you simply do not have enough space to create a dedicated workspace. If this is you, at least try to have as much space available, filled only with what you need to get the job done. When you do have space, create a good work area, one that is customized based on your habits.

Create A Schedule And Stick To It

You cannot stay focused without a clear schedule. During traditional work, there are clear hours when you work and clear hours when you do not. You should have that at home too. When you are a freelancer, it is common to have days off and work varying hours from day to day. This creates a very hectic work schedule that completely destroys productivity.

Further Reading: Create A Schedule You Can Stick To

Automate Repetitive Tasks And Create Templates

If you take a look at all the things you do during a day, you quickly notice there are several tasks that repeat themselves. These do add up and you actually lose a lot of time because of them.

The best example I can give you is writing an email. Writing the same message every time you send a proposition takes a lot of time. You can easily create a template for that email and use it in the future. Usually, you just need to add a couple of copy pastes and the template is usable multiple times.

Another example would be responding to a specific email address where you only get questions about a specific topic. Setting up an automated response can easily help you gain a lot of time and use that time on tasks that are more important.

Some great tools to use can be found here: Top 19 Tools Freelancers Need To Automate Everything

Do The Less Appealing Tasks First

We all have some tasks that we simply hate doing. For me, it is responding to emails from a specific group of people. The problem is, when you do your least favorite tasks at a later point of the day, you lose time. Also, until you get to do that task, you think about it. This quickly makes you lose time.

Start your day with the least appealing tasks on your to-do list. This will leave you with more energy since you will just not dread the other tasks of the day.

Take Care Of Yourself

The last thing I want to highlight is that it is very important that you take care of your health. You cannot be productive when you are not healthy. This includes mental, emotional, and physical health. It just not means you have to work out and go to the gym or eat right.

As a freelancer, it is very easy to forget to have fun and to eat. You want to eat as healthy as you can, your meals should be as nutritious as possible, you need to drink as much water as the body requires, get sleep, and have an enjoyable social life. Many freelancers even need to go to a therapist. There is no shame in that and you should do it.

Remember that you cannot be productive as you work if your overall health is poor. Also, it can get poor even if it is now perfect without ongoing care.

Final Thoughts

Most people think working from home is glamorous and easy. This is not true. In fact, in so many situations, you are faced with a lot more stress than the regular 9 to 5 job.

All the tips above will help you to make the most of your time but there are obviously several other things that you can do. At the end of the day, what is important is to be honest with yourself and critically analyze your day-to-day activities. You will quickly find things you can improve if you are just honest with yourself!

Originally published at https://adriancruce.com on August 27, 2024.