Time Management And Efficiency – The Key To A Successful Freelancing Career

Time management is one of those topics many people looking to go into freelancing fail to address and think about when making that ever so crucial decision on whether to go into freelancing or not; yet the topic itself is of utmost importance. The freelancing work style has no boundaries, no set times, no periods, no start times and no end times. There is no set structure. You may think to yourself that that’s a pretty easy problem to solve: just create your own structure if need be, but let me tell you know, sticking to that structure will be ever so difficult.

The Problem

Most of us do not have unbelieveably high self-discipline, after all we’re not Shoalin monks, are we (at least I don’t think we are)? This is where the problem actually creeps in. Yes, it’s easy enough to design your own freelance work ethic, but sticking to it is a pretty hard task. We all like to go off and get involved in sometimes meaningless tasks, and procrastinate to our heart’s content. We put work off as long as possible, and even push past deadlines (and sometimes multiple deadlines). So, how to do we go about fixing this?

The Design

Well, first off, it’s always good to set out a proper design to how you’re going to work as a freelancer as to make it as easy as possible for you to be productive and as efficient as possible. A lot of us have time brackets whereby we are most efficient during the 24 hours in a day. Establish when you’re at your optimum working rate, whether that’s early in the day, in the afternoon, or late evening. Plan the majority of your work to completed within this time bracket so that the important parts or the bulk of your work is done with little chance of error and as timely as possible.

It’s always good to create set times for set projects, so a timetable shouldn’t be ruled out (yes, it’s starting to turn out like the good old days of schooling). Timetables are extremely effective methods of plan if you know you can stick to one. If you’re like me and only take on a very small number of freelance projects at a time (1-2), then you shouldn’t really need to timetable; just have an idea of when you’re going to sit down and complete the project(s) at hand.

Execution

The final, and arguably the most important part of the entire process is the execution of your plan. There are multiple steps you can take in order to execute your work plans well, some are:

• Have all project briefs and information in a manageable state, preferrably on paper in front of you (not digitally).
• Create a mindmap, and follow that through during the entire work process
• If working on a computer (which you most likely will be), make sure all other programs/applications are closed that are not needed; they serve as potential distractions. This is why personally I try to keep my project briefs in paper when working on a project so that there aren’t any reasons to swap windows and get distracted or use up processing resources in the process (for example, Photoshop is an extreme resource-hogger)
• Ensure all tools are available in front of you. This will ensure you don’t need to be getting out of your seat to be picking up equipment/documents and therefore waste time.
• Focus and concentration on the project at hand is a necessity. To help you focus on the task at hand, think of what needs to be achieved through the project you’ve been assigned. Maybe you need to create an ecommerce website; if so, what’s the overall aim of the ecommerce website? In what way should it be designed? Can you recommend any improvements on the design? Thinking about such issues will surely get you focused on the project at hand.

And finally, make sure you take breaks. Do a good amount of work first, then take a break. Make sure the break is both enjoyable and refreshing so that you’re ready for more work as soon as you’re done.

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