As sweet as the freedom is, starting a freelance job is usually overwhelming. All of a sudden, you have to deal with all the management stuff that was off your shoulders when you were in the office. And time flies by so quickly that you barely understand what you’ve managed to do.
So here’s what you should be prepared for on the other side of your paradise life as a free independent craftsman of the modern epoch.
Time Management Problems of Freelancers
🤯 Hectic work schedule
When you don’t have a routine schedule, too many factors come in. You procrastinate, get urgent projects out of the blue, mix your family time with work, and never can predict in the morning what you’ll have to do today and what hour you’ll go to sleep.
🔔 Distractions
Checking mail or social media newsfeed only takes a couple of minutes at a time, but at the end of the day, you’ll be surprised how far it sets you back. Your partner, kids, or friends knowing about your flexible schedule may also distract you with some errands. Remember that every time you will need extra time to switch back to the work context.
⌚ Inaccurate task estimations
Even when freelancers have the privilege to set their own deadlines, they usually take into account the rough time they need to complete the task (in the best case leaving some extra time for the force-majeure). However, they often forget about all the management work they will have to do, including prioritization, billing, and client communication (for parallel projects as well) which take significant time. This can put deadlines in danger and add some stress.
🏋️ Unbalanced workload
Often you can be showered with projects at one time and kick heels at the other. Fearing such instability, many freelancers end up taking every project they receive. But usually, that will be acting on impulse and will only put you under more stress over the deadlines.
💲 False estimation of an hourly rate
Your real hourly rate includes much more beyond the project work: task management, communications with clients, searching for new clients, maintaining your competitive performance by upgrading your skills, increasing your web presence, and participating in industry contests. Unless you know how much time exactly you spend on each of these activities, what you get per hour is less than you think.
Time Management Tips & Tricks for Freelancers
This list of problems doesn’t mean to stop you from taking on a challenge. A well-defined problem is halfway to being solved. If you relate to any of the problems above, here are 8 starting steps that will help you better manage your time and reduce your level of stress.
🧑💻 Organize a comfortable workplace
The definition of a comfortable workplace is a place with as few distractions as possible. Psychologically it’s easier to focus when you have a special work corner in your apartment. Avoid working in the kitchen or in the bedroom, where you’ll be distracted by smells, sounds, and other people coming by. If it’s hard to create a quiet individual work corner at your place, try going to co-working. Being surrounded by working people is motivating.
Needless to say, your workplace should have good light, fresh air, and a comfortable chair.
📅 Set up your daily routine
Following a schedule is good in many ways. It helps you separate your personal time from your work. It saves you energy on planning every day anew. It reduces your stress level even if your work situation is unstable.
Plan your work periods for the time of the day when you’re the most productive and when you won’t be distracted by your family duties. Maybe you prefer to split it into two blocks but make sure each block is no less than 3-4 hours. Otherwise, you’ll spend too much time getting into the work context. Also, plan all your large breaks, such as dinner. And then, follow this schedule with no excuses. Simple.
❗ Prioritize and plan your workload
You need to start every working day with a clear and actionable to-do list. To prepare such a list, you have to prioritize your projects according to their importance and deadlines and break large goals into tasks that take less than a day. Don’t forget to plan your strategic activities, such as searching for new clients, updating your website, and applying for industry contests. It’s better to put such tasks first, so you don’t have a temptation to put them off till tomorrow.
To manage your priorities effectively, consider time tracking software. For example, in actiTIME, you can create any number of priority statuses using the custom fields feature. Create a parameter with any number of custom values (e.g., Priority: High – Medium – Low), assign values to tasks, and manage your tasks and data with more ease.
Example of the Product – Sprint – Feature work structure in actiTIME, where every item in the Backlog is assigned a priority value
🕐 Track your work time
Get a simple time clock app and start tracking every activity that you do, including non-billable strategic, management, and communication work. Weekly and monthly time reports will give you real data on how your work time is distributed. This can give you important efficiency insights (especially regarding the tasks that you usually don’t count as “work”) and help you estimate your real hourly rate.
🔁 Work in short periods
It’s well known that humans can fully focus on work for quite a short period of time (studies vary from 25 to 52 minutes). So regularly mixing work sessions with short breaks will give you the best results (try the Pomodoro timer or any other technique with a similar approach). Learning to consciously switch your attention will help you to be less distracted both at work and during leisure periods.
📧 Dedicate special time for administrative work
After you track all your daily activities, it may turn out that it’s more efficient to collect all your weekly administrative work (scheduling meetings, billing clients, running reports, etc.) and dedicate for it a special weekday. If you do all small routine tasks at once, they won’t interrupt your creative process.
🤖 Automate and use templates
Optimize all repetitive processes as much as you can. For instance, you can create email templates for typical stages of communication, such as introducing yourself, describing your work experience, asking for project requirements, asking to leave a review on your website, etc.
Integration between the time tracking and billing software will help automatically generate invoices based on completed activities. If you use other professional tools, you may also look for a time tracking integration or an add-in, so the time you spend in GitHub or Illustrator is automatically logged in.
Automating the time tracking process is another great efficiency-boosting idea. And to help you successfully bring it into reality, we recommend you use Time Management Assistant – a smart browser extension for keeping a detailed record of your online activities and the exact time they consumed.
The extension can be used in combo with actiTIME or as a totally independent tool for personal productivity management. And in both cases, it helps to collect highly accurate time tracking data and get a deep insight into how you use your time online, which is truly handy if you intend to develop more productive work behaviors and improve your time management results.
And the best part: Time Management Assistant is available at your service at no cost at all! Download it today and check out this post to learn more about this awesome productivity tool and how to apply it to your greatest advantage.
🧠 Maximize the use of waiting periods
Depending on the nature of your work, your work cycles can be of different lengths. So it’s up to you to decide what’s the best way to use the time when you’re waiting for clients’ feedback. If you do short tasks that are quickly reviewed (like SEO or website layout), you probably can juggle multiple projects at once. If you take large projects that require longer approval (building a brand book or a mobile app from scratch), you can take several projects and add some extra time to the deadlines. Or, you can use this break for administrative or strategic work to expand your business.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the most effective solution to most freelancers’ work management problems lies in how effectively each individual can manage their own time while staying mindful of their personal boundaries and objectives.
Taking a proactive approach rather than simply reacting to everyday tasks can make all the difference when it comes to truly becoming an expert at handling freelance assignments efficiently. With consistent effort and a passion for mastering this skill set, any kind of freelancer can not only thrive but even reap additional benefits that come with the successful management of working hours.
Keep these tips in mind to help maximize your productivity – and don’t forget to say yes to free time too!
