Managing your time and productivity

When you step outside the usual 9-5, you no longer have the structure of a workplace, a manager, or colleagues to keep you on the straight and narrow. While that newfound flexibility can be exhilarating, you also need to set up frameworks that enable you to do your best work—and to make sure you get enough downtime.

Set clear boundaries around working hours, communication channels, delivery dates, and the scope of tasks you’re willing to take on. Once you’ve done that, communicate those boundaries to your clients and make sure to respect them yourself. Remember that whatever enables you to do good work will be better for your clients, too. The more clarity you can give to yourself and others, the better.

When you’re planning your routine, take your own natural rhythms into account. Maybe you prefer to work early in the morning or late at night, or maybe you need to go for a run before you can settle down to focus. Pay attention to what actually works for you and try to shake off the office hours mindset. You don’t have to clock in at 9am every morning if that doesn’t make sense for you.

Rituals can be really helpful for getting into the right mindset for whatever task is ahead of you. This could be as simple as taking a walk between tasks or setting aside 10 minutes to reflect on your day after you close your laptop.

Like any good relationship, open communication is essential to healthy freelancer-client interactions. You don’t need to constantly monitor your inbox—in fact, I’d advise against it—but replying promptly to client queries and making sure each party knows what to expect from the project is essential. Request clear, detailed project briefs and be realistic about what you can actually deliver and when. If you have any questions about requirements, ask. And if the project runs over a long period, schedule regular check-ins to make sure everything’s on track and everyone’s on the same page. Communicating regularly can remove a lot of anxiety on both sides and makes sure the work progresses smoothly.

Put down your phone. Seriously. We live in a deeply distractible age and there will always be more news to doomscroll or a friend’s latest voice message-podcast to listen to. Give your mind a chance to focus away from the whack-a-mole world of notifications.

Quarantine your phone in another room if you have to, switch your laptop to focus mode, and listen to music that helps your mind tune in to the task at hand. It can be useful to schedule certain hours of the day where you take care of emails, admin, meetings, or household tasks, so that they’re already part of your plan and don’t distract you when you need to get work done.

It can take a little trial and error to find your way to good time management. Don’t be disheartened if you find yourself getting overwhelmed. This happens to everyone and is just a signal that you need to change something. So pay attention to the times when you feel frazzled as there’s probably a good lesson somewhere in there.

If you need some outside help, there are many time management techniques that you can try. Here are a few:

• Pomodoro technique
• Eat that frog
• Kanban method
• Getting Things Done
• Timeboxing
• Inbox Zero

Remember: people love to evangelise about what works for them, but that doesn’t always mean it’ll work for you. Always listen to your own experience.

Time tracking can be a really useful way to figure out how to plan your work. At the beginning, try to be extremely honest with yourself and use your tracked time to reflect on when you worked best, when you didn’t, and how long it took you to complete tasks. You’ll likely discover some patterns that will offer interesting insights into your working behaviours. You can then apply this knowledge to optimise your schedule.

None of us clock perfect 8-hour days all the time, so when you’re planning your hours, try to give yourself as much wiggle room as you can. Overestimate how long tasks will take and accept that there will be pitfalls, procrastination, unforeseen tasks, admin hours, and illness.

Be realistic about what you can achieve and don’t schedule everything down to the minute. Life happens so allow yourself the flexibility to respond when it does. And take your evenings, weekends, and holidays. Nobody will thank you for working overtime.

Freelancing can be a little ‘feast or famine’, so it can be tempting to take on more work than you can manage. However, you’ll only build a great freelance career if you’re intentional about the projects you take on. If you overwhelm yourself, you won’t be able to do your best work.

So take time to really consider each project and say no if it doesn’t fit. Trust your intuition and follow the work that excites you. We all have to take on projects just to pay the bills sometimes, but if that’s all you’re doing, then you may wind up disappointed with freelance life. Take your desires and your ambitions seriously.

One of the perks of freelancing is that it’s all about you. You decide how much to work and when. You decide which projects you take on. You decide how much to charge. You also have to decide when to stop working. Taking real time off is essential to being a responsible freelancer. You’re no good to yourself or anyone else if you burn yourself out. So take your evenings, weekends, and holidays, and congratulate yourself on a job well done. You deserve it. Need more guidance on how to manage your freelance career? Check out the rest of our content now.