Being a freelancer is pretty hard, regardless of popular belief. It requires lots of dedication and self-discipline. And while the most prominent feature of this job is the need to organize the working schedule by yourself, some people often fail to do that successfully.
Nevertheless, freelancing has lots of benefits:
- Flexible schedule – this is one of the most popular reasons why people choose freelancing over an average office job. The opportunity to freely choose the working time is often crucial to some people. Still, it is pretty important to dedicate at least 7 hours of your day to the job in order to avoid stress from deadlines
- Ability to work from home – let’s be honest here, who wouldn’t dream of doing your job wearing pajamas? You can forget about tight office suits forever if you choose to become a freelancer.
- Choosing the most interesting projects – you will never have to worry about doing boring tasks ever again. A freelance job will give you the chance to choose only those kinds of tasks that seem the most thrilling to you. This way you will always do what you love.
But even with all those perks freelance is very challenging. And one of the hardest parts of it is dealing with one’s procrastination. Very often freelancers tend to think that they have all the time on their hands while taking in a new project. And usually, that results in them being stressed out by trying to complete all the tasks hours before the deadline. Procrastination does not only make one nervous but usually causes a feeling of shame and letting everyone down. No one wants to feel that way, so for those freelancers who have this kind of problem – here are 10 tips on how to deal with procrastination and manage your time efficiently.
1. Set your priorities straight
Rank your projects regarding to their importance and dedicate all your attention to the most important ones. Nervously jumping from one task to another won’t do you any good and will only waste your time.
2. Break projects into small tasks
Usually, it is pretty hard to decide where to begin with the new project, especially with a big one. So it would only benefit you to break it into small tasks that you could complete one after another. This would really boost your productivity as after completing every task you would feel much more proud of yourself – therefore the work would get done faster and with a positive attitude.
3. Reward yourself
Everyone needs to be treated for their work, why would your case be any different? Treat yourself after every milestone you make and you will see, that you will get a more positive attitude towards your job. See a movie, make yourself a cup of hot chocolate – anything, that makes you feel good about yourself.
4. Make a daily schedule
Having a strict day schedule is very important. But when it comes down to someone, who works in the freelance field – it is crucial. Without having your boss constantly checking up on your work you might feel like you have lots of time. Which you don’t. So it must be your no.1 priority to think of your schedule first thing in the morning.
5. Take your time to rest
Relaxing is just as important as working hard. Don’t put too much on your shoulders, it won’t benefit you in any way. You will only get tired faster and your body won’t function well. So actually by taking time-offs from your job, you will only get it done faster. And in much healthier way.
6. Set a limit for yourself
The thrilling thing about freelancing is that you can earn pretty much as you want. The more you work – the more you get paid. But you will only make things worse for yourself by taking in way too many projects. There is a big chance to boost your procrastination even more by doing that. You will most likely not know where to start and therefore will delay everything for the last day before the deadline. So set yourself a limit for how many projects you can complete during, let’s say, one week.
7. Get inspired
One of the greatest ways to beat procrastination is to find yourself a goal for all that work that you are doing. If the reason is thrilling enough you will be much more productive and won’t leave everything for the last moment.
8. Create a comfortable working space
You probably won’t be trying to avoid your job if your working place makes you feel comfortable and cozy. So take some time to decorate it – you will see how much it will bring into your productivity level. As the CEO of The Word Point says – “Your productivity is 50% hard work, 20% knowledge and 30% pure inspiration”.
9. Stay away from social media
It is understandable that work might be boring sometimes. But bygetting distracted from it you will most likely lose the sense of what you were doing and getting back “into it” will require additional time. So separate work from “play” just to get it done more quickly. Don’t feed your procrastination.
10. Ask for help
Sometimes people just can’t deal with procrastination on their own. In this case, it would be the only possible choice to book some time with a specialist. Don’t feel ashamed of it, sometimes we all need help and there is nothing wrong in asking for it. A quality therapy session just might “get you back on track” much quicker and your job will only benefit from that.
Conclusion
So these are the 10 tips for freelancers on how to deal with procrastination and boost their productivity. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced freelancer – those might be of great help for you. Of course, people are all different, but if you follow all the instructions, there is a great chance you will beat your procrastination in no time.
Erica Sunarjo graduated from South Texas College majoring in Marketing and Creative Writing. She used her knowledge to make a difference in the realm of business copywriting and invested heavily in traveling and language learning. At present, Erica is fluent in French and Spanish, studying Chinese and working her way to being a multilingual copywriter. She keeps track of the latest trends in IT and technologies, blogs about efficient strategies in education and business coaching holds educational webinars.
