When you thought about starting a career as a freelance writer, you no doubt have wonderful visions of spending quiet, stress-free days writing at the computer in a quiet house or perhaps in a neighborhood coffee shop. Your first few weeks or months as a freelance writer may have even been as easy-going as you had imaged. Yet after awhile, you no doubt found that your services are highly sought after, and now you find it your days busy with work as well as your personal commitments and obligations, too. Of course, when you work from home, it can be hard to really 鍍urn offfor the day when you have work that needs to be done.
The answer for some freelance writers is to simply cut back and not take on so much work. For others, however, it can difficult to turn down work, and so you may be wondering if there is a way to work smarter so you can get more work done each day. Here are some tips that may help you out:
Understand Your Own Work Preferences. Some freelance writers have the desire follow a regular, 9-to-5 work schedule. Perhaps this is to ensure they work a full-time work week, or perhaps it is to conform to their spouse’s own work hours. However, freelance writing is truly one of those jobs where you have to be in the right mental zone if you want to be as focused as possible. Having focus, mental clarity, and all of those creative juices flowing can really help you to turn out quality work quickly. For some freelance writers, this zone occurs early in the morning before the stresses of the day can distract them. For others, it occurs in the evening after they have tackled all of their other responsibilities. Others work better in shifts, working a few hours and then taking a few hours off for a mind break of sorts. Understanding your own work preferences can help you to work more efficiently.
Work In a Bubble. Every freelance writer has had those highly non-productive days where you just cannot seem to get any work done. These are days when the phone just keeps ringing, emails keep popping up on your screen, and you keep getting text messages, too. These also seem to be the days when the dog is nagging you to go out on a walk, the kids are arguing all day, and the neighbors pop by unannounced. Such days can really cut down on your efficiency. While you cannot necessarily keep some of these distractions from bothering you, you can take a few measures to limit them. First, turn your phone off if possible while working. Lock yourself away from the distracting sounds in your home, and turn the email announcement on your computer off, too. If neighbors are particularly distracting, you can consider parking in the garage so they cannot tell you’re home. There are several different steps you can take to really create a quiet bubble that you can work in.
Choose Assignments Wisely. You certainly have noticed by now that some assignments and projects you can work on require a great deal of research and effort, but offer little extra in the way of compensation for you than projects that are far faster for you to complete. In the freelance writing world, you absolutely have to pay attention to which assignments and projects are more worth your time and effort than others. If you’re not sure, keep tabs on how much money you earn per hour on your various projects over the next few days. Then, take steps to cut out some of those projects that really have you spinning your wheels. Replace those with assignments that are more worth your time financially. This way, you can choose to either work less and make about the same amount of money or work the same and make more money.
You can see that there are quite a few things you can do to help make your workday as a freelance writer more productive. Put these tips into action today, and soon you will start to see an improvement in your workday.
