Freelance writers are self-employed individuals who generally have the ability to manage their own work schedules. Some will choose to work for eight long hours each day all in one stretch while others will make this a part-time job where they work for just a few hours a day. Still others still work in shifts, working a few others in the morning and again in the afternoon or evening, taking long hours in between the shifts to tend to personal matters.
The fact is that how you organize and manage your work schedule does indeed play a large role in how successful you are. Most people do have some pressing commitments outside of freelance writing, and they may have kids or aging parents to tend to, they may be taking college classes, may hold down a second job, and more. Those who excel in freelance writing have found the best possible way to juggle their freelance writing commitments with the other commitments and responsibilities in their life. So how can you accomplish this in your life?
Scheduling Assignments. The fact is that you only have so much time to work on assignments each day and each week. It may help you to consider how much time your personal requirements will need from your day. Other people may find that it’s better to consider how much money they need to earn in a week to pay their bills. How you figure out how many hours you have available or need to work will depend on your unique circumstances. You will want to keep this in mind, however, as you plan out your work week. When you do take on assignments, consider the time you have available, and make every effort to fill up your work hours without over-committing yourself.
Tracking Due Dates. Most every assignment you work on will have a due date associated with it. For some, this may mean writing so many blog posts per day for clients. For others, it may mean the rough draft of a book you are ghost writing is due next month. Either way, you will want to track your due dates carefully so that you make daily progress towards meeting those goals. The last thing you want to do is fall behind in your work and be unable to meet your due dates. This could really hurt your ability to get more work from your clients!
A Forward-Thinking Approach. If you are the type of freelance writer who really wings it and doesn’t consider your work schedule for the day until you actually sit down that morning to get started, you may want to think again about this approach. The fact is that if you want to meet deadlines, you do have to ensure that you are making that slow progression towards completing the projects on-time. More than that, you also want to ensure that you don’t have hours and hours of free time in your work schedule when you are not working on anything at all. This does require the ability to look ahead at your schedule for at least a few days. If you see that you will have some free time in the next few days, you can make an effort to take on new work to fill those holes.
As you can see, how you schedule your day and plan your work week does indeed have a lot do with how successful you are as a freelance writer. Keep these tips in mind as you work on your scheduling in the future.
