One of the biggest complaints many people working in salaried jobs have is that they can worker harder, smarter, or longer than their counterparts and will still get the same amount of money at the end of the day. As a freelance writer, however, your income is based in large part on how hard, smart, and long you work, which is a true benefit to those individuals who really put in an honest day’s work and give their projects their all. Of course, while you certainly want to keep your nose to the grindstone and earn as much as possible, there is also something to be said for enjoying life and working smarter rather than longer hours. So how can freelance writers like you make more money in less time?

Organize Your Day. Many successful freelance writers will spend some time at the end of each day creating a “to do” list for the next day, and most will often even update a weekly or bi-weekly work schedule as well. This can certainly help you to ensure you are working towards meeting all of your deadlines in a timely fashion, but it also can help you in another way. Most freelance writers have a special point during the day when they really hit their stride. The words just flow right out of their fingertips, the house is absolutely quiet, and they can get more down in this time period than during any other time of the day. For some, this is the early morning hours, while for others it may be mid day or even later in the evening. Whatever your special time is, you will want to organize your day so your more difficult or mentally challenging work is done during this time.

Create a Zone. Freelance writers work best when they are in their zone, so to speak. It doesn’t matter what type of writing projects you work on, which topics or cover, or anything else, because at some point you have the perfect blend of elements that come together and really allow you to focus. Most freelance writers experience this zone naturally at some point during the day, but to be truly efficient, you want to do what you can to create that same work environment for yourself during other periods of time throughout the day, too. This may mean sending the kids outdoors to play, turning off the ringer on your phone, or finding a secluded area of the house where you won’t be disturbed. If you have been freelance writing for even a few weeks, you know what elements you need to concentrate and focus fully, so create your own zone rather than waiting around for it.

Your Real Pay Rate. As a freelance writer, you likely are not getting paid for your efforts on an hourly basis, and so it can be difficult to determine what your pay rate for a certain assignment really is. You may provide twenty articles or blogs per week for a client for $X, but some articles take longer to write than others. So while you may think you are making, say $15 per article, you also want to look at how long it takes you to write those articles. You can most easily do this may watching the clock and tracking how much you earn by working for a specific client on a specific project over the course of several hours. You may be surprised to learn that some clients’ projects are paying you twice as much as others! To boost your income, you want to clean house of those lower paying assignments and fill your day with higher paying gigs.

While you likely love to write if you have chosen freelance writing as your career path, you certainly don’t want to spend every minute of every day writing to pay the bills. Follow some of these tips, and you will find that you can earn more money in less time and have some extra free time to boot.