Managing Your Time

In addition to developing a proper workflow, 0:00 one of the essential skill sets for a freelancer to develop is good time management. 0:03 Let's take a step back from some of the more technical stuff we've been talking about—proposals and all—and let's talk about time. 0:08 There are 2 separate areas of time management that are important as a freelancer. 0:15 First, you have to manage your time efficiently when it comes to working on your projects. 0:20 Then, there's time spent on non-project-related activities. 0:25 Projects bring in direct revenue, and most freelancers don't have any problem dedicating time toward these tasks. 0:29 It's the non-project-related activities that get neglected. 0:36 While they don't bring in short-term revenue, 0:39 they contribute to your long-term success and need to be considered on a recurring basis. 0:41 The danger, when you work on your own and work at home, 0:47 is that it becomes hard to compartmentalize time. 0:50 Certain people tend to work all the time, which is unhealthy, 0:54 and others tend to get distracted easily. 0:57 Setting aside time strictly for work and knowing how to say, "I'm done for the day" 1:00 will make you more efficient in getting your tasks done and you won't burn out so quickly. 1:04 But how do you get better at time management? 1:10 There are so many approaches that you can follow and plenty of books have been written on them. 1:13 We're going to look at some of the ways you can get a start on how to handle your time. 1:17 Start by being goal-oriented. 1:22 If you start your day without a specific objective in mind, 1:24 then you're going to just work on tasks as you remember them. 1:28 This won't help at all when it comes to delivering the final project on time 1:31 and making sure things fall into place when you need them to. 1:35 The best way to tackle this is to start a project with high-level goals. 1:39 If you created a timeline like we did earlier, then you have milestones that you need to hit at the end of each week. 1:43 Take a weekly milestone and break it down into specific daily goals. 1:50 Now, you don't have to do this for the entire project at once. 1:54 At the end of each week, set your daily goals for the following week only. 1:57 That way, if things change and you need to accommodate, you are flexible enough to adapt your goals. 2:02 Having a goal that you are working toward will make it much easier to stay focused until that specific goal has been accomplished. 2:07 Once you have set goals, you can become even more efficient by setting deadlines on these goals. 2:14 If you followed our plan and started at a higher level, 2:20 you probably already have these deadlines in place. 2:23 Now, that's great. Set deadlines on your daily and weekly goals as well, and you will get things done much faster. 2:26 The key is to have a good balance between flexibility and efficiency. 2:32 One of the reasons you probably branched out into freelancing is because you wanted your own flexibility. 2:37 Don't shy away from this—the deadline is there as a reminder 2:42 that if you want to deliver the project on a certain date, 2:45 these are the dates and times you need to hit to get your work done and keep your client happy. 2:48 If you miss a deadline, don't work late into the night or work on the weekends. 2:54 This gets us to our next point: Have a set ending time. 2:58 Don't be tempted to work longer than you want to. 3:03 You may think that working late into the night and delivering the project faster will get you bonus points, 3:05 but there are 2 reasons why this won't work—actually, there are plenty of reasons, but we'll just go over 2 points 3:11 First is the law of diminishing returns. Now, this is a concept borrowed from economics. 3:17 To explain it very simply, the longer you work, the lower the quality of your work. 3:22 Your brain will get tired and you won't be producing your best results if you work 15 to 18-hour days. 3:27 The client may be ecstatic that you delivered earlier than expected, 3:33 and that's great, but the next time, they will expect the same results. 3:37 If you work normal hours and take a few days or weeks extra, 3:41 they're going to be unhappy that you're working slower, based on their past experiences with you. 3:45 So avoid all these situations. 3:50 If you're being goal-oriented and producing quality work, but consistently missing deadlines, 3:53 that doesn't mean you should be working longer or faster. 3:58 It probably means that you didn't set realistic deadlines to begin with. 4:01 Take notes about how long it takes you to finish tasks 4:05 and use what you learn to set more realistic expectations, 4:09 both with yourself and when communicating with the client. 4:11 Finally, understand your time. We're not great at every single thing, and that's fine. 4:16 Working to become more efficient with our time management means not only utilizing our time better, 4:21 but also understanding where we waste time. 4:27 Certain activities take us much longer to complete 4:30 and we can compensate by allocating more time to those activities 4:33 or educating ourselves on that activity to become more efficient at it. 4:36 Roughly track your time on each activity to get an idea where you can improve. 4:41 Be as granular as you want to be. 4:45 Now, I'm not asking you to punch in and out of work, 4:48 but if that's the kind of day that you want, go for it. 4:50 As you get better at managing your time and understanding your workflow, 4:53 you will start to learn how to group tasks to be more efficient, 4:57 and form good habits as a result. 5:00 Another tip to keep you focused is to take breaks often—as paradoxical as that sounds. 5:03 Now, I prefer the Pomodoro Technique and it works great for me, but it may not be the best for you. 5:08 Understand when you're starting to get stressed or mentally fatigued 5:13 and take a break to get you back on track. 5:17 If you want to know more about the Pomodoro Technique, 5:20 check out the Quick Tip I made in the link provided below. 5:22 Incorporating what we have learned about project workflow and time management, 5:26 we should be able to get a good grasp on how to work on projects. 5:30 But that still leaves us with non-project-related activities. 5:34 Let's figure out how to tackle those next. 5:37