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In addition to developing a proper workflow,

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one of the essential skill sets for a freelancer to develop is good time management.

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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.

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There are 2 separate areas of time management that are important as a freelancer.

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First, you have to manage your time efficiently when it comes to working on your projects.

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Then, there's time spent on non-project-related activities.

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Projects bring in direct revenue, and most freelancers don't have any problem dedicating time toward these tasks.

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It's the non-project-related activities that get neglected.

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While they don't bring in short-term revenue,

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they contribute to your long-term success and need to be considered on a recurring basis.

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The danger, when you work on your own and work at home,

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is that it becomes hard to compartmentalize time.

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Certain people tend to work all the time, which is unhealthy,

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and others tend to get distracted easily.

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Setting aside time strictly for work and knowing how to say, "I'm done for the day"

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will make you more efficient in getting your tasks done and you won't burn out so quickly.

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But how do you get better at time management?

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There are so many approaches that you can follow and plenty of books have been written on them.

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We're going to look at some of the ways you can get a start on how to handle your time.

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Start by being goal-oriented.

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If you start your day without a specific objective in mind,

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then you're going to just work on tasks as you remember them.

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This won't help at all when it comes to delivering the final project on time

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and making sure things fall into place when you need them to.

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The best way to tackle this is to start a project with high-level goals.

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If you created a timeline like we did earlier, then you have milestones that you need to hit at the end of each week.

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Take a weekly milestone and break it down into specific daily goals.

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Now, you don't have to do this for the entire project at once.

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At the end of each week, set your daily goals for the following week only.

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That way, if things change and you need to accommodate, you are flexible enough to adapt your goals.

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Having a goal that you are working toward will make it much easier to stay focused until that specific goal has been accomplished.

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Once you have set goals, you can become even more efficient by setting deadlines on these goals.

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If you followed our plan and started at a higher level,

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you probably already have these deadlines in place.

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Now, that's great. Set deadlines on your daily and weekly goals as well, and you will get things done much faster.

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The key is to have a good balance between flexibility and efficiency.

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One of the reasons you probably branched out into freelancing is because you wanted your own flexibility.

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Don't shy away from this—the deadline is there as a reminder

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that if you want to deliver the project on a certain date,

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these are the dates and times you need to hit to get your work done and keep your client happy.

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If you miss a deadline, don't work late into the night or work on the weekends.

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This gets us to our next point: Have a set ending time.

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Don't be tempted to work longer than you want to.

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You may think that working late into the night and delivering the project faster will get you bonus points,

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but there are 2 reasons why this won't work—actually, there are plenty of reasons, but we'll just go over 2 points

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First is the law of diminishing returns. Now, this is a concept borrowed from economics.

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To explain it very simply, the longer you work, the lower the quality of your work.

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Your brain will get tired and you won't be producing your best results if you work 15 to 18-hour days.

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The client may be ecstatic that you delivered earlier than expected,

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and that's great, but the next time, they will expect the same results.

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If you work normal hours and take a few days or weeks extra,

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they're going to be unhappy that you're working slower, based on their past experiences with you.

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So avoid all these situations.

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If you're being goal-oriented and producing quality work, but consistently missing deadlines,

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that doesn't mean you should be working longer or faster.

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It probably means that you didn't set realistic deadlines to begin with.

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Take notes about how long it takes you to finish tasks

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and use what you learn to set more realistic expectations,

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both with yourself and when communicating with the client.

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Finally, understand your time. We're not great at every single thing, and that's fine.

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Working to become more efficient with our time management means not only utilizing our time better,

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but also understanding where we waste time.

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Certain activities take us much longer to complete

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and we can compensate by allocating more time to those activities

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or educating ourselves on that activity to become more efficient at it.

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Roughly track your time on each activity to get an idea where you can improve.

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Be as granular as you want to be.

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Now, I'm not asking you to punch in and out of work,

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but if that's the kind of day that you want, go for it.

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As you get better at managing your time and understanding your workflow,

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you will start to learn how to group tasks to be more efficient,

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and form good habits as a result.

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Another tip to keep you focused is to take breaks often—as paradoxical as that sounds.

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Now, I prefer the Pomodoro Technique and it works great for me, but it may not be the best for you.

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Understand when you're starting to get stressed or mentally fatigued

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and take a break to get you back on track.

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If you want to know more about the Pomodoro Technique,

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check out the Quick Tip I made in the link provided below.

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Incorporating what we have learned about project workflow and time management,

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we should be able to get a good grasp on how to work on projects.

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But that still leaves us with non-project-related activities.

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Let's figure out how to tackle those next.