My freelance lessons series looks at the lessons, best practises, and rules that I have learnt during my first four months as a freelancer. Part 4 of the series looks at productivity.
Stay organised
- Be super organised. I use Basecamp, which is great for project todos and teamwork and an old fashioned week to view paper diary for my personal day to day todo planning. Absolutely everything I need to do, however small the task, goes into the diary. This prevents tasks slipping through the cracks, helps to identify and batch similar tasks together e.g. buying domain names or invoicing, and allows me to accurately plan how much I can get done in a given day or week.
My weekly todo list. Sometimes low tech works best.
- Put time limits on tasks. Using a timer creates a highly productive exam like condition. It also makes you aware of how long things are taking. Sometimes you need to cut your loses and move on.
- Apply and hit deadlines. It is easy to procrastinate with tasks which are not particularly time sensitive such as sending an email, or writing a blog post. Appending a deadline, arbitrary or otherwise, creates urgency and forces you to get things done. It also prevents you being too precious with side project work and forces you into a release early, release often mindset.
Avoid distractions
- Email is not an instant medium. Turn off your automatic inbox. Schedule times to check your email and stick to them. If there is a major problem your client can phone you.
- Skype calls can be a pain. Schedule in Video calls like you would meetings.
- Use IM sparingly.
Avoid time drains and restrictive work
- I don’t offer clients hosting as I don’t want them to be calling me if things go wrong. When you work out everything you need to do as a freelancer in a 40 hour week you start to realise your time is very limited.
- I was asked to take on a client’s IT training. The rate was good but the work required me to arrange and take regular phone training sessions. These sessions would of really restricted my freedom and broken up the productive chunks of time in my day. As a result I decided it was not worth while.
Structure and track your time
- Batch similar jobs together to improve productivity and reduce context switching.
- Schedule time to read the blogs, twitter etc (batching).
- Keep timesheets for everything you do. Not only will you know how many hours you are putting in, you will know where you time is going and be able to spot what is and isn’t profitable, and identify time leaks. Web apps such as such as tick or FreshBooks can help you out here.
Work with others
- Find a helping hand or partner. If you a designer find a developer. If you are a back-end developer find a front-end guy. Working with others has large productive and quality gains.
My home office setup.
Get the best kit going
- The total cost of the equipment a web professional needs is actually very small. Buy the best computer around. Get that second monitor. Buy a brilliant ergonomic chair. It will make your life that much easier.
