Four Time Wasters to Avoid as a Freelancer
If you are a freelance writer, there is a very good chance that you work from home. While this is full of benefits, there are also some downfalls to be aware of as well. Mainly, when you work from home you have to contend with distractions and time wasters that would never present themselves in an office setting. If you are going to be productive and efficient day in and day out, you need to learn early on how to avoid these potential setbacks.
1. Are you watching too much television during the workday? As you can imagine, this is a huge issue for many freelance writers, as well as others who work from home. If you cannot bring yourself to turn the television off, there is one easy solution to this problem: take the TV out of your office!
2. Do you check your email every five minutes? If so, you are not alone. With approximately 10 email accounts, I find it difficult to not check them every so often. Early in my career this was always a problem, but as of late I have settled down a bit in this area. Now, I only check my primary accounts regularly and leave the others to once a day or so.
3. If you are addicted to an instant messenger program you will have one of the biggest time wasters in the world available to you at all times. This is not to say that these programs are all bad, but if you are not using it for business purposes, sign off during work hours. If you don’t, you could find yourself losing hours on end chatting with friends when you should be working.
4. Do you take one break just to follow it up with another? If so, you are making a huge mistake. Breaks can cut into your workday unlike anything else. While it is fine to take a break from time to time, you need to control your urge to do so too often. With nobody to tell you what to do, you have to exercise self restraint in this area. To protect yourself against this potential problem, set a break schedule that you follow each day. This will allow you to get away from the computer when need be without going overboard.
As a freelance writer, you want to avoid these four time wasters at all costs.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Thanks for the tips! Breaks are my biggest time waster, but with three little kids at home they can be unavoidable at times.
We don’t have TV at all, by choice, and I have made it a habit to put myself as “Invisible” in Gmail to avoid chat interruptions.
Now, checking my favorite blogs and news sites is a big distraction for me … and in fact, I’m doing it at the moment!
April 11th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
No joke. My single biggest time-wasting temptation is the Internet…and of course it’s the hardest to control when you’re on the computer all day!
I try to set aside certain times for Internet surfing…but it’s not easy to stick to with so many writing-related blogs and forums out there!
April 14th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I have realized over all these years of active browsing and now going through active years of freelance writing that the Internet is a distraction that you can’t do without and I have to second Angela’s point on this one — “it’s the hardest thing to control when you are on the computer all day!”.
However, no other distraction can get away with a casual excuse
- TV ( no way! I limit it to either weekends or when I really have nothing else to work on for that day)
- even online I keep away from the so called Social Networking sites — I do have profiles there — but I wonder why. These are a BIG waste of time. I don’t need to poke on facebook all day and rabk other morons as hot or not hot.
- The weariness that creeps in due to working on the computer all day is something that can induce the powerful temptation to pull away from work. Perhaps, working by taking short breaks can be a great option.
April 14th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
No argument here! Being online all day everyday makes abusing the internet much easier!