Save Time for Writing, Cut out Extracurricular Activities
As a freelance writer, you have the ability to set your own schedule. But even though this is a benefit in many ways, it can also act as a drawback as well. Since you do not have anybody telling you what to do, you are responsible for staying on track and getting your work done on time. One of the most common ways to get yourself in trouble with clients is to send them work past deadline. Not only will this infuriate them, but it will probably force them to leave you and find a new writer.
For me, the best way to save time for writing is to cut out extracurricular activities during the workday. Personally, I like to work between the hours of 700am and 5pm. While all of this time is not spent on writing, most of it is for business related activity. Early in my career, I had a difficult time staying at the computer all day long. After all, I had never worked from home with the freedom to do whatever I wanted.
Some of the most common time wasters for freelance writers include:
1. Watching television and/or listening to the radio. Not only will this slow you down, but it will also mess with your concentration at the same time. In the end, this will result in lost time as well as sub-par work; both things that will bring down your freelance writing business.
2. Leaving your home office for personal reasons. While this is often times impossible to avoid, you should give it your best shot. For example, you may want to do your grocery shopping during the day, but if you are supposed to be working, you should fight the urge. Flexibility is a great part of being a freelance writer. Just make sure that you do not abuse this benefit.
3. Spending time checking email and/or browsing the internet. All in all, this is the number one time waster for freelance writers as well as other professionals. In fact, many companies are coming up with new and innovative ways to block employees from wasting too much time online. Of course, since you have no boss, you will need to exercise self restraint. It is entirely too easy to look at one website, which turns into two and then more. Before you know it, you will be losing valuable time without even realizing it.
As a freelance writer, your main goal should be to write as much as possible during your business hours. This does not mean that you should get rid of your flexible schedule, but you definitely need to cut back on any extracurricular activities that waste time and steal your attention.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
This is a great post. I’m a full-time college student and I’ve just launched my own creative services business, so time management is crucial for me.
I don’t watch TV or listen the radio while I’m working, and I only use the Internet for business-related tasks (research, ordering supplies, etc.).
I work four hours in the morning and four in the evening. That schedule works well for me so I can stay focused and take care of my academic responsibilities.
MJ
emjaye.wordpress.com
January 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Going to get off topic here, but I’ve been curious, when is your new blog design coming back? Still working out the kinks on it?
January 24th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Michael - Great to see that you have worked out a schedule; sounds like you work nicely around your busy school schedule.
Rock - Regarding the design, I have decided to move onto a new designer in the near future. The last design simply had too many bugs, and a designer that was not willing to help. But to answer your question, hopefully there will be a redesign soon enough! For now, Id rather concentrate on providing quality content…
January 24th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
I’m guilty of item number 3 on the list. It’s true. Browsing the internet is a time waster; so what I normally do is to browse the internet only after I’ve done blogging and writing for the day…
January 28th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Thanks for the post. Yes - all these distractions!!!! Totally guilty of every one of them.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Hi Chris! My biggest time waster is email. The problem is that I do a lot of cold emailing, so I have to check my email frequently anyway. But then there’s so much junk to wade through, and I take the time to delete them, and I wind up spending an hour in my inbox each morning. Maybe I should set aside just 1/2 an hour to check my business email only, and wait until I’m done working to clean it out. Thanks for reminding us of time wasters.
One more thing: I see you have Entrecard. Are you accepting advertisers? I’m on your list of potential advertisers (the lady in red), so I’m hoping you still are.
February 5th, 2008 at 11:17 am
[...] over at ChrisBlogging wrote an article a little while ago: Save Time for Writing, Cut out Extracurricular Activities. It seems to go well with the article I talked about yesterday regarding the pros and cons of [...]