What does your home office look like? If you are a freelance writer there is a very good chance that you work at home. Although you want to make sure your home office is comfortable you need it to be organized as well. Over the years I have found that I am much more productive when working in an organized workspace.
If you are looking to set a goal for the new year why not base it around organizing your home office? Even if you are pretty well organized right now there is a good chance that you could do better if you try. For instance, my files are organized and all my paperwork is put away. But I could definitely stand to clear some things from my desk including old sticky notes and supplies that I hardly ever touch.
No matter how messy my home office becomes I have found one thing: it does not take a lot of time to restore some order. If you set aside one hour of time this weekend you can take your home office from messy and out of whack to extremely organized. It may not be your idea of fun, but an organized office will help you increase productivity. Do yourself a favor and organize your home office for the new year. You will not be disappointed with this decision!
Have you ever heard about how unproductive it can be to check your email too often? While I agree with this to a certain extent, there are times when you need to be checking for new emails on a regular basis. Why do some people think that checking email too often is a bad thing? Simply put, they believe that this wastes time and decreases productivity. This can be true, but as a freelance writer you need to realize that going overboard and avoiding your email account can be a bad thing.
I check my many email accounts several times per day. This is the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do before retiring for the night. And as you can imagine, I check for new emails many times throughout the workday as well. What is the point in doing so on a regular basis? I do not like making my clients or potential buyers wait too long for a response. For instance, if a client has a question I want to make sure they get an answer at once. This not only makes them feel better, but it makes me look good because it shows I care.
How do you know when you are spending too much time checking your email? This is a difficult question to answer but keep this in mind: if your “email stalking†is holding back your progress in other areas you have gone off the deep end. There is nothing wrong with refreshing your email every hour, but the moment that this begins to effect how you work you need to make a change.
How many email accounts do you have? This will greatly effect how much time you spend checking for new emails. If you only have one account you can do this quickly enough. But if you have several accounts you are going to spend more time going through all of them.
Finally, keep this tip in mind: just because you check your email often does not mean that you have to respond to every message you receive. You want to read every message and once you do you can then determine which ones to reply to right away and which ones can wait until you have more time.
I believe it is important for freelance writers to check their email often. As long as this does not stunt your progress and productivity you have nothing to worry about.Â
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