Get More Jobs Done & Improve Your Productivity with These Habits
Everyone imagined freelance career as productive day of work done from their comfort zone. But in reality it is totally opposite as freelancers envisioned. Usually successful freelancer awake with lot of intentions to complete several tasks but in the end of the day, very few things from the list of tasks is accomplished. Every freelancer worker wishes that he can get more work done in a day. You may need to optimize the way of your work, or you may need motivation to get the more work done; there are some simple habits that can actually help you to make this happen. Success of freelance career greatly depends on good working habits and taking control of productivity. So in underneath discussion I will share some simple but great habits and tricks to get more work done.
Lifestyle
The idea of freelance lifestyle is built on the perception of having more time to do what people love to do. Freelance jobs are all about defining a well-balanced life, so you can take control of your day to spend more time to make healthy and happy living. Now as freelance business is on its peak due to its multi-dimensional benefits, successful online freelancers are overloaded with jobs. They are not able to develop a healthy lifestyle or routine. They are usually physically and mentally scattered, which ruins their productivity as well as quality of work. Now there are some useful and easy to adopt habits that can give you a balanced lifestyle and can increase your productivity. By adopting these habits you will be good at your work, can spare more time to do what you love. You must have to stick with these habits to increase your productivity.
Waking Up Early
If you like to gain some extra hours in your busy day, hours where no one distracts you from your work why wouldn’t you? Of course you do. And to get these hours you have to wake up early. A very simple and easy to adopt habit can provide you some extra hours to work. If you are struggling to spare the time to draft something or you want some practice before starting the job, then wake up two to three hours earlier and use the extra time. Freelancers who wake up early in every morning can do many things for their better productivity and creativity. I am not asking you to wake up at 3:00am in the night and start your work immediately. Freelancers who wake up at 6:00am can get in a workout, shower, breakfast and early morning work before 8am. By the time most people pouring their first cup of coffee, your blood will be flowing and you might completed one or two tasks, if you wake up early. It may be hard for you to wake up early in the morning but it is one of those things you must have to make into a habit. Even if you have to turn your alarm off and set it any other place. Get feet on the floor! They key of waking up early.
Then there is one other thing you must have to do. You don’t need to pick up your phone and look through social media or emails if you succeeded in waking up early. Instead of doing that, immediately walk to the bathroom and wash your face or take bath. By doing this you will have a clear skin, and it will help wake you up. Waking up early in the morning doesn’t meant that you must have to be night owl. You can do work two or three hours in early night.
Exercise
Generally people who do jobs online sit all the day and every day, they need to get blood flowing, and it’s crucial for them to get in some exercise. When you do some exercise you get blood flowing into your brain. It is undeniable truth that more blood flow in the brain, the more easily to get connected with your thoughts. That’s why it is important to do some exercise in the morning before going to your work. If you do exercise in morning that starts the day off feeling productive- feeling energized, and of course mentally prepared to do quality work for online jobs.
It will be better to join gym or health club, but if you can’t do that it is good enough to walk daily around an hour or more in the morning. By joining gyms or health clubs you will learn more about getting healthy and motivated, especially for those who sit at their desk all the day and every day.
Work Habits
Excuses are the killer of productivity. But everyone knows that productivity is only single key of running successful business, and if you are the only one person to handle all business matters than it become more important. Surprisingly we all are busy and overworked but real successful people never dwell on problems, they just know only one thing and that is work, work and only work. We are not to ourselves like motivated to do massive work and sometimes we are giving excuses “I’m running into too many problems and I feel overworked. I’ll do it later.” Sometimes we wait un-necessarily to start work by saying that “I can’t start creating my new product because I don’t have everything I need.”
On the other hand productive and hardworking online freelancers just do whatever they can and take tasks as they need to be done. They never wait for the perfect time, as they know that every time is perfect to work if you are motivated and productive. One of the main reasons behind un-productiveness is fear of failure in tasks, remember that failure means, you are trying something new and stay busy. Stepping outside of your comfort zone is what will take your career to the next level. So try to develop a habit of keep working in any circumstances, it will help you greatly in reducing your workload.
Writing a Daily To-Do List of Actionable Tasks
It is always difficult to manage all the tasks, successful freelancer tend to get more than two or three jobs at the same time. So it becomes more difficult to set the priorities of your jobs. Try to make a list of projects and then write the most urgent work on sticky notes that always sit in front of you all day. As you complete one task simply cross it off and start working on the second task. You may also find physically crossing off a task very satisfying. Use sticky notes while you are planning the way of work to be done. Your brain can’t store all of your ideas, concept and topics, so write everything on a page or on sticky notes.
Most important thing in managing your priorities is to break down your goals into actionable tasks. By doing this you will be able to start work immediately instead of relying on the moment to figure out how to spend your time on different tasks. If you can then break your goals into manageable tasks and then break these tasks into small parts that can be accomplished within an hour, by doing this you will be find yourself blazing and making amazing progress.
Focus on Goals
It is always recommended to focus on your goals instead of focusing on working hours. Work as much as needed. Working too much or too little both can lead you in a worse condition. Obviously working more hours means more money, but still there is way of earning lots of money by working fewer hours. You can charge high amount for the job against your high quality services. If you are a designer and have to design a website, you estimate to complete your task in two weeks but it is not necessary to complete the task in two weeks, you may take 3-4 days to complete the task and then you can move forward. In every business you must have to work for the goals you set for yourself. Whenever you work on a task try to complete it as early as possible. The main point is that in the long run your achieved goals will be worthy for you instead of working hours you spend to achieve that goals.
Taking Productive Breaks
After completing the large task, sometimes you don’t have spare time to walk away from your work, sometimes it is nice to just be done with it, so take a break and work on less important tasks. Try to relax your mind so that you can get prepare for next important task. You can do several tinny tasks in productive breaks like dusting of your workplace, organizing different things, mowing the lawn and can wash the dishes etc. They key is to use up more of your time effectively.
How to Force Yourself to Get More Work Done
No matter how much you are a hard worker, still you are human being and you can fed-up with continuous tasks. In my point of view if online freelancer gets jobs more than his capacity then he will be luckiest freelancer in the world. Usually there is no continuous flow of freelance jobs anywhere on the internet. But if you are the luckiest one then you must have to manage your jobs, you need to get work done, but usually freelancer don’t know where to start! Don’t worry you are not alone. Trust me almost every successful freelancer face this problem. They need to force themselves to get a lot of work done. Here I will share two methods to force you to get more work done. At first you need to break large tasks into small tasks and then break them into small parts that can be completed in one hour. After breaking up your tasks you need to start a work sprint. You can break down your work into intervals-usually 25 minutes in length. After doing work 25 minutes without any distraction, you can take a break of 5 minute and then back to your work for next 25 minutes. This method of forcing yourself to get more work done will definitely help you. After 5-7 minutes of working, you will be in the zone and there will be uphill from there. You can use any timer and let the countdown begin! In the daily life of online freelancers it is very common to fed-up soon from a job. Many times freelancers have completely hit a wall and they are on the edge of just going lying down. But as you know freelancer livelihood depends on online freelance jobs only, so it is impossible to completely leave your jobs in the middle of project. In this case switching to next or another job can greatly help you. Whenever you fed-up with a job, immediately switch to another job or task. Switching on completely different type of work will refreshes your mind and you can back to original job or task with fresh mind. In this case you can also take productive breaks.
If you are doing freelance jobs full-time then you must have to take responsibility for your actions and need to decide how to spend your time because your life depends on freelance business. These habits can truly make or breaks your freelance business so start applying it little by little immediately. Trying new techniques will form long-term habits, which enhances your productivity. I’ve shared my techniques and tips, so now’s your turn! How do you like to stay productive? Add to this post and leave a comment below!