Here are five of the most crucial time management tips every freelancers and solopreneurs should adapt to better manage their time.
Everyone is trying to better manage their time but freelancers have to be at the top of their game in it. Time is money but more so for a freelancer. So, let me share some quick time management tips for freelancers to netter manage their time, and work for more clients.
So without much ado let’s begin:
1. Outsource
The first and most important time management tip that I can share for any individual freelancer or solopreneur is to consider delegation of work or outsourcing. Freelancer is a solo entrepreneur but that doesn’t mean everything needs to be done by the individual himself. If you can do it doesn’t mean you should be doing it. There is always an option to outsource.
Find someone that can help you and can do better than you. Even if you are the best person for doing something, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should be doing it. Let others do it for you and in the process do as good as you may have done it.
The best way to efficiently manage time as a freelancer is to be able to delegate a lot of tasks to others.
Teaching someone to do it the way you want is fine but they should be able to save you time. If you are outsourcing some part of the job, make sure you aren’t outsourcing to guys who need too much of your time on an ongoing basis.
2. Limit Social Media
If anyone analyses his day, social media will be one of the biggest time killers for anybody. If you can limit your social media activities, you can save a lot of time. Time saved is time gained and in a way can be used to be more productive.
By Social media, I don’t want to restrict to only Facebook but also checking Whatsapp for new messages all the time or watching YouTube.
Often social media lead to a lot of interesting links that we tend to read and that can mean a lot of information intake unnecessary.
Whatsapp groups can have lots of videos and images that don’t provide any additional value. I have global settings in Whatsapp to not download any media from anybody. It helps me not to view them at all and save quite a bit of my time.
The information intake does no good and every time management article will have a tip to reduce the amount of time one spends on social media along with the intake of information from the same
3. Say No to Clients
When you first start freelancing, you will focus more on getting more clients but over time, you have to be choosy. Every client won’t be equal.
Some clients need you more consulting time than actual work that needs to be done and often such clients are the ones that one should be avoiding. If you are one who has a tough time saying no, here is how to say NO.
A client taken on board can mean you are to say no to future clients. So it is important that you choose your clients wisely.
The best way to reduce the clients is to increase your rates higher than others. A way you only take up clients who are serious and are ready to hire an expert.
4. The Right Estimation
If you are estimating the time needed to complete the task, make sure you estimate it with generosity and not based on how fast the client needs it.
Often freelancers like to estimate the time depending on how much the client has the time for the project. It can mean you are taking up too much work to have any free time for the unforeseen.
The most important of any time management tips as a freelancer has to be the skill and ability to estimate the amount of time one will need to get the job done. Often I see freelancers especially developers who have no free time left is because they underestimated the time needed to get the task completed.
Once you have done the right estimation, plan your days and weeks to complete it in time to save a lot of time discussing and arguing with clients about why you have missed the deadline.
5. One Task at a Time
Freelancers often multitask and there is nothing wrong with it. However, if you want to better manage your time, make sure you do one task at a time. It helps to manage tasks better and complete them within the estimated time. However, the most important of all, you complete things with fewer bugs so it may need not a rework and ultimately save you more time.
I often work for more than one client at a time. However, I never overlap the work of clients. If I am working on more than one project of the same client, I divide the time slot to let my brain know what client and what project I should be working on now.
The switch of the project means I leave the computer, take a 5 min break and then start working on the next project or task. It helps to let your mind know what you are working on. I apply the same even when I am writing for my blogs.
Make sure when you are doing what you should be doing, you are in the right mindset to get things done the right way.
Stop Reading Time Management Tips
Finally, stop reading time management tips and start applying. There are tons and tons of tips that one can write and make this article even lengthy and waste your lot of time. It is important to keep the time management tips short and let the readers apply them. So now start applying because you will not better manage your time by reading those tips but applying. Even a single one if you can apply is more important than reading 20 more such tips.
