The global freelancing community is growing fast. With creative roles accounting for 41.8% of freelance jobs, more freelancers are working autonomously from home and while it sometimes seems too good to be true, that’s where the problem lies. Use these five tips to bring your best self to work, kill procrastination and boost your productivity.
It’s very easy to slip into any of these productivity killers: comfy pajamas, eating hamburgers and watching your favorite Netflix show. But at the end of the day, it’s a productivity loss for both you and your clients.
To make sure you are able to bring your best work forward, here are five tips to self-monitor productivity when freelancing.
1. Create a pleasant workspace
Ergonomics is the science of designing the workplace, keeping in mind the capabilities and limitations of the worker. A poor workstation can lead to less productivity and more frustration and fatigue.
The first tip is to have an inspiring workspace that doesn’t look like one. It doesn’t matter if it’s your home or your mom’s basement, to be more productive you need to invest in workplace ergonomics.
Discomfort at work causes distractions and reduces productivity: an uncomfortable chair, the creaky voice of the door, and a flickering light. Any of them can distract you and cause you to make errors. That means more time spent on reworking than taking up new projects.
An uncomfortable chair has a clear chance of causing strain to your spine. Surprisingly, these forms of sprains constitute 40%of workplace injuries. Recovery takes you away from client work and earning a living.
To improve your workplace ergonomics at your home, follow these steps:
- Choose calming colours like green or blue for balance and concentration.
- Keep room temperature between 68 degrees to 77-degree Fahrenheit, so you’re not hot or cold.
- Natural light helps with mood focus.
Read more 10 inspiring workspaces for freelancers.
2. Be in sync with your client’s hours
It’s a good practice to work according to your client’s work hours, coordination becomes much easier. Simultaneous coordination allows for real-time collaboration, allowing for faster approvals. Use tools to make your freelance life easier – Whats App, Trello, Slack, Skype or others for instant communication so you’re in no doubt about what tasks to focus on.
If you’re working at a time when your client is offline, the doubt becomes a pending task for tomorrow. Your workflow gets unnecessarily stretched, leading to tight deadlines and more pending tasks.
When you are working closely with your clients in real time you can collaborate efficiently and any doubts that you might have can be addressed instantly. When you are collaborating, much of the editing takes place in real-time, so lot of the rework happens on the spot, giving you more time to work on new projects.
03 Eat the Alien First
Becky Blanton, the author of The October Abduction of Thomas Martin series, believes: whether you have one task, fifty or a thousand task, start your day working on the hardest task.
Eat the alien first, and then the rest of the tasks will feel like ‘eating an apple pie’, or better yet, apple pie with ice cream.
Every task might not be an alien, but make sure that every day you have at least one alien to indulge on. That means finish one difficult task each day.
Write down your aliens on a piece of paper a night before. When you come the next day you will know which task to start your day with. This impeccable decision making skill is going to bolster your productivity.
Use Technology Wisely
By making technology a part of your workflow, you are able to deliver more in less time.
For example, use Sketch for exporting slices easily. You can export complex shapes almost instantly. On any layer, layer group, or Artboard, just click on Make Exportable and it gets exported in seconds. Technology just made an otherwise tedious process – simple. This is how you freelance designers can multitask, at the same time, be productive.
To keep a track of your workflow, use a Gantt chart to track the amount of work completed within a certain period of time compared to the amount planned for those periods. There are also other useful functions of Gantt charts, such as who needs to work on what and when. Instead of going about manually designing the chart, use Google Sheets which houses a pre-designed Gantt chart template. It allows both you and your client to keep tabs on tasks at every stage. There’s also other gantt chart software you can try for varied displays and information presentation
Freelancers should also use technology to improve productivity and streamline data collection. For example, they can use APIs to enable two software components to communicate with each other. Many of the most widely used APIs can connect their analytics software to social media accounts. For instance, TokApi, an API that shares data from TikTok pages, can use multiple endpoints, such as Trending categories, Hashtag IDs, and Music IDs. With this information, a freelancer will have an easier time marketing to clients and generating buzz around their business.
Though technology does make things easier, do not become dependent on it. You might lose your personal touch that has helped you to create a niche for yourself. Thus, use technology to increase your productivity, but not at the cost of your craft.
Eat well to boost your brain power
You are what you eat, is a saying that is much thrown around, but rarely followed. Food has a direct impact on our cognitive performance; a bad lunch decision can affect our productivity.
The reason is that not all foods are processed by our body at the same rate. Pasta, cereal, and soda quickly release glucose in our body, giving a rush of energy followed by a decline in productivity. The problem is, many designers consider food as just a fuel for the body, but it’s more than that.
If food affects your creativity, would you still be so casual about the food you eat?
There are specific food types that help in enhancing the function of the brain and improve general well-being. All of these factors tend to stimulate higher creative output. If you are a freelancer designer, make sure to add these food items to your diet:
- What the fish – Add a little protein to your lunch if you want to brainstorm new ideas. Items like salmon, trout, mackerel, and herring contain Omega-3 which help in boosting memory and cognition.
- Let your creativity go nuts – Chucking down a couple of nuts (except peanuts) will give you a much-needed energy boost when you’re facing creative stagnation. It allows you to sustain energy for a longer time as compared to other sugar products, where a sugar rush is followed by a sudden slump.
- A berry for the brain – Your creativity also requires your agility so you can act on your ideas. Blueberries can help you get that t-shirt print design idea that’s stuck in your head come to reality by increasing your concentration. A berry a day helps in increasing the production of Dopamine, a chemical produced in your brain, that keeps your creativity fired up for a longer time. Maintaining a healthy diet is vital since it directly influences cognitive performance. Instead of sticking to traditional fast foods, consider meal planning or exploring different meal kits that not only save time but also offer balanced nutrition tailored to your needs.
These tips will take a bit of time to become habits, but if you keep at it, you will see a significant rise in your productivity levels. None of these points need supervision, all it needs is your commitment. You have to be accountable and make sure that they become a part of your creative process.
Having said that, don’t rush everything at once or the change won’t stick. Apply the changes gradually and over time, these changes will eventually evolve into habits – habits of a productive freelance designer.
Want more?
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10 of the best productivity apps for designers
Five top tips to help designers to work well with clients
Best keyboard shortcuts to speed you up in Illustrator
Bst keyboard shortcuts to speed you up in Photoshop
Written by Niraj Ranjan Rout on Sunday, September 3, 2017
Niraj is the founder of Hiver, an app that turns Gmail into a powerful customer support and collaboration tool. When not working at Hiver on programming or customer support, Niraj likes to play guitar. Niraj can be reached on Twitter @nirajr.