3 Simple Productivity Hacks For Web-Working Freelancers
When your freelancing business keeps you in front of a computer screen for most of your working day, it’s easy to fall victim to some of the time-honored productivity drains that have reduced many an entrepreneurial income. If you’re not careful (and just a little bit vigilant), things that don’t seem like such a big deal can really hose you at the end of the week when you’re under a looming deadline, wondering “Where the hell did all the time go?” Let’s take a quick look at three simple things you might already know about but just aren’t doing - and let’s quit leaving so much money on the table each month.
Hack #1: Create Your Cone of Silence
It goes without saying that when you’re interrupted, your productivity takes a nosedive. You get less done. So simple wisdom would tell you that keeping yourself from interruption is a sure way to improve your time “in the groove” … yet so many times we don’t take this to heart. We let email reminders pop up constantly. Instant messaging windows are up and running without an “away” or “busy” status. We check our stats. Again. Every time you’re interrupted by one of these drive-by communiques, you’re losing momentum. It takes you longer to get things done - and that makes your rate per hour drop through the floor.
The solution is simple - close your virtual door when you need to get down to business. Close your email. Set your IMs to Away (or close them, too). Kill the ringer on your phone. Pop on the noise canceling headphones. Knuckle down, get in the groove, and crank out your best work fast without any interruptions.
I know what some of you may be saying - “Wait a minute, I couldn’t do this - I need constant connectivity to survive in my business!” I understand, and I’m not saying you should cut communication all day (or - gasp - for more than 60 minutes at a time). I know that many people reading this need to be available for immediate back-and-forth with clients, potential clients and other contacts to make deals happen. In fact, some people can handle this effortlessly, and having popups doesn’t slow them down enough to matter. But I’m not speaking to them.
What I am saying is that if you’re falling behind, or working slower than you want to, then you need to grit your teeth and make the call. Assess where you stand - are you letting your productivity suffer too much because of excessive availability? If so, then declare your own personal cone of silence a few times during the day, where you lock off for whatever chunk of time makes sense. Just get honest with yourself and don’t let this be something you know you need to get to “someday.”
Hack #2: Run Like Hell, Then Stop
When you’ve got a lot of work to do, it’s incredible how long you can make each task take. The idea of “getting a bunch done today” and crossing as much as possible off of your to-do list is a common way to start the day … but it may be costing you. If you attack your day without a clear plan, you can spend hours just throwing yourself at the work on your plate without asking yourself if you’re making progress fast enough. If you’ve ever reached the end of the day wondering where the time went and why you didn’t get more done, you know exactly what I mean.
The solution to that is setting clear mini-deadlines for yourself during the day and running like hell to hit those deadlines. Take a handful of tasks that you’re committed to getting done today, block out some time to get each done, and then hammer with all you have to hit each task’s deadline one by one. This seems obvious, but it’s an incredible way to keep your focus. If you’ve got to finish your blog entry by noon, redo your site’s navigation by 3pm, and contact 10 potential clients by 4pm, you’re going to be much more aware of the need to make every minute count than if you just “planned to knock them out one by one.”
Here’s the kicker if you really want to kick your own a$$, productivity-wise - tell yourself if you miss your deadline, you have to stop, then jump onto the next task so you keep your schedule. Anything you miss completing has to be done in overtime after your web-working day is done. Though I know 90% of people will balk at this and never try it, the 10% who do will find that being forced to work overtime does wonders for making you become more focused next time. :-)
Again - this hack doesn’t apply to everyone. Some people naturally work best when they just throw themselves at a bunch of work - but if you’ve had trouble focusing, pushing yourself or hitting personal deadlines, this is a great way to condition yourself for slammin’ action.
Hack #3: Schedule Downtime So You Can Stay Focused
As you may have noticed, all work and no play made Jack a very dull boy. You don’t want to let this happen to you. Productivity isn’t about being a robot or squeezing that last drop of effort out and gaining 1% improvement. Productivity is about doing simple things that make a big difference. And one of those simple things is not to get burned out. Often we find ourselves aimlessly surfing the web, checking email over and over, or feeding our blog addiction … all because we feel a need to take a break and relax. Because we deserve it, right?
Hell yes, we deserve it. But you don’t want to create so much work overload that you’re tempted to distract yourself when you should be getting work done (and we all have this happen, whether we like to admit it or not). That’s why it’s important to fit downtime into your schedule. Time you can cruise blogs just for fun, or catch up on email, or just shoot the breeze with people on IM. There’s nothing wrong with that, and you need it.
But if you look at your work week and see that you’re tapping into escape activities way too often, schedule some downtime so that you get refreshed before you start burning out. That way when you’re running like hell, doing all the kick-a$$ stuff that pays the rent, you won’t feel tempted to distract yourself - you’ll know that downtime is a-comin’ when you get your work done. And that takes the edge off.
What’s Your Hack - How Do You Stay Super-Productive?
The comments box calls to you. Look, it says, you’ve read this far … grace us with your own words of wisdom on how you keep on keepin’ on with all you’ve got. Leave your comment, learn from others, and if you’ve enjoyed your meal, get more great tips at Dave Navarro’s productivity blog (or better yet, subscribe and get it delivered right to your RSS reader).
See you in the comments -
Dave
23 Rockin' Comments
March 17th, 2008 at 7:19 am
I work from home and create kits for book clubs (w/ a little freelancing on the side). I was getting side-tracked by home chores, so now I use chores to keep me focused — on laundry day, I force myself to work until the washer buzzer goes off. Or I have to read a certain number of pages (or write) before I can get up and take a mini-break (i.e.– check email). “Chunking” my day like this has really helped. I also try to only accomplish one big task a day (plus blog maintenance, etc.). Works for me!
Thanks for a great post!
March 17th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Thanks for the thumbs up, Kristen! Having deadlines is a can’t-miss way to keep focused and work your hardest.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Many of these are simple common sense, but as you’ve said there are too many people who spend the day moving from one interruption to another without getting any work done.
One of the things that I do is to allocate an hour each evening, after everything I need to get done is finished, and spend it interruption free to get a head start on tomorrow’s stuff. By spending that hour in the evening, I’m already way ahead in the morning.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I set daily tasks and track time in an Excel spreadsheet. My day is done when I’ve logged the required number of billable hours into my spreadsheet. At least, that’s how it works in theory. Sometimes extricating myself from in front of the computer takes a bit more effort.
Setting a kitchen timer for one-hour work sprees, followed by a mandatory 15-minute break can be quite effective also.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Steve -
Working ahead is an excellent strategy - it gives you automatic momentum in the morning. Thanks for sharing!
March 17th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Time has become quite an issue for me and recently I’ve looked at ways to optimize it. Right now I’m spending time to learn more ways to optimize it, ironically. If you’re a PHP/MySQL freelancer, I wrote an article here on optimizing time:
http://volosystems.com/article.....ompression
The competition is brutal out there, where some freelancers are already ahead of this curve in beating time because they use frameworks and other tricks to optimize time, and can give more realistic project timelines.
The biggest advantage I’ve found on the war on time has been jQuery, and it can be used by any kind of website platform.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Oh Lord, I’m amazed of how you managed to nail it. Some of the things you said there are exactly some of my inner feelings. I’m glad I am not alone in the process.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
GREAT list of productivity tips! I’ve been doing a pretty good job of creating my own “cone of silence” lately. I’ve been trying to stay away from IM, etc. when I’m really trying to get something done. Staying away from email is tough, though…
I Love the idea to give yourself time deadlines for certain projects, as opposed to just “finish these today”. I will definitely give that one a try starting tomorrow!
I could use some work on the scheduling downtime (heck, I could use some work just in scheduling sleep, LOL).
Thanks for such great tips!
March 17th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Totally agreed, Dave. Great, and concise post. Dugg!
March 17th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
@ShariV -
Awareness is curative - keep using the tools that keep you focused!
@Volo -
Again, tools make a huge difference. They don’t have to be complex - they just need to work for you. Good luck staying ahead of the curve!
@seoreef -
Thanks for the complement. We all have the same issues when it comes down to it :-)
@Selene -
Take it a step at a time and let every improvement build on the last. Glad this post helped.
@Armen -
Thanks for the digg!
March 17th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
” Run Like Hell, Then Stop ” I love that. We all need a little breather every once in a while.
Great post as usual Dave :-)
March 17th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Ritu, good to see you - thanks for the props.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I love this: “Productivity isn’t about being a robot or squeezing that last drop of effort out and gaining 1% improvement.” I tend to put way to much on my plate and leave no room for taking a breather.
When I do take time to slow down, read a book or a magazine, or take a much needed mini-vacation, I realize that I can actually get much more finished because I’m not so burned out. Thanks Dave for another a$$ kicking post and for giving me an excuse to take a break!!
March 17th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Christine -
Glad to help :-) Breaks are good, needed stuff.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Bravo i need to be reminded of these principles now and then and i am sure i am not alone…cheers to the effort to remaining sane
March 18th, 2008 at 7:59 am
The tips are so simple, thus all ingenious is simple. Thanks for sharing!
March 18th, 2008 at 10:59 am
100% awesome tips. I find that setting a reminder on Outlook for 10am make sure the covnersation or blog reading that go with my morning coffee’s have a great effect and make me thing ‘damn i need to get something done’, if not these readings and conversations can hit lunch.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:45 am
@Purlple -
Cheers back at you :-)
@sunych
Glad you liked - make sure to use ‘em!
@Tech Blog -
Outlook reminders are a good way to keep checking in with yourself. Just don’t get addicted to checking email!
March 18th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I needed only a month of tracking on an excel spreadsheet to make me realize (with SHOCK) how much time I was wasting on silly things:)
March 19th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Hello Dave
So glad I followed a facebook link to this site. Phone off the hook is a big one for me. It’s not so much the calls I make as the ones I receive - I often wonder if I’d receive them if I were working in an office - some people seem to think that if you’re working from home you aren’t really working …
March 27th, 2008 at 9:58 am
i use my email inbox as my work queue. if i have multiple job requests waiting in there, i do the quickest ones first to get them out of the way, then the larger/slower ones. This gets the majority of work out of my way first, and makes me feel more productive.
i also dont take phone calls before 9am (i start work around 8) so i have an hour of uninterrupted time to work. And over the years, my clients have come to learn that they get a faster response from emailing than calling anyway.
and, i just work really really fast. luckily. :)
July 13th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
When I started getting burned out from the long hours it required me to keep my business running, I started outsourcing all the mundane tasks that seemed to suck up my time and my creative energy, like invoicing clients. By the time I was done with all that record keeping and tax management stuff, my brain was fried and I wasn’t giving my projects the energy that my clients deserved. Now that I outsource everything to an employer of record company (MBO Partners, http://www.mbopartners.com ), I have much more time and can afford to take breaks, have a snack, go for a walk or whatever it takes to refresh my mind.
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