Freelancers are more accountable to their bottom line than ever as they need to work independently and be able to accomplish specific tasks that clients struggle to accomplish. Tighter budgets And deadlines don’t help the self-employed. Time management is one of the most annoying challenges for any freelancer. In fact, due to poor time management, only 30% of his projects were completed on time.
Meeting deadlines is a freelancer’s dream come true, but usually not. Many factors are involved, but in most cases the blame lies with the self-employed.
This seems like an endless race against time. The question is, is there a way to get the self-employed on track?
1. Eliminate time killers for freelancers
First, you need to identify the project deadline that the killer threatens.
Most self-employed people miss deadlines because they don’t have time, but they spend their time on unproductive activities.
Do not fit many important activities and many important goals into your schedule in one day. Instead, set a goal for each day. Everybody wants hybrid work models. Multitasking especially for serious pursuits is impossible. That is, if you have an obligation to finish an assignment and at the same time you have to study a foreign language, plan one day for the assignment and another day for the foreign language. Don’t do both in one day.
Make sure no one is to blame when you identify time wasters. The ultimate goal is to identify activities that waste time without contributing to project outcomes. List the main time-wasting factors and take small steps to eliminate them one by one. Here are some time wasters:
- Casual conversation for socializing.
- I use social media management frequently.
- Frequent emails, meetings, and ad hoc discussions.
- Aim for perfection.
- Delays in emails and meetings are difficult to control, so you need to ask your clients for help.
- Once you find the time wasters, you can create an elimination plan. For example, you can use chat and social media. Thank you for your time.
2. Create a project baseline
Project management is all about setting and achieving goals on time, but it also has its drawbacks. If you don’t know your goals, you can’t reach them. There is research showing that one of the three projects has no foundation at all.
A project baseline details deliverables and records scope, schedule, breaks, key milestones and deadlines. Knowing exactly what to deliver and when will help speed up your project. After setting the baseline, you can run weekly assessments to see if the project’s performance meets the baseline. You can start with the following guidelines.
- Basic programming line
- basic expenses
- generate payslips
- basic range line
- Basic quality
Comparing the baseline with the results, the results are:
Negative;
Redefine baselines to meet project deadlines.
Positive?
Keep working.
3. Allocate freelance resources effectively
For the effective implementation of the project, a self-employed person must know his basic qualities. Know your key skills and your ability to work under pressure. If you are deployed incorrectly, you are less likely to meet deadlines.
4. Distribution of duties
If you have the core competencies known to you and the other team members, you can divide tasks in such a way that they match everyone’s interests. When dividing tasks, make sure you assign entire tasks to one person. Link clear expectations to tasks.
5. Set realistic goals
Write your goals down as an end point first, then break them down into small steps. The first step will also be your goal, then the second, the third, etc. If you only write the goal-result and not the steps, it is likely that you will be led to failure as you will not know how to reach the goal. The point is to take the small steps every day to reach the final and big goal.
Let’s say you set a goal of at least an 8 in your overall semester grade. How will you achieve him? We break the goal down into steps:
- I have 7 courses, 4 assignments and 3 papers. Both assignments are group assignments.
- Twice a week I will contact the groups for the two assignments. I will deal with both tasks every Tuesday 16:30 and every Friday 17:00
- I will deal with individual tasks three times a week. Every Monday 12:00, every Wednesday 15:30 and every Saturday 11:00.
- I will write down the notes from the lessons every day
- I will read the notes from the lessons every day (so that I don’t have everything collected at the end)
Here we have sketched a plan with goals, the state one is supposed to be in, where one wants to get to and how. Targeting is not an easy task. This also needs a logic. Make your goals very specific (not eg I want to be a good student, but I want to get at least an 8) and realistic (not eg I want to lose 20 kg in a month, but I want to improve my physical condition).
If you have a deadline you want to meet, set realistic goals. Making promises to customers that you can’t keep will affect your bottom line. This not only affects your reputation, but also your customers. The only way is to set clear and achievable goals that can be achieved on time with the required accuracy.
- Analyze this customer’s past projects to get a better understanding of their ‘real goals’.
- Seek opinions from others.
- Discuss goals to set.
6. Follow the Pareto principle
Although many freelancers already follow this principle, it is worth mentioning. The Pareto principle establishes an 80/20 rule that you can use to make better use of their time without sacrificing quality at any stage of the project lifecycle.
- Spend 80% of your time on transformation activities and
- Only 20% on trades
- If you work according to this principle, 20% of your efforts can lead to even 80% of the results.
