Bad habits that interfere with our productivity in working from home as a freelancer, just interacting and walking with the current instead of proactive and taking the lead, but we can replace our bad habits with a good lifestyle that makes us effective and able to take charge of our own work specially if you work with remote jobs from home.
When you work it is important to look for increased productivity, make the most of your time and get the job done with the quality required, but the vast majority have difficulty concentrating while working in an environment full of distractions. "Use the morning to focus on yourself, and start your day peacefully by ignoring emails or by reading the news, having a good breakfast, meditating and exercising, that will ensure you have the fuel for an effective and productive day," says Productivity Expert Tony Wong. The important point is: start with the most urgent tasks while you are working at your full focus, i.e. peak personal productivity, and when it is.
Here are 7 ways to increase your productivity and make the most of your time as a freelancer:
Create an effective to-do list
Do you have an online account full of messages and emails? Devote half an hour a day to emails, once you check them you'll feel better and then be able to focus on the most important things to do, for example, if you're a freelancer graphic designer and have 10 designs, how many design can you make or edit daily while maintaining quality? Maybe not more than one and that's a bit good, just be honest with yourself and don't take more than 10 minutes to arrange your list and daily priorities.
Get rid of the distractions.
I'm one of the people who responds to emails and social media apps in a matter of minutes, because these notifications are always open in another tab and I can't control myself when I see that new magic notification, but once I realized how much it affected my focus and its enormous ability to distract me while designing, I only checked at breaks, which led to a greater focus on the task in my hands, and the tab's actions were not created for me. Social media at least not at work, as I turn off WiFi on my phone knowing that I will not be able to resist and will check my phone after a while, but at least dear reader turn off the sound and vibration as the beginning of the second level of focus and commitment.
Working from home means tracking your time.
There are some apps you can use for this purpose, but even the simple stopwatch on your phone will do the job, knowing how much time you spend on a task on your list will help you improve that list and make you more accurate in setting priorities, which doesn't mean that the goal of this procedure is to determine the time you spend on each task, but to know how long it takes to get the job done, tracking progress is an excellent way to keep your focus always present and organize your time at the right time. what you can for better productivity and quality.
Create a private workspace
It's very useful to have a place that connects you to work, it doesn't have to be an office, a room or any such luxury place. A comfortable corner in any corner prepared in a way that makes you more productive at home will be good and meet the desired goal, maybe you will put on the wall opposite you a calendar or, for example, motivational phrases and quotes scattered around you, it is entirely up to you, make sure you are comfortable and able to work in this environment and you will find yourself more diligent and productive immediately, It is also useful to inform others of this workspace so that they take into account that approaching it while working is forbidden, which helps reduce interruptions.
Explain everything to yourself.
It can be clear from the beginning, but you'll be surprised how many times we might misunderstand the customer's request and what they want and how much we have had to spend extra time to make everything as perfect as they want. graphic designers and the like are known to be more exposed to this problem than other freelancers or who work from home, where the client sometimes finds it difficult to explain his wishes in words, and this can also happen in the case of blogging, some customers do not have the clear way to communicate their instructions and request a reformulation of the project is very likely.
Everything above is normal every now and then but try to avoid it from the beginning by having a list of explanatory questions to ask the customer to avoid unnecessary confusion, so you can be sure that your business will not go to waste and that you are clear at least 95% in the customer's eyes.
You know to say "no."
Very important advice if you want to start working from home as a freelancer with good time management, accepting more job offers is very tempting even when your time is full, especially if the offer is interesting for a good wage. But watch out! Many freelancers fall into this trap by accepting many offers that carry them too much, affecting the quality of the project and therefore reputation, well! Think about it, it's very easy to do 3 or 4 tasks, but every new addition poses a risk of everyone's failure, and lower-value tasks mean dissatisfied customers, if you always remember your time and reject offers on that basis.
Take breaks
Reward yourself, check your to-do list and take a 15-minute break from your messages, phone and email, make sure you feel comfortable without reprimanding or feeling guilty about wasting time, and since marketing, design or any other free work is the product of long sitting, use those breaks and breaks to navigate and exercise because warmth and blood flow have a tremendous impact on focus and return enthusiasm, and to make working hours more enjoyable and orderly. I recommend taking a break of 15 to 30 minutes every two hours to maintain focus.
Although moving away from these rules is more tempting than adhering to them, I promise that using them will increase your productivity by at least 50%, stay strong and try to train yourself to adhere to a certain period and these rules will become a lifestyle that makes you a productive freelancer
