Boost productivity as a freelancer in 4 easy steps

You need to boost productivity as a freelancer in order to make the most of your time and skills.

Being productive is paramount, though it’s not just about checking boxes off your to-do- list , getting the right tasks done correctly and in the right time frame.

The most important part of being productive is having an orderly planned system of work that fits you as an online worker and as a person. In this article, we’ll take you through 4 easy steps you need to improve your work output.

1. Have a goal

Establish a useful goal; be true to what you want as the outcome or what is expected from a specific project and note down the things you need to do to get desired results. A goal is the more straightforward definition of end product or results, and every goal has a desired outcome.

For instance, your project assigned is “write a monthly blog,” list it down noting all segments to undertake. Here’s the arrangement.

 Project assigned

Write a monthly blog

 Goal

To keep our readers informed of the new trends and tools in online work that they can take advantage of and implement in their daily online work.

Once you have a goal, it’s essential to have a purpose statement behind it.  A purpose statement is a reason why you are doing the project and will help you stay focused on the plan.

Mission Statement / Purpose Statement will look something like this-

I intend to educate online workers by creating a monthly blog post on new trends, tricks, innovations, and tools that they can implement in their daily works. These tools can be used by both beginners and experts to start, improve and ease working online. Doing so motivates me knowing that am helping another operative and it also increases traffic to my blog.

After your mission statement, brainstorm on all the things you will need to do in achieving your goal and create a to-do-list for all the tasks.

Tasks to undertake

• Read other blogs for inspiration
• Research authority sites for new tools available in online work
• Write down research results explaining how it works, benefits and uses.
• Edit and proofread
• Publish

We are doing great! The second step to boost productivity as a freelancer is prioritization

2. Prioritize the tasks to achieve this goal

The to-do-list contains all the works involved, but you need to decide which ones you can do quickly? Need help? Or which ones are most important. One method of weighing the tasks is creating a priority table by thinking through the work and its needs.

Exercising a bit of self-discipline is necessary in order to boost productivity as a freelancer.

Note: To realize a goal you will need to accept that sometimes you may need help from others

The table highlights the priority of tasks, their difficulty level in a span of 1-10 most difficult and whether you will need help with some.

Next is step is motivation,

3. Push yourself to complete these tasks

Having your goal ready and everything to be done isn’t enough. To completely boost your productivity as a freelancer, you have to start doing them but for some of us lay procrastination. Convincing oneself that you are already set which is right yet you haven’t started.

We have to admit the far you have got is commendable but there is work at hand waiting to be done, and as humans, it’s not easy to push yourself to do things that are hard or seem difficult like work.

You are not alone, personally am not a morning person, the thought of getting out of bed makes me sick. So to help motivate my self and get out of bed, I found a trick that has worked miracles for me since. Believe it, I get up at 5.30 am without trouble and get my jobs done always with this technique from Mel Robins a renowned author and motivation speaker, I’m a fan by the way!

She Shows us her “5second rule” technique that helps you to trigger your prefrontal cortex part of the brain and distract the routine behaviours of the mind to push you to start doing something. It’s implemented by counting the numbers backwards 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Go! Counting numbers back actually help improve focus, precisely what you need to start your project, assignment or work.  The 5-second rule is the bridge between knowing what you need to do and start doing it.

You may try the “5 second rule” and observe how it goes.

 4. Time management

Time is an essential aspect of management. A goal must have a timeline, a duration to which it should be complete.

Ensure all task on your to-do list as prioritized have time to complete. Depending on difficulty allocate timelines like 1 hour for research with breaks to avoid burn out or lack of concentration. If you follow through religiously in an hour, you will have a list of possible information to use in your newsletter! Be keen on how much time to spend doing certain tasks and if possible increase your speed to enable accomplishment of more work.

Please note: If goals you aim to achieve are much more significant, its advisable to break them into small bite size, and use the above instructions to achieve the ultimate results