5 Tips to Add Hours to Your Day
For freelancers, there’s a direct correlation between how many hours you work and how much money you make. Increasing your income can be tough because there are only 24 hours in any given day and most of us have to do things like sleep and spend time with our family at some point. Even when we’re working, we have to spend hours on administrative tasks that we’re not actually getting paid for. There are a few ways to increase the number of hours you can devote to paying work — without cutting the number of hours you sleep each night. Some require a little up front investment of time, but a few extra hours can be worth it.
1. Establish a Process for Everything
For any given part of a project, there are certain things you have to do. You may need to email the client a couple of times for information or go looking for stock photography. Those steps can often be made more efficient, especially if you have a clear process in place. If you know that you’re going to need to send out certain emails, for instance, you can create templates, rather than re-writing each email from scratch. You may be able to tweak your processes a little when you pay closer attention to them. Perhaps you wind up getting 90 percent of your stock photos from just a handful of sites — it would make sense to always check those sites first.
2. Bring In an Assistant
If you can find someone to handle non-paying work for less than you earn for an hour’s worth of work, it makes financial sense to hand off certain tasks to an assistant — and if you look at the prices for virtual assistants in countries like India, you can find assistants for a tenth of your hourly rate. Invoicing, searching for stock photography, nagging clients about information — any task that isn’t actually creative work doesn’t have to be your problem, letting you spend more hours on paying work. Working with an assistant is much easier if you have clear steps for each process, letting you get the bonuses of both parts.
3. Hire a Pro
Assistants make financial sense because they cost less than you earn. Hiring a professional — who likely charges a rate more in line with yours — may seem less practical. But a pro can often handle certain tasks in significantly less time than it would take you. A good bookkeeper, for instance, can often get your accounting done in half the time it may take you, especially if you start out with a minimal background in accounting. The same can hold true for certain parts of freelancing projects. Maybe you’re working on a website design that requires a Flash animation. Bringing in someone to handle that animation can save you time that you can spend on other parts of the project.
4. Don’t Start From Scratch
For many projects, starting entirely from scratch each time just isn’t necessary. If you’re writing a report, you can have a templated outline in place. If you’re designing a website, you can bring in code snippets from past projects. The more groundwork you can have in place before you even start, the less time you need to spend on getting a project rolling.
5. Set Time Limits for Administrative Tasks
Many businesses spend half their time on administrative tasks that don’t bring in income. If you can impose limits on just how much time you’ll spend on things like invoicing, you can wind up with more time to spend on projects. It’s important to make sure those tasks get done, but it’s often easier to identify solutions that will help you make yourself more efficient if you know that you’re in a time crunch.
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I can definitely recommend hiring a pro (#3).
When I first started freelancing as a programmer I felt that I needed to do everything myself to save on costs and show my client how great I was. Hiring a pro (in my case, designers and other programmers) allows multiple tasks to run in parallel meaning that projects can be delivered much more quickly. Plus, the quality will be better and your network will grow – increasing the likelihood of repeat and reciprocal work.
The best way I can add hours to my day is to avoid the distractions of the Internet. I know this is more of a productivity issue, but it’s a huge issue for me.
A friend recommended a program for Macs called Freedom, which disables your network connection for a set period of time. You have to reboot your machine to end Freedom early. That’s a bit guilt-inducing. But this program is worth it – it’s free and the developer asks for a donation. I feel like I gain time when I use it.
Nice post. I really have to manage organize my day. Because I am a freelance designer who still goes to school and I do not want to disregard the school I do not have much free time…
I already do #4 Don’t start from scratch. (I use an app called “Code Collector Pro” that I keep all the bits of code that I use over and over again.) But I will think about the rest of this list and try to improve my ways. Thanks!
It’s a good idea to prepare templates for everything you do. I do a lot front-end development stuff. So, I have a simple CSS/HTML framework that allows me create different layouts in short time.
I’m currently working on ways to improve speed of projects, specifically related to (4) Don’t Start From Scratch.
I’ve created templates for web designs and also blank proposals, approvals, and other forms. Every minute here and there really adds up.
Great post!
Setting a time limit is definitely a good strategy. It helps ward off unnecessary extra activities and procrastination and keeps you focused on the task at hand. Keeping track of time makes you more aware of what you are actually accomplishing in a given amount of time.
Thanks for these great tips.
Yes, and another way is to raise rates… that often means less work for more pay… not always, but carefully done.
My favorite tech guy just let me know his rates are going up… the warning was nice and they aren’t going so high I won’t use him… but he’s going to make more money off the usually short jobs he does for me. If it works right he’ll be making more all around and spending about the same amount of time on his business.
I’ve been freelancing for a while and I can see some points against the above (don’t get me wrong I’m just creating discussion not saying it is wrong).
#1 I think “reducing redundancy” should be #2, #1 should be planning, know what your going to do before you do it.
#2 Should be combined with #3 I can’t believe you suggested India, I’ve outsourced to companies there the quality of work is less than what I’d expect from a co-op student. If your going to outsource get someone who is smarter than you. Your marketing is obviously better than the expert as your client is yours, charge a premium for knowing who is the best.
#4 this goes along with #1. I used to use CMS systems like Joomla, wordpress and Drupal. I found I was taking too much time customizing these CMSes when it turned out I was able to write my own faster. Frameworks make building your own custom applications fast and cheap. If you spend enough time planning you’ll know if the project should be created or existing.
#5 you should be charging time for Administrative tasks. If the customer needs an invoice (most likely for tax purposes) charge them for it. If they bug you ever 2 hours with stupid email questions, charge them for that too. We don’t live in a communist society so charge for everything.
Also don’t spend too little time on administrative tasks as you don’t want to screw up your taxes or get sued by someone.
Anyway Good start of an article, I wish freelance switches articles where longer and had more detail, would make them easier to discuss.
I think sometimes all that is need to gain a few extra hours within the day is to look at your processes and find those that can be automated, better organized or even eliminated.
You may find that you can consolidate many of the records that you keep in a simple excel spreadsheet or you may find that you could benefit from business productivity software to help manage tasks, customers, etc., more efficiently.
I agree with #4. Little things, such as having a premade template for photoshop or premade coding for creating the website, go a long way to saving time.
I always start a project with my default template in photoshop and a css framework I sometimes use.
“2. Bring In an Assistant”
That’s what keep my business still going. There are too many non-paying things that have to be done and I still have to have time for actual work.
My fiancee is helping me out A LOT – thanks to her my freelancing is still alive. Couldn’t do it without her, she’s a part of my business.
So if you find yourself without a time for non-paying work – bring some in. Can be your sister/brother, can be your boyfriend/girlfriend or your friend.
I can’t even tell you how much #5 has saved me time! I even tweeted about it one day in revelation (http://twitter.com/TangibleWords). I use my iPhone timer and keep myself to 15-30 minute tasks. I lose a lot of time when I don’t do it, too.
Thanks for the post, I found you via Twitter.
I love the idea of make everything a process.
I have been in the habit of screencasting my projects so at the completion I can break the process down into steps that can help me be even more efficient the next time.
But I have to say the biggest time saver is the “egg timer”. I break my daily tasks into either half hour increments or 1:30 hour increments, which has allowed me to push up to 5 projects forward while maintaining administrative tasks and marketing for my business.
The greatest benefit is that by dinner time I am done for the day leaving me more time to play with the kids…
woot woot
–
Thanks and Regards
Noel for Nopun.com
a graphic design studio
Ah, posts like this are just confirming what everybody else has been telling me, haha.
I often complain about how much time I spend discussing projects, writing proposals, marketing, etc. I love being a designer, but the business aspects certainly eat up a lot of time.
I’ve been thinking of hiring an intern, somebody that could actually learn something from my business, but at the same time help out with menial tasks that just murder me sometimes, haha. Anybody have any luck with that before?
Good points. The key is efficience.
Hire a pro. Hire a good bookkeeper.
I finally did this a year ago and can’t believe that it took me 10 years take this step. My bookkeeper has saved me money but more importantly he has saved me a lot of time and grief from having to do a lot of the accounting which I hate!
What about:
- dont multitask (because the switching from project to project takes time)
- stay focussed
- do the difficult things first
#2 Bring in an Assistant
I’m hearing great things about the trend to Virtual Assistants but haven’t taken the plunge myself. Will have to look at my processes and see what can be done.
Great stuff.
Very good advice thank you, but then we are often our own worst enemy by ignoring good advice. Somehow we have this notion that these ideas are great for others but for some reason or another “we are unique” our issues are different “special” and “we are already doing the best we can”.
“Bumkis” is all I say. There is one key that holds this all together – Self discipline – “The ability to do what needs to be done, at the time that it needs to be done, whether you like to do it or not”
However this only works when we know what we are trying to achieve – I have a simple sign on the wall that says “Is what I am doing or about to do getting us closer to our objectives” – It begs the question as to what the objectives are.
Only once we have a handle on our objectives and we are applying some self discipline can we get on with the next steps – Getting organized ( reduce chaos ) Planning, effective execution and reviewing progress ( measure ).
The real challenge is to use the good advice, such as offered here, and that will not happen unless we get organized first.
Hope that helps and rings a few bells, but remember – keep it simple.
If i could add a couple of things.
Automating as many tasks as possible is also a great way to free up time and lower anxiety.
An invoicing system that takes care of who, when and what to invoice, tracks any issues, can reduce a lot of stress – you only here about an issue when it IS an issue. Then you can take an appropriate action.
Having a decent project tracking solution that the client has access to can also reduce the amount of talk time and client hand holding. If it has time tracking as well, then the client has an idea of how long particular tasks take. It give them a healthy respect for how complex the project is and where the finish line is.
And a healthy sense of humour, often overlooked but we all work better when we can see the lighter side of working life.
I find project management / task software is really helpful for me, especially the things to do list functionality. At the end of each day make sure you right down what you need to do the next day as it will take you a while to remember in the morning and you might forget something.