First, let me share a little secret with you.  I am a master procrastinator.  I always manage to get the job done, and often to the best of my abilities, but if I don’t have that looming deadline, sometimes time slips through my fingers.  I blame YouTube, Twitter, FreelanceSwitch, WorkAwesome, and lifehacker.  If it weren’t for them, I’d be massively productive whenever I sit in front of the computer.

As I started to get more clients, I realized that I needed a task manager to help me stay on top of the various projects.  After trying a few of the free or freemium options, I opted to take the plunge and pay the annual fee for Toodledo. Continue Reading

Creative freelancers suffer from a peculiar form of procrastination. For lack of a better name, I’ll call it the “I must get all of my ducks in a row before I start promoting my business” syndrome.

We all know people who’ve spent weeks and months perfecting their marketing materials, searching for the right office space, poring over purchases large and small, while all sorts of business opportunities are flying by.

The solution is to become like Jim Koch, founder of the Boston Beer Company. Shortly after the company started, Koch was talking with a wealthy relative who also was one of his investors. Koch was waxing ecstatic about the computer system that would track the company’s sales. The relative stopped him short with a simple question: Do you have any sales yet?

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Photo by Kekka.

“I want you to feel like you’re going to die.”

That’s what the woman on my TV tells me every single day. Then again, I’m the one who’s putting her there.

It’s my workout DVD, and the scary yelly woman puts her hands on her hips and hollers at me to jump and kick and push and crunch and I cannot believe I paid eleven dollars for this.

As a freelance writer, this is often the beginning and the end of my physical movement for the day. Sometimes there is trudging up and down the stairs for water or gum or alcohol or other major sources of sustenance; sometimes I actually exit the house. But mostly, it’s me and Yelly.

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Photo by karindalziel.

You’ve surely heard the term GTD, aka Getting Things Done, coined by David Allen and spawning many dozens of desktop and web applications, not to mention some popular GTD websites. Some freelancers read or scan them religiously.

Personally, I can’t even get through the principles of GTD, let alone apply them. It seems like a ridiculously complex approach for something that could be so much simpler.

I’m not the first to say it, but I feel that GTD is too structured and too restrictive. For example: six levels of focus?! (Even this one-page short version of GTD seems too complex.) Consider that if you’re not getting something done, it’s probably due to one or more of the following reasons:

1. Wanting to over-deliver and give clients a 110% effort and not knowing where to start.
2. Feeling restricted from too much structured planning.
3. Feeling overwhelmed from lack of any planning.
4. Overbooking on client projects.
5. Not really wanting to do it.
6. Poor health, or personal/family distractions.

Out of these reasons, #6 is something that you’ll have to solve separately, and #4-5 are solved by saying “no”. Reasons #1-3 are the ones to watch for: these probably cause most procrastination because you don’t know how to start. These are resolved by taking a simpler starting approach: GTS. Continue Reading

Photo by BrianFit.

Whether you freelance or not, if you’re like many working adults, you probably find yourself wishing there was more time in the week. If you work at home, time has an unusual way of slipping by. (I’m probably less productive now than when I worked in an office somewhere, though there are several other factors at play.) At the end of the week, you might be wondering why you didn’t get more work done, as might your clients!

Recognizing Your Work Demons

With all the web technologies out there, it’s tough for web workers in particular to keep up, and sometimes bad online habits can become very addictive. These could be some of the things that are holding you back from freelance success. Continue Reading