Your Own Boss: How to Plan Your Working Time as a Freelancer

Missing deadlines?

More and more people are leaving offices and starting to work either remotely or as freelancers. But organizing your working time on your own is a serious and difficult task. From the outside it may seem that nothing could be simpler, yet many freelancers suffer from low productivity and missed deadlines. That is, until they find the ideal way to structure their work tasks. 

On how to plan working and personal time as a freelancer, which apps to use, and where to find work at all:

• Determine your working hours 

You need to understand how many hours a day you can devote to work — this will make it easier for you to plan your work, your rest and your personal affairs. You do not have to set the same number of hours for every working day. Today you may devote three hours to work, and tomorrow ten. The main thing is that you do the work comfortably for yourself and at a high standard for your employer.  

It is also important to understand when your most productive time for work is, so you can use it as efficiently as possible. Some people prefer to work from early morning, while others like to work at night. The main thing is for you to decide for yourself when it is best to start working.  

• Make a to-do list for the day 

Either in the morning or the evening before, but you must make a to-do list for the day. First, it will be your roadmap, showing clearly how much work you have already completed and how much is left. Besides, you will not waste time wondering what to tackle next. 

Second, the human brain is wired so that it enjoys crossing completed tasks off a list. A special kind of pleasure is seeing all your planned tasks completed at the end of the working day. Just remember to assess your strength and capabilities realistically and not to overload your plan with too many items.   

Moreover, it is extremely important to always keep your daily schedule at hand. It does not matter what exactly it is: a notebook open on the desk, a tab with a Google document, or a time-planning app (more on these below). 

• Divide the day into blocks 

It is important to understand when you do your most important, demanding and urgent tasks, when you rest, and when there is time for correspondence with clients and customers. 

For example, first set aside three to four hours for the main and urgent tasks. After that, be sure to take a one- to two-hour break. Then set aside another couple of hours for work, followed by a break and then work again.  

It is important for everyone to personally adjust this schedule to suit themselves. Start from your own timetable, your most productive time (which should be reserved for the most complex tasks), and your goals for the day. 

Apps for freelancers 

Rescue Time. The app helps you use your time as efficiently as possible. Every week it sends a report showing the time-wasting tasks that limit productivity and eat up your time.  

Pocket. The app helps you keep all your important saved links in one place. You can organize them by topic, date and source. Thanks to it, you can always quickly find the texts and publications you need. 

Evernote. The app lets users record their ideas and thoughts in various ways, from notes to images. It also makes it possible to capture important information during meetings and then use it in future work. 

Todoist. The app can be used to create and manage lists, set task reminders and monitor your productivity.

Trello. A tool that helps you easily sort and filter the tasks needed to complete a job. You can create boards for each of your projects and share them with colleagues if any of them involves teamwork.  

Dropbox. Perhaps the best service for storing and sharing documents. It allows you to store about two gigabytes of files in the cloud for free. You can also always buy additional storage. The service also syncs all your devices, so you can access files from both a laptop and a smartphone. Moreover, it gives offline access to files.

PublBox. An app for effectively organizing work on social networks. It lets you create different strategies for managing your accounts. The program also has a content navigator that allows you to create content plans for specific communication tasks. 

Resources for finding work 

Upwork. An ideal resource if you want to work with foreign clients. Its total number of clients reaches 2 million. Here you can find long-term and short-term projects for specialists in various fields, from programmers to copywriters. 

Zaichenko Team. A Telegram channel that posts a large number of different job vacancies, some of which are suitable for remote work. 

Kreziume. Vacancies in creative industries. 

you can know more. Another channel with vacancies for creative industries. 

Robota. Digital. A channel that publishes dozens of vacancies in the digital sphere every day.