Freelancer’s month continues and this week we’re honored to have a guest post by fellow freelance writer and blogger Ada Igoe! Ada is a freelance writer based in northern Minnesota. She holds a B.A. in English and Communication from the College of St. Scholastica (Duluth, Minn.) and still believes in print media, writing primarily for magazines and newspapers. You can keep up with her freelance life on her blog: www.ofwoodsandwords.com
Are you a freelance professional who would like to contribute to Grad Meets World’s Freelancer’s Month? Feel free to shoot me an email abella [dot] amanda [at] gmail.com
6 Tips for Working From Home as a Freelancer
I’ve spent the majority of my life working in a home office. Ever since my parents started homeschooling my brother and I in late elementary school, I’ve been accustomed to spreading out the current project across my bed, plunking down with a laptop in random corners to type up a report (or these days, a freelance assignment) and adjusting my schedule around other obligations, even if it means working well into the evening. Even now that I work from home as an independent contractor and freelance writer, I still find it difficult to achieve the perfect balance of home and work life, but over the years I’ve learned a few techniques to increasing both productivity and happiness.Actually, that last thing, that lack of structure is probably the most obvious downside of working from home. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and when you work from home, you’re submerged in distractions. To squeeze the most out of a work from home set-up, you’ll need discipline, set boundaries and the ability to hold yourself accountable.Working form home has obvious advantages: no commute, no set hours, no dress code, no structure.
1. You Need A Weekend
Working from home is all about setting your own schedule. However, setting your own schedule is quite different than flying by the seat of your pants. Unless you tell your time how it’s going to get spent, you’ll find yourself wondering why X, Y, and Z didn’t get done.
Case in point: one semester in college I only had classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Yet somehow, every week, without fail, my Tuesdays and Thursdays ended up being my busiest days of the week. Lesson learned: if you have a completely free day, you will inevitably findmore ways than you can imagine to fill it. But what happens if you have seven days wide open each and every week? I have found, unless you have set days and off each week, you’ll end up filling your days with a hodgepodge of dental appointments, grocery trips, and other miscellaneous errands. Sure your days will be full, and full of legitimate things that did need to get done, but there’s one thing they won’t be full of: billable hours.
I set aside two days a week as my “weekend.” One day is devoted to errands and other out of the house tasks. The other is a free day. The days don’t need to be the same every week, nor do they need to be back to back, but you will want to know what days you plan to take off a couple weeks in advance so you can schedule non-work obligations on your weekend.
2. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Now that you’ve set your weekend up, let’s talk about the actual work week. Let’s say on the weekend you got a new _______ (insert your choice of vices: DVD, recipe, book, hobby . . .) and you’re dying to dive into it. Oh, it’s so tempting to spend some time with it now and get to work later.
But a day begun in procrastination always seems to end in procrastination, at least if you’re me. (I’m easily distracted.) To avoid the temptation of slacking first thing in the morning, I like to end each work day by making a list of two or, at the very most, three major work tasks that must be accomplished the next day. That way, when I wake up each morning, I know exactly what I should focus on. There’s no cut and dry rule that you must work eight hours every day and once you get those mandatory tasks done, you’re free to do whatever you like: bake a cake, watch a movie, you name it. However, just as procrastination seems to breed more procrastination, productivity seems to prompt more productivity and you may find yourself inspired to work even more once your major daily tasks are behind you.
3. Put Some Pants On
I know, I know. Isn’t one of the major perks of working from home being able to wear whatever the heck you feel like all day? But they say “dress to impress” for reason. Your appearance does affect your attitude. And if you’re anything like me, when you have your jammies or sweats on, your attitude is something like “let’s go surf blogs and Facebook and chillax.” I’ll admit, I do start my work day each morning blogging and I do it proudly in my pajamas while I eat breakfast. However, once the blogging’s done it’s time to hit the shower and go pull some real pants on. I feel better about myself, more confident about my abilities and find it boosts my productivity. Besides, it really makes for a much less awkward situation if someone unexpected comes to the door.
4. Dishes or Deadlines?
I have an acquaintance who jokingly refers to me as a “lady of leisure” because I work from home. My boyfriend recognizes that I work from home, but also anticipates a cleaner house and more home-cooked meals during the months I’m home all day. (I work out of the house seasonally.)
Although I do try to keep the house clean (mostly on my set days off), highest priority must always be placed on work that, you know, pays you. After all, you refer to yourself as a freelancer, not a homemaker. Never let anyone else’s (sometimes misguided) ideas of what you should be doing “with all that free time” influence how you spend your time. Dishes can always wait. The deadlines? Not so much.
5. To answer the phone or not to answer the phone . . . .
When you work from home, friends and family may take this as code for “I’m available all the time.” I have no caller id (landline in the land of no cell service), so I often end up talking to my mother at 10:30 on a random Tuesday morning for a half hour or having an hour-long conversation with a friend on Sunday mornings. These are people who’d never dream of calling me during work hours if I worked out of the house. While I’m happy to catch up, the truth is that each personal phone call I take interferes with my schedule and keeps me from actually accomplishing the day’s work. As a rule, take, and make, only work related phone calls while you’re working at the day’s major tasks. It’s an easy way to maintain control over your work life.
6. Be flexible
Rather than having a set weekly schedule (i.e. on Mondays I work on project X, blog, and market, on Tuesdays, I work on project Y . . . ), I find it works far better for me to figure out how many hours I should be devoting to each project and task each week. When and how I accomplish those hours of work is completely up to me.
I find this method of “scheduling” ensures no project is forgotten, while providing me with freedom to take on the unexpected. Be it a spontaneous day trip with friends or an exciting new freelance opportunity that you weren’t planning on, you’ll be able to say “yes”, because you’ll know just how to juggle your schedule. The new opportunity may mean some long hours during the week, but because you’ve done the hard part – figuring out what needs to get done – ahead of time, you won’t have the stress of worrying about dropping the ball on some project. And that freedom to do what you love while making a living is what working from home is all about.
