As a freelancer how do you plan your day?

Working from home is a gift. You set your own hours in the comfort of your own office, with an endless supply of coffee at hand. Yet, one fault I often hear people talking about is self discipline or their lack of!

How do you keep yourself motivated and organised when you are your own boss? I would love to know your opinions!

 

as i am in this business (freelancing) since 2009 and earning a handsome income through it.
i am a man who loves to work only for hourly jobs.
when i see i am getting some thing with each minute and hours , this sense gives me motivation to do more and more.

 

Thank you for your reply Dean
I can appreciate that completely! Working hour by hour knowing how much you are earning is definitely a real motivator!

Do you find that you are able to just keep working when you feel motivated by the money? Sometimes I can see myself working well into the early hours of the morning!!!

 

yes , i starts my work near about 6 O'clock early in the morning.
after 3 hours of work i used to do breakfast, then starts my work when ever i like during the whole day.

 

That sounds very organised! I start at 6 too! I love working early in the morning as I get so much done!

 

I normally arise at 6:30 a.m. By 7:00 I am checking my e-mails, phone messages and faxes. I spend about 10-15 minutes or so on DP also.
Then my staff arrives at my home at 8:30 a.m. and we get to work. I usually leave my home in the late morning around 10:30 to interact with clients who pass through and to purchase whatever we may need. I prefer to meet them at cafes or restaurants as opposed to my home.
Then by 1 p.m. it's back to my place, and work until about 8-9 p.m. (staff goes home at 5 p.m.) This is 7 days a week for me, 5 for my staff. (2 people) I also have co-workers online who help me, and they are readily available almost 24/7.

 

You're a very busy lady spoilt diva! I love starting early as you gain so much more time and I work better!

I am very much the same when I comes to my clients, I generally meet them in coffee shops and I think it make them more comfortable! I spend alot of my time making sure my clients are happy And that's the part I enjoy most!
Thank you for your input!! Great to hear your views!!

 

For my time as a freelancer, I find it essential to have a plan for the week. Covering all the projects and the timeline of the days. Too often people intrude on my time because they don't think I have a real job. Keeping hours, just like at a job seems to stop this focus as time is valuable when work is waiting!

 

DeedeeinLA, I know where you are coming from! The amount of times people have expected me to stop working because I don't have a 'real' job to tend to their needs!

It can be frustrating so planning ahead is so important! thank you for your input!!

 

I will be principled, although I became a boss to yourself, I will keep trying to work hard.

 

I think this is a valuable concern for all the freelancers, thanks for this thread. It will be a great help to all of them who are a part of freelancing.. Time management is one of the biggest issue for them (including me ).
For me as a freelancer at SEOClerks, I use to wake up early in the morning and start my projects.

 

Working as a freelancer can be really hard sometimes. However, I'm freelancing for more than 10 years so I can't complain really.

I believe the key is the good organization through the day. If you separate only 30 minutes every morning on organization, you would be lot more productive and have more time for everything you do. You can use those 30 minutes to drink coffee, tea, eat breakfast while you are also making plan for the day.

You also need to get enough sleep if you think to survive each day. If I don't sleep at least 8 hours, I will do everything lot worse and I will be really nervous and that leads to even more problems. While it seems that every night I'd like to work more, I know I will be less productive next day. That is the reason why I'm always at bed at 10 pm and rising every morning at 6am.

 

This is a great and important Topic!

Organization and Self-Discipline are Crucial to the success of your Business Online!

If you lack organization and self-discipline then you are going to struggle A LOT when building a successful business online.

The same would be when building a successful blog online. I'm a full time blogger and I had many bad experiences in the past all because of lack of self-discipline and organization with my online work.

I failed many times because of that lack of self-discipline but then I just started changing my mindset by learning more valuable knowledge on how to accomplish success as fast as possible.

To solve my problem here...

...what I did was come up with a Work-from-Home Schedule and a Productive Tasks List. I also took a time to count the hours a day, a week, a month and a year, I wanted to work on my business online. So I simply broke all my working hours down to have a better look at how much work I was putting in.

The bottom line here is that you need to take your own online business as a REAL JOB. Otherwise you will not accomplish much. You need to become your own BOSS foreal!! ..

You need to understand what a Boss is for first!

A Boss will come up with your weekly or daily work schedule you need to follow and be responsible for. So create a work-from-home schedule you can follow.

I also came up with a Table Chart List of the Productive Tasks I need to get done to increase the traffic to my sites. So all I do when I work online is see what I can do for the day within my work-from-home scheduled time.

I pretty much take this as a Real Job. I have a Time to Punch in and a Time to Punch out. I have days off and I never work weekends.

The only thing for me here though, is the fact that I love what I do online and it is hard to not work on my days off lol

But anyways... this is my best advice and what I actually do to take one more step closer to my goals in life!

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

 

It is hard at first to get started as a freelancer as family and friends think you are available for them - you need to explain to them that you are starting a career as an entrepreneur and it is to be treated as a regular "JOB" - You also need a plan with specific goals - short term (day by day) and long term as to where you want to be check out my site for some valuable info (some free some you need to buy)
http://www.discount-ebook-s.com/

 

I keep my workplace very very clean, quiet. I turn off my phone and all social media. I set blocks of time on timer for 1:30 minutes and work non-stop until I complete 1 task at a time.

I plan everyday in advance and never do something that came up the same day. This is KEY!

 

Yes really working from home is really a gift to me. I start my day with thinking what I have to do whole day. Then I start working according to it and try to get good results all the time.

 

For me this is also the biggest problem as it is so easy to be distracted at home. I managed to discipline myself better by separating my room to my office to ensure I have different spaces for different things. I also usually set a schedule of something like an hour and a half on, half hour off, hour and a half on etc. This would work well with me and would allow me to get the maximum amount of work done as I possibly could do at home.

 

My day is preplanned to accomplish certain tasks I find that I am more productive in the morning - Therefore I do my editing and writing at that time - Afternoons are my off peak times - I then take of the mundane task like filing file organization and general clean ups. The evening hours I get the second wind and I do my editing of web pages - Pdfing of documents - designing graphics for the books etc
Each person has different peak and off times it is important to know yours then set up a daily plan to accomplish the tasks and set goals both short and long term

 

wake up early. write for my blog www.rareinput.com, take my dslr and go for early morning photography.. go to gym..workout...sleep...write blog

 

The most important thing is to figure out your "Why". To sit down and say: "Ok, I want to make alot of money" is the surefire way not to make any money.

"Begin with the end in mind" - Covey

Figure out what your all important reason for your life is (destiny) and go after it!