As a freelancer, a comprehensive freelance platform can help you work smarter, become more efficient and achieve your ideal work-life-balance.
By using tools that allow you to work more seamlessly, you’ll save both time and money by streamlining your workflow, not to mention alleviate some stress from your life.
However, when you’re your own boss, it can be hard to tell whether you haven’t implemented the right tools yet in your business, or if you’ve simply taken on too much. If it’s the latter, it doesn’t matter if you have the best freelancer tools in the world, there simply isn’t enough time or YOU to get the work done.
Here’s how to tell the difference.
1. You’re Experiencing Signs of Insomnia
If you’re lying awake in bed every night stressing over your to-do list when you should be sleeping, you may need to rethink the amount that you’re working (in addition to implementing a freelance platform to help you manage those tasks).
Although being a business owner will require some late nights and early mornings, your work should never prevent you from getting an adequate amount of sleep.
Consider some of the questions below to help put your sleep situation in perspective:
- How many hours of sleep feels good to you per night? How many hours are you getting currently?
- What specifically is preventing you from sleeping at night? A feeling of being overwhelmed? Or actual work production?
- What steps could you take to feel like you were able to sleep better? For example, delegating some of your work, or exercising more to burn energy?
Sleep allows your body to work on important processes like brain function and oxygen flow throughout your blood. A study by the NCBI proved that when subjects experienced 17 to 19 hours without sleep, performance on some of the tests was equivalent or worse than that of a BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration) of 0.05%.
So, your lack of sleep is only adding to your inability to do quality work.
2. You’re Consistently Waking Up Tired
Waking up tired can feel as lousy as not sleeping at all.
Chances are, if you’re exhausted each morning, your sleep is being seriously interrupted throughout the night. As we just outlined, there are very few things more important than consistent, quality sleep for your body, both physically and mentally.
So, it’s important to identify the cause of your exhaustion so you’re able to come up with a solution. We offer some insight into how implementing a freelance platform and freelance tools can make life easier, too, in the next section of this article.
Is your phone waking you up throughout the night due to email alerts, text messages or phone calls regarding work?
If so, consider turning on the “Do Not Disturb” option and allowing yourself to truly unplug at night. Better yet, leave your phone outside of your bedroom while you sleep and consider using an old-school alarm clock again to ensure you’re not woken up.
Are you guilty of obsessively checking your phone or freelance platform app before bed or as you wake up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night?
This is such an easy habit to fall into, but every time you reach for your phone and your screen lights up your bedroom, you’re making it harder for your body to fall back to sleep again.
Not to mention the fact that you are turning your brain “on” to work when you should be focused on resting.
Are you going to bed at inconsistent hours throughout the week due to your crazy work schedule?
This can take a toll on your body, too. Try to maintain a consistent bedtime as much as possible throughout the week and weekend.
3. You’re Checking Email Way Too Many Times Per Day
I’m totally guilty of this one, as are most people who work for themselves, so you’re not alone.
Chances are you don’t even realize how many times per day you’re obsessively checking your work email and other freelance tools.
On average, people check their emails at least 80 times per day, or once every 12 minutes. That number may seem alarming, but as a freelancer, you may be (read: probably are) checking it even more frequently than that.
Like all habits, making small, consistent changes every day will allow you to cut back on the times per day you’re this.
- Consider installing apps like Be Focused or Forest to help you stay on task throughout the day and put your phone down when you’re trying to execute something that requires your full attention. A great freelance platform will also offer time tracking functionality to help you here, too.
- Come up with an amount per day that feels reasonable in terms of checking your email and make a point to stick to it. Even if that means going from every 5-10 minutes to every 15 minutes at first. It isn’t about neglecting your inbox but finding a balance between compulsively checking your email when it’s unnecessary.
- Give yourself a reasonable amount of time to respond back to clients- it doesn’t have to be instantaneously every time someone contacts you. Perhaps you aim to respond to someone within 30-45 minutes or even by the end of the day, assuming the issue isn’t urgent.
4. You’ve Kicked Your Leisure Routine to the Curb
Whether you’re an exercise enthusiast, a poker player or an avid dog walker, it’s important to have interests and hobbies outside of your work.
If you’ve noticed you’ve been giving up on a lot of the things you used to do for fun because you’re so bogged down with work, that’s a red flag. Peel yourself away from your email and freelance platform and try some of these tips:
- Make a point to set aside at least an hour of your day to do something you love outside of work. It can be as simple as reading a book or sitting outside and getting fresh air.
- Commit to unplugging from work during certain times of the day. Whether that’s first thing in the morning, or right before bed is up to you.
- Learn how to recognize when you begin to give up the activities you used to love because you’re feeling overwhelmed with everything on your plate. The sooner you recognize you’re repeating those habits, the easier it will be to come up with a game plan to find that work-life balance again.
4 Tips for Better Managing Your Workload
Now, let’s explore some of our favorite productivity hacks and freelance tools to help you become more efficient and less stressed throughout your workday:
1. Track Your Time Throughout the Workday
Track your time throughout your workday. We cannot stress the importance of time tracking enough.
Do you know where your hours are being spent? In meetings? At business functions and events? On clerical work that could be easily outsourced?
Quit the guessing game and find out for sure and you’ll begin seeing a serious improvement in your work efficiencies. Make sure the freelance platform you’re using offers this functionality!
2. Rethink Your Client Contracts to Better Fit Your Schedule
The beauty of taking on freelance jobs is that you can make your business work in whatever ways feel right for you. This means determining when and how you deliver work to your clients, the freelance tools you use, the schedule that you keep and how you structure your contracts.
To lessen overwhelm, consider signing long-term contracts that help ensure work instead of overloading on short-term commitments without knowing when your next project comes in. By creating client agreements that span 6 months to a year, versus month-to-month, you can relax knowing you’ll have steady work on the books.
3. Hire a Virtual Assistant to Help with Admin Work
A lot of newer freelancers make the mistake of trying to do everything themselves.
This is a surefire way to lead to burn out over time.
Today there are endless apps, online freelance tools, systems and freelance platforms that allow you to outsource the things in your business that you don’t love doing, or simply don’t have time to execute.
Consider exploring UpWork or Fiverr to see some of the types of administrative tasks you could have someone handle in your freelancing gig for you, part-time (and perhaps eventually full time). From setting up client meetings to transcribing your recent podcast, these sites allow you to partner with other freelancers seamlessly.
4. Consider Raising Your Rates and Taking on Fewer Clients
One of the best things I did in my business was consistently raising my freelance rates over time.
This allowed me to keep fewer clients and focus on the clients I really loved working with while maintaining the same income. Fewer clients means devoting more of your attention to each project, less overwhelm trying to keep business, contacts and contracts straight and potentially more freedom in your schedule.
Consider a Better Freelance Platform to Lessen Overwhelm in your Business
Implementing a freelance platform like Spera allows you to streamline your business processes, keep important client information straight and grasp a better handle on your projects.
Being a business owner can feel challenging enough on its own; after all, you’re the sales department, receptionist, CEO, the client manager and many, many others, all on your own. Lessen some of the overwhelm by applying smarter freelance tools within your company.
