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Your efficiency as a freelancer can make or break you. Many times it can be hard to see how much more efficient you can actually be if you spend some time fine-tuning a couple of things. In this article we’ll have a look at some of my top tips on how you can give your efficiency a major boost. Let’s get started!
Picture by Patrick Hajzler
Some people tend to think that freelancing is a walk in the park. These usually don’t make it for long, basically because they’re wrong. Make sure to take your job 100% seriously and do your best when you’re working. The second you notice you’re not giving all you can, your efficiency has dropped a whole lot. So make sure to remind yourself of why you’re doing this and do your best to stay focused while at work.
Picture by Dominik Gwarek
Don’t allow yourself to be distracted. If you’ve made a plan for the day, stick to it as long as possible. Once you start doing other things than those you’ve planned, it’s easier to keep doing it. Before you know it, you haven’t done more than a fragment of what you were supposed to do that day. Planning is obviously worthless if you’re not sticking to it.
Taking smaller breaks during the day can be a hard thing to remember, but it’s very important. This will make you perform better through a long day. It’s also important to your overall health. So remember to take those breaks, preferably at least five minutes for every hour.
Picture by Faey Szeuw
Taking time off occasionally, will definitely make you more efficient when you’re supposed to be working. On one day off you’ll get your batteries charged and have a lot more energy when you’re back again. It can be hard to do this if you have a lot of ongoing projects, so try to include a day off or a vacation in your plans a couple of times yearly. It will do you good in many ways!
Read up on blogs and forums. What do others do? There are thousands of freelancers out there who all have had their share of challenges along the way. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, you can harvest a lot of valuable information that’s already out there. There are also lots of articles on efficiency and on how designers make their websites, logos, brochures and so on to try be more efficient.
Picture by Carlos Paes
Sometimes it will definitely pay off to upgrade your software a bit. Depending on what you’re designing there could be alternatives out there that do certain tasks a lot quicker than what you are doing today. Adding a plug-in for example, can boost your work-speed, the same goes for creating actions/macros for tasks that you spend a lot of time doing over and over.
It doesn’t help that you have the top of the line software if you’re using it the wrong way. Even though you may have spent years working with Photoshop, Illustrator or other programs, that doesn’t have to mean you’re effective. Remember to keep yourself updated regularly. I always give fellow designers the advice of checking out new tutorials on the software of choice and doing these. More often than not, you may discover new techniques and easier ways of doing things.
Picture by Dominik Gwarek
Reading up on blogs and websites related to your field will save you a lot of time when it comes to researching. By knowing trends, new technologies and so on – you will have to spend less time researching as you already have a good clue about what’s going on.
By setting very specific deadlines, most of us can be quicker and more focused in what we do. Not only should you do some planning, as mentioned earlier, you should also break it down into specific deadlines.
Picture by Michaela Kobyakov
Take the time to evaluate your projects. Make a list of what is working in order to hold on to those things, along with listing what doesn’t work in order to eliminate those elements in future projects.
There are probably many things you can do to boost your efficiency. Check out some of these tips to see if they can be helpful. There’s a good chance you will be surprised by how much more you can get done in the long run just from changing what could seem to be minor things.
Have any comments or suggestions to other tips? We would love to hear from you in the comments section!
Good luck!
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A girl with passion for design, photography, business planning, freelancing, inspirational art and Photoshop/Illustrator. She runs the website Designer77 and you can follow her on twitter here: @Hildy77
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 12:45
Great article. All freelancers must read it.
Sunday, August 1st, 2010 09:00
Woooow terrific article thanks Hilde Torbjornsen,
but please i have some questions to help me in working as a freelance ?
- If there is a specific planning app ?
- How can i get freelancers in specific field?
- Sometimes i didn’t getting serious with my client “my client can be Kin or friend” so how to take it seriously ?
- What do you mean by ” Even though you may have spent years working with Photoshop, Illustrator or other programs, that doesn’t have to mean you’re effective” i thinks there are most software’s designer must stick with it as “PS, Ai,….” !!!
- Ok I’m a web designer/developer and i want to know what type of add-ons that I need to install it to save my time?
I want to know answer of these questions,
Thanks a lot for your valuable article
Thursday, August 12th, 2010 00:31
1. OmniFocus, Things, Remember the milk, Nozbe and many many more
4. That means there are many ways to complete your work and its good to look for improvements
5. FireBug, Web Developer, CollorZilla and more depending on what you do and how you do it
Friday, August 13th, 2010 13:56
Thanks a lot @Krzysztof Kotlarski
Saturday, July 31st, 2010 09:32
A Very Very Nice article it helps me a lot…..
Thanx :)
Saturday, July 31st, 2010 01:31
Pretty complete entry, thank you for sharing!
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manuel
Saturday, July 31st, 2010 01:31
Pretty complete entry, thank you for sharing!
Maher
Sunday, August 1st, 2010 09:00
Woooow terrific article thanks Hilde Torbjornsen,
but please i have some questions to help me in working as a freelance ?
- If there is a specific planning app ?
- How can i get freelancers in specific field?
- Sometimes i didn’t getting serious with my client “my client can be Kin or friend” so how to take it seriously ?
- What do you mean by ” Even though you may have spent years working with Photoshop, Illustrator or other programs, that doesn’t have to mean you’re effective” i thinks there are most software’s designer must stick with it as “PS, Ai,….” !!!
- Ok I’m a web designer/developer and i want to know what type of add-ons that I need to install it to save my time?
I want to know answer of these questions,
Thanks a lot for your valuable article
Krzysztof Kotlarski
Thursday, August 12th, 2010 00:31
1. OmniFocus, Things, Remember the milk, Nozbe and many many more
4. That means there are many ways to complete your work and its good to look for improvements
5. FireBug, Web Developer, CollorZilla and more depending on what you do and how you do it
Maher
Friday, August 13th, 2010 13:56
Thanks a lot @Krzysztof Kotlarski
Vyom
Saturday, July 31st, 2010 09:32
A Very Very Nice article it helps me a lot…..
Thanx :)
Anuja
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 12:45
Great article. All freelancers must read it.
shilpa
Thursday, August 5th, 2010 19:09
really good article. Thank you for sharing.