Productivity Tips for Freelancers

Being your own boss is great. So is being able to choose your hours, when you get out of bed, and how many snacks you can eat at your desk. These are just a few of the joys you can have. However, productivity can take a little bit of a dip when surrounded by the pull of home comforts.

If you want some advice and tips on how you can become more productive and make the most of your work time – read on.

Turn Off Your Phone 

Just turn it off – or at least put it on silent. Our phones are one of the top distractions when we are trying to stay focused on our work. With the notifications constantly pinging away, friends sending you memes, and emails coming in every five minutes, it can be difficult to focus on a task that is put in front of you. Turning off your phone or your notifications can make staying focused a lot easier. This can be especially important if you have a fast-approaching deadline or have other things you need to be doing, as becoming distracted can add another 20 minutes to your deadline!

Get Out of Your House

The home is supposed to be a cozy, safe place. It is where we can enjoy time to ourselves with friends and family. This boundary can be particularly difficult to navigate if you have to work from home a lot of the time. Especially if you do not have the room to have a specifc space for your business, such as an office!

This can really dampen your productivity, especially if you feel like you should be doing other things around the house. Outsourcing a hot desk or a shared office accommodation can really help give you a space of your own where you go to just get on with whatever needs to be done. It is also much harder to procrastinate when you are paying for an office space. This is because that would be a waste of money and there is nothing around to distract you. Everyone else there has their own work they need to be doing, which creates the perfect productivity atmosphere. Just be sure to pick a great place such as thebrew.co.uk so you can have a great location with great benefits too.

Learn to Say No

When you are a freelancer, saying no can be difficult, whether this is because you might need whatever work is thrown your way because you do not want to disappoint anyone or let anyone down, that it might be a mistake to turn something down, or that you are worried if you say no it will affect your chances for future opportunities. Whatever your concerns are, as long as the bills can be paid, your mental health should come first. If you get a bad feeling about working with a particular client, say no. Or if you have a lot of stuff on your personal plate that is burning you out,say no. Even if you simply don’t think the offer is worth your time – it doesn’t matter. No means no, and you should get used to saying it for your wellbeing.