I’m going to explain how to make the most out of your precious freelance time and organize your day so that you are ready to cut down your work hours and increase business, whether it be illustration, graphic design or a boutique Irish gluten-free cake photography studio. Yes, they do exist. To make it easier for you to read, here are 21 super helpful tips to increase your effectiveness at work so you can get back to the kids or go surf that wave at the beach.
1. Get Rid Of Distractions.
Eliminate all social media and distractions such as instagram, facebook and ridiculous websites that distract you. I mean it!
2. Do The Dirty Work First.
Get all of your chores out of the way BEFORE you start work on your freelance jobs or studio jobs. Pay those bills, finish those calls, and clean your kitchen so that you don’t have any worries in the back of your mind.
3. Be Positive, Stay Positive.
Make sure you have a proactive attitude. Wearing nice clothes, brushing your teeth and making sure you are at your peak has been proven to help your mood and increase productivity significantly. I’m a doctor, trust me. (I’m not really a doctor.)
4. Plan Those Goals!
Make sure you have a list of particular weekly jobs that you need done and write them down on a god-damn bit of paper. I write my tasks down on my computer with a highly technical program called Notepad and usually save them to the desktop.
5. Don’t Forget To Plan Your Daily Goals Too.
Simple things like prioritizing larger projects can help relieve stress and get you on track to conquer the day, it also programs your mind to think in a calculated way which helps to declutter your brain.
6. Have The End-game In Mind.
Be clear with what you want to achieve through your daily and weekly goals, why you want more followers on instagram, facebook etc – to sell services or products of course!
7. Coffee, Coffee, Coffee.
Start the day with a favourite drink or snack to release positive chemicals in the ol’ brain and keep your mood productive. Be sure you have some snacks handy in your studio for when you need a quick 2 minute brainstorm session.
8. Slow Down And Think.
A lot of successful entrepreneurs and business people chalk their success down to stopping for 20 minutes and thinking in complete silence. It’s amazing how your brain can recharge and come up with ideas that you can then act upon. Think of it like a disk defrag on your computer.
9. Laziness Is The Devil.
Exorcise that demon and pump yourself up with your favourite music or inspirational video. Just make sure it doesn’t take too much time as that can then lead to more laziness – make sure you act on what you say you will do. Try to follow through with everything you say you will do by actually doing it as people around you will respect you more and you will start to see doors opening faster than you can say ‘hey that door just opened’.
10. If There Is A Problem, Find The Solution.
Slow internet? Upgrade. Writers block? Hire someone to write content. Need to learn something? Find a course. Always make sure you tie up any loose ends that seem to keep coming back at you.
11. Everything In Moderation.
Work hard, play hard. Seperate your social life with your business life, don’t feel guilty by going out with friends as long as you have done your work or know that your optimal working condition is at 2am on friday night. Be sure to schedule in the things that matter like quality time with family as you’ll be surprised at how efficient you can be in a short amount of time, and a break actually enables you to clear your mind on a task and come back to it with twice the vigour!
12. Networking Is Essential.
You’d be surprised how many people you actually know that might need your services – reach out to friends on facebook and ask if they know any events coming up or people that could set up a meeting with. Friends are the first point of contact. Go to events and speak for free, as work comes out of this and people like to hire people they know or have seen in person, it’s a trust thing.
13. Read Relentlessly.
Stay up to date with the latest art trends and blogs (like this one). You can sign up to receive each new post in your inbox which can help with being time efficient – the articles come to you!
14. Destroy Television.
It’s such an archaic and outdated medium to be entertained by, where you have to run your life by the TV schedule and sit through ads. Add up all the time spent sitting on the lounge watching a commercial for useless back scratchers. If you love TV, try on-demand services like netflix where you can choose what you want, when you want. Do try to cut down on it though, but a little is fine. Remember, everything in moderation.
15. Clean Yo’ Space Bro!
Make sure your work station or studio is properly packed up and clean, ready for the next day of work! It’s always nice to start the day in a clean environment and is a reflection on how organized you are. Get those coffee mugs out and put those brushes where they’re supposed to go.
16. IT’S NOT A RACE!
Remember that the speed at which you are going towards your goal does not matter – the fact that you are headed there in the first place is enough, and by taking small steps each day you will get to your end goal with hard work and determination. Take inspiration from other successful artists and business people, but do not compare yourself to them as you will get there, don’t stress about it happening overnight.
17. CTF (Supportive Friends Network.)
Keep your supportive friends around you and cut out the negative people from your life. Having a network of awesome friends or like-minded people can really help you pursue your goal and get creatively funky with art and life in general. If you don’t have too many friends, an art community online is a fantastic way of getting this support and there are literally thousands of these sites out there, just google art communities or forums.
18. Keep a Positive Attitude.
It’s amazing how we can change a bad situation into a positive situation just by keeping your mood happy. Sure, it’s hard to stay positive all the time but atleast keeping that thought in the back of your head can help you through what would have been some tricky situations had you been a sour-puss.
19. Social Media For Business.
Use social media to promote your content as much as possible. I used to hate social media for business but it is absolutely essential and you can reach so many people it’s quite amazing.
20. Find what you love doing and follow that niche.
If you like painting portraits or drawing dogs, don’t stress out designing websites or logos if it stresses you out. It’s great to try new things but don’t worry about it if it’s too much to handle, you don’t have to be a jack-of-all trades, be a master at one.
21. I’ll Scratch Your Back, You Scratch Mine.
Share your creative friends’ work with your own audience and get them to share yours with theirs. This can help cut down some time you would spend trying to market to audiences that don’t fully understand your work, it’s a great way to get work out there and new clients in.
Well that’s it folks. these 21 tips have been a blast to write as I’m actually going to use them as a cheat sheet to go back to so that I help reduce stress in my own environment when I’m working! If you have enjoyed the article please share and subscribe to the RSS feed to receive more helpful tips and articles. Share this article below.
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