I think we all agree, that one of the most hardest things to overcome during your freelancing career is procrastination. It can literally kill off your business, and we all suffer from some level of it (unless you’re a super freelancer, that is). There are times where we’ll delay a task by a matter of hours, and sometimes even days, and that’s when we’re really pushing it. As a freelancer, our living is obtained through getting referrals from clients, and if you don’t deliver work on time, you’re probably not going to get recommended.

So, how do we get rid of the dreaded procrastination? Here are a few tips and a bit of advice for you to consider.

Work and Play

There needs to be a clear divide between work and play. Without this, it’s very easy to blur the line between the two and start wasting time throughout the day especially when a lot of us use our home computer as our main workstation. Try to get a home office separate from the rest of the house, some very typical places are renovated garages, or conservatories – even an attic would do.

A divide between work and play also involves timing. I know one of the main reasons people go into freelancing is because they have the flexibility of working whenever they like, but this can backfire though, and make you end up having to play catchup during the early hours of the morning. Instead, do set a time schedule for work (obviously including a good level of breaks) to make sure you get a satisfactory level of work done everyday. Also, try to create a schedule that leaves the Sunday free, you need time off, and too many freelancers just end up “working” everyday, not getting much done each day and then have to spend their Sunday’s working too.

To-do List

Yes, every other article on how to kill procrastination features the almighty to-do list, but it’s mentioned for a reason – it works! To-do lists are great way to help your brain focus on what’s important. Even if you know what you’re doing during the day, the visual aspect of looking at the list to remind and reinforce what needs to be really helps a lot. Prioritizing your list is also crucial so you get the most important stuff done first. A good practice is to write up a quick to-do list in the morning. What I personally do is write up a to-do list when I wake up, then go wash up, have breakfast etc, and then bring up my tea (yes, tea, I HATE coffee) ready to roll.

Set Ambitious Targets

There’s a popular saying “reach for the stars and you’ll hit the moon” and it pretty much applies here too. Aim to get tons of work done during the day, and really go for it and see if you can complete it all. What you’ll find is, even if you didn’t complete it, that you worked very efficiently throughout the day, and usually end up pretty close anyway.

Minimize Distractions

Imagine you’re on a roll, you’ve just completed a bunch of tasks for the day and you’re well on your way to finishing all the work of the day with time to spare. Then, out of the blue, you’re forced to run an errand because you’re out of bread and the kids wanted to make toasties, bummer, now you’ve got to break your work-flow. It’s small distractions like these that can really kill off productivity, and it’s especially irritating because getting into a state where you’re working swiftly is difficult in the first place. Try to make sure you work at the time of day where you’ll get minimal distractions. Typically this is during school hours, early mornings and late at night.

Treat Yourself

When you’ve finally become the zen master of productivity, then treat yourself accordingly. If you’ve done a good days work, make yourself some of your favourite hot chocolate, or maybe watch an episode of your favorite show. You’ll feel a sense of a achievement and associate completing work with reward (hence subconsciously push yourself to do more work).

Conclusion

Procrastination can become a very irritating condition sometimes, but keep fighting it and you’ll soon break from its evil spell.

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Places To Find Work For All Types of Freelancers

oDesk – With almost any set of skills you have, you should be able to find freelance work here. They have a wide variety of categories. This is a heavily posted website.

Elance – They have over 30,000 jobs posted. They also cover many different categories, almost any type of freelancer can find work here.

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