Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to the Boss Responses podcast. You know freelancing is a lot of work. I know multiple people who have come from a corporate environment and thought freelancing would be a nice slow change of pace. Well, it's actually running a business, so that means there are a lot of moving elements whenever you are a freelancer. Today's question deals with effectively managing time and priorities so that you can actually make sure that you're delivering high quality work and meeting the deadlines that your clients have set. If you're a freelancer, business owner or anyone who deals with clients, you're in the right place.

Speaker 1: 0:40

I'm your host, teresa Edmond. I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades and in that time I've dealt with my share of doubt, imposter syndrome and not knowing what to say when a client asked a question I wasn't ready for. I created this podcast to empower you with the boss responses you need to grow your business. Each week, my guest co-host and I will bring you five episodes packed with practical insights. Monday through Thursday, we answer your questions, and Fridays we dive deep to explore how our co-hosts embrace their role as the boss of their business. Welcome to Boss Responses, lizzie. What's the question for today?

Speaker 2: 1:23

So today's question is I'm relatively new to freelancing. I came from a busy corporate environment and thought freelancing would be a nice change of pace. So did I know I actually sometimes feel overwhelmed and juggling multiple projects for different clients. How can I effectively manage my time and priorities to ensure high quality work and meet deadlines?

Speaker 1: 1:45

I love this question and I laughed. I'm so sorry, but I laughed hard when I first read it. Because running a business which is what you're doing if you're a freelance writer, you are not just writing for a client. They're not an employer substitute. Your client should be partnering with you, not telling you what to do, which is why this problem comes up, Because when you're working in the corporate world, someone is always telling you what to do. Now they may give you the freedom to manage your schedule, but they're still telling you which projects are coming in. You know ahead of time when they're coming in. You don't always know that with freelancing or at least I don't, Do you, Lizzie?

Speaker 2: 2:25

I do not know, I absolutely do not.

Speaker 1: 2:28

And you don't. So I mean, even if you schedule out for a few months, hiccups will still happen that change how things work. However, I think that managing your time is an oxymoron. I don't know that it's something that you can actually do. You have the same amount of time that anyone else does. What you can do is manage your projects and make sure that you are setting deadlines for them, that you're allowing the right amount of time to work on them and that you have a system set up, and I'm very free will, free spirited.

Speaker 1: 3:03

I don't like being tied down to a schedule, but if you're running a business, you need one, and I have set times set apart for when I can write, when I can do work, work, when I can do my marketing, all of those things, and that took me a little bit of trial and error to figure out what works best when. Because I can write for about four hours a day period. After that, anything I write is garbage and because I run out of brain, I just that part of my brain doesn't work well after that. Then I end up rewriting everything if I try to force myself to write longer. So I've learned that I do that. I've also learned that I can't write if I'm upset about something. So if I have a bad day, I need flexibility in my schedule so that I can shift my writing to another day, and I think that's important for your mental health that you don't force yourself to do things that you're just not capable of doing that day.

Speaker 1: 4:00

So my whole process has been building a schedule that is flexible and that has blocks of time in it for all of the elements, so that I can shift things around when I need to and so that if I have a project come in from a high value client that I work with all the time and they're like I'm so sorry to do this, we will pay you triple your going rate, but we need this project by Friday I can shift everything and actually focus in on that, and that's, I think, a key to sanity for me. So I worked really hard, trial and error, to figure out exactly how long I need to do a specific thing. So start tracking your time, which, to me, is one of the most painful things that you can do. It drives me crazy, but you need to know how long it takes you to do a specific thing, and you need to know how long it takes you to do that dredge work. So, answering emails, responding to client messages, what else do you do? That's dredge work, lizzie.

Speaker 2: 4:58

The marketing, the marketing the back and forth, the edits the invoicing the proposal. Yeah, all just those little admin-y tasks.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Yeah, and if you ever have to do a presentation for a client which some of us do, some of us don't it takes forever to put together a presentation and you might think, oh, I'm going to set aside an hour on Friday to do that and the next thing you know you're still working on it on Sunday.

Speaker 1: 5:22

So just be realistic on how long it takes you to do things. It's not a bad thing if it takes you longer to do something in the next person, and it's not necessarily a good thing if it takes less time to do things than it takes other people. You just need to know what works for you, how long it takes you to do it, and then set up a schedule that works for you and play with it. And sometimes it's going to be different every week, but you have to do that and you're your boss now. So there's no boss telling you to do this, and I think this is necessary honestly, because I am firmly of the opinion if you do not run your business, your clients will. So you need to manage your schedule or your clients will, and I feel pretty strongly about that. What about?

Speaker 2: 6:05

you, lizzie. Yeah, I think a lot of it for me was trial and error, figuring out how long it took me to do things. I know, at the start I would really really overpromise and then really struggle to finish my tasks in time and then I would feel like I wasn't good enough, the work wasn't as good as I wanted it to be, so it just leads to all sorts of issues. So I think, yeah, figuring out how long everything takes and then, like you said, making sure you account for all those little tasks as well. So I like to this.

Speaker 2: 6:32

This isn't for everyone, but for me my most productive hours are in the morning. So I block out four hours in the morning eight till 12, and I won't do anything but write in that time. So I'll put my phone on aeroplane mode, listen to some music with no lyrics and make sure I've got no distractions, and I will literally just use that time to write. And then in the afternoon, that's when I will answer emails, I will take any calls, I will send invoices, chase invoices, all of those little admin tasks, and I find that kind of batching these tasks in specific times of the day when I'm most productive or when I'm least productive for the admin tasks means that I'm making the most of my creativity and I think if I try and write something in the afternoon, it takes me twice as long than in the morning. So I've learned that over the years. So I know to not do that unless absolutely necessary or if I'm up against it. What I will also do is set myself internal deadlines. So I'll have the client deadline, but my internal deadline will be at least three days before that client deadline.

Speaker 2: 7:37

So, in case I'm not feeling it, if I'm sick, if something comes up, then I've got that buffer room and I'm not like waking up every morning being like, okay, I need to write a piece today, because I need to submit it today, because, yeah, it's just not, the creativity is not going to be there and there's no wiggle room at all. So those would be my tips. That's how I manage my time, and I know it's really difficult when we are the only ones in charge of it, because it's so easy to be like oh well, I'll do that tomorrow, nobody's going to know, nobody's going to pick up on it, nobody's going to tell me off if I don't do it today. But then you realize very, very quickly that it's just impacting you and it's just impacting the rest of your time if you do that.

Speaker 2: 8:16

So I'm a big advocate of freelancing, being very flexible and like it gives, it makes us, it helps us have a lifestyle that we want. But also there does need to be structure, especially if you're managing multiple projects at once. It just it needs to happen. You need to have some structure you really do.

Speaker 1: 8:34

I love that you mentioned the internal deadlines. I do that as well, because sometimes I do my best writing if I'm up against the wire, so I've learned to move the wire. I have a date and in my mind that date is the date that it's due, and I don't even let myself think about the fact that if something comes up, I still have three days. That's just the date that it's due for me. How many projects when you were first starting out were you still up at like the zero hour just going? I've got to get this to them right now.

Speaker 2: 9:03

Many, many, many, many. I think the first year I was definitely working from like 8 am to probably like 10 pm at night. It was just wild. The hours were insane.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Yeah, and you're like why? Why am I even doing this? I don't understand. It was supposed to be better. It was supposed to be fun.

Speaker 2: 9:19

This is like take me back to my nine to five, where I only have to work eight hours a day.

Speaker 1: 9:24

So if you have your schedule set, then you have to manage the projects that are coming in, and I think a big part of the success of that is knowing how much you can handle on your plate at any one point in time. So, lizzie, would you walk us through how you do that, because I know this is something that you've just recently talked about and I'd love to hear what you have to say about that.

Speaker 2: 9:46

Yeah, absolutely. I use a method that I call the block method. I know a couple of other freelancers use this, but I manage all of my projects in Notion and each piece or each project so each piece is a project for me has its own board in Notion and I have a set number of boards that I know that I can complete each month. That's my capacity and so when I'm assigned a piece, it goes on a board, the board goes under the column with the corresponding client and then when I'm out of boards, I'm technically at capacity no, no more room.

Speaker 2: 10:20

Obviously it doesn't always work out that way, so that's like my soft capacity and then there is always room for one or two extra pieces in there. But I know that if, like a week into the month, I've used up all of my blocks, I'm like okay, this is going to be a really busy month, so I need to take care of myself. I need to make sure that I'm scheduling in lots of rest and lots of fun things to do outside of work. On the flip side, if it's like the second week of the month and I've still got loads of blocks left, then I'm like okay, I need to rally and pick up some more work. So for me I'm a really visual person it helps to see my capacity in a visual format, in Notion, and that's. I've tried many, many, many methods over the years to make sure that I'm not overbooked or fully booked or sort of stressing myself out, and this has been. It's not foolproof, but it's been the most effective so far.

Speaker 1: 11:13

I'm very visual as well. I should try that Now. You mentioned scheduling in time to take care of yourself and this question's about juggling client work. But I'm just going to put it out there If you are not scheduling in self-care time or time to take care of your mindset and just to relax, to get that creativity back, then you're not going to be able to do the client work in the time that you've allotted. Absolutely not, and I think that's so important, and I think that you should schedule it in on a regular, set deadlines. If you have a writing block during the day which Lizzie does and I do that as well I actually have it on my calendar at the end of the writing block to take a five-minute walk or to take a 10-minute walk. So I tell myself what to do. How do you schedule yours in?

Speaker 2: 12:06

So I don't schedule it in, as I love the idea of doing that. I'm really bad at taking walks in the middle of the day, but I absolutely don't work after 5pm. I have evening. I do quite a lot of exercise, so in the evenings I have classes that I go to and then on negotiable. They go into my calendar at the start of every month and they will not be moved. Weekends absolutely no work, and I make sure that I have something fun or social planned for at least one day of the weekend. If I'm writing and I'm not feeling it, I will sometimes take a walk. I'm not very good at that, but more often than not I will just pack it in and start on something else and try again the next day. And I guess that's the beauty of having internal deadlines that aren't really solid. You can come back to it later, but to me it's holding a strict boundary between work and life and making sure that I'm scheduling stuff into the life part of my schedule as well as the work part.

Speaker 1: 13:04

Yeah, and I put it in my schedule because I just don't even know it exists. If I don't, I'm very time blind, so my calendar actually keeps me moving throughout the day. I can seriously sit and just do a thing. I tend to hyper focus and I'll just do a thing, and unless something tells me to stop, then I don't. I'll forget to eat, I'll forget to take a break, I'll forget to go to the bathroom and then I'll just all of a sudden be very uncomfortable. I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm tired, I'm hot because I haven't been paying attention to what's going on about me. That makes it absolutely impossible to do my best work. So I've learned to be regimented about it, and in a way that is very loosey-goosey for me. And one way that we really differ here and I love this is you have your set work time and your set lifetime, and I've discovered that doesn't work in my brain, because I don't want my business to be work. Does that make sense? I think so, and I really had a mental block and I'm like I'm hating this. I'm really hating this. I don't enjoy it anymore.

Speaker 1: 14:07

Until I started incorporating life into my work. So sometimes I will be working on a client project in the evening, but that morning I went hiking or I played with the dogs or I went to a movie when the theater opened. So I try to be flexible with that. I'm not always Sometimes I'm really eight to five and then I'm done. But I did try to do that.

Speaker 1: 14:31

And I also found a tool that I like and I tell everybody I can about this. It's called Llama Life and it's llamalifeco and it's this little timer that lives on your computer and you can set up a Pomodoro thing or however you want. You can put all of your tasks in there. You can even put breaks in there and then it will walk you through it and it'll celebrate with you when you complete one. It will blink red if you're gone over time and it really is a way for me to make sure that I'm being realistic about how much time I think a client project is going to take.

Speaker 1: 15:04

But it also keeps me going and I schedule my breaks in there and everything. So if I have a full on workday or even just that block of time, I know I could sit there for four hours and write, but I'm better if I get up every 30 minutes and take a five-minute break. To me, a tool like that is really helpful because I'm time blind, so any other time blind people out there check out LomaLife. It's awesome. That sounds great. Are there any special tools that you use, or are you just one of those regimented people that I admire?

Speaker 2: 15:32

I think I'm just one of those regimented people admire. I think I'm just one of those regimented people, but I have to be. I never used to be, but I found that if I didn't, if I wasn't at my desk at 8am, writing it just wouldn't get done and I can't like I love that you go to the theatre, like the movies when it opens, and take a walk in the morning. But I know that if I do that and when I have done this in the past, all I can think about is I need to write that piece, I need to get started on that piece, I need to write that piece. So for me I have to self-soothe by just sitting down immediately and getting that done, and sometimes I will finish at 12 or finish at 1, 2 pm and then I'll go for a walk and it feels much better for me because I've not got anything playing on my mind. There's nothing that I need to do. I can't do something fun if I've got something serious I need to do afterwards.

Speaker 1: 16:18

It's more of a reward, then, exactly, yeah, yeah, and I'm more of a carrot person. Give me the carrot and then I'll do the thing. I love it. I love how everyone works differently, especially when it comes to time and projects. This is one of those areas for everyone listening. You can talk to 10 different people, and all 10 people are going to do this differently.

Speaker 1: 16:37

There are some things that you just need to figure out, though and figuring out how to set a schedule that works for you, and then being really realistic about how long it takes to do things. I think those are two of the keys, and then everything else just play with it and try different things and listen to different people. Ask the other people that you network with how do you manage this and reach out to people? A lot of new freelancers, especially, tend to silo themselves, and then they get really frustrated and upset because they don't have that support network that you do when you're in the workplace, and that's not necessary now. There are a lot of freelancing groups out there. There are a lot of communities that you can get into. You can connect with people on social media, do whatever it takes, form yourself your own little community and have them help you through this as well.

Speaker 2: 17:25

I think that's really important, yeah, really important.

Speaker 1: 17:27

All right, come back tomorrow for day five with Lizzie. We're going to learn a little bit more about her and what she does with her business, and then we're going to talk about why we.