5 Freelancing Habits You Need to Succeed

I haven’t found a magic success bullet yet. Sorry to disappoint, but perhaps it’s because such a thing doesn’t exist (I mean, the closest I’ve gotten is guacamole salsa). I have, however, found five freelancing habits that have dramatically upped my motivation. They’ve increased my mental success—my mindset—and that’s always the first step toward measurable success. Check them out below:

Freelancing Habit #1: Get Up at the Same Time Every Day

And make it early. I know, not fun. But it is so worth it. The consistency of beginning our day at the same hour and keeping a routine gets our bodies off to the right start—the perfect preparation for a productive, creative day.

Bonus tip: go to bed at the same time every night (or close to it), and shoot for 7–8 hours of sleep. I know that advice is everywhere, but it is for a reason; it makes a difference in mental clarity and how we feel in the mornings. I’ve found my happy place in the 11–7 range.

Freelancing Habit #2: Spend the First Hour Producing

Again, consistency is key. Creativity plays an important role in almost all types of freelance work, if not on our own content then on our clients’. Thus, we need to spend the appropriate time developing our creativity if we want to succeed in our work for others. After all, we aren’t writers if we aren’t writing (plus if we aren’t writing, we’ll have nothing to publish…yipe!).

Whatever it is we produce, we should devote the first hour of our workday to doing that. It could be doubly beneficial, like preparing newsletters or blog posts for our own websites, or it could be a creative stretch exercise, like experimenting with poetry or some other medium we aren’t used to. 

Freelancing Habit #3: Work Consistent Hours

We need to treat our jobs like full-time jobs because they are. Many articles talk about how great freelancing is because it’s so flexible: I have so much more time for my family, I can go on vacations whenever I want, I choose when I work, etc. Although these statements are true in a way, they don’t show the complete picture. How many late nights and weekends do freelancers spend on work because there is no boss to tell them when to clock out? Or how many of them bring work on vacation to stay caught up? How many have been doing the grunt-work for a few years and are just now reaping the benefits? We need to know the full picture before we compare ourselves and feel discouraged.

Freelancing is flexible, but it’s still a full-time job. If we want our businesses to succeed, we must treat them like real businesses—because they are!

Freelancing Habit #4: Take a Lunch

One morning I randomly had the thought, “Today I’m going to take an hour lunch.” I am so glad I did. Before, I would get going when I got going, and I would just go and go and go, eating my meals while I worked or taking a few minutes to whip something up. I would feel burnout just a couple days into the week. But taking a legitimate lunch break changed my workflow. This hour gives my eyes a break from staring at a screen, my brain a break from concentrating, and my body an opportunity to stretch and move around. Plus my lunch hour is a good time for phone calls with friends, chatting with family, doing housework, zipping out for groceries, and otherwise unplugging from work mode. (It’s an extrovert’s rescue!)

Taking a lunch seems like a simple idea, but it’s something that’s easy to overlook. Freelancers often make the mistake that because we are our own schedulers, we don’t need to bother making schedules. We are conditioned to think this is what works. But it’s not. We need consistency. It can be our own kind of consistency, but it needs to be consistent. And part of that consistency should come as a break in the middle of the workday. {Just make sure it’s long enough to unplug.}

Freelancing Habit #5: Set and Record Goals and Achievements

Without goals, we have no direction. We need to strive for something, in work and in life. My dad (who is an engineer), talks about SMART goals (which is a whole other article of its own). These are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based.

Compare these two goals of a writer looking to gain more clients:

“I’m going to pitch like crazy this week.”
“I’m going to send out 25 pitches this week.”

I bet you can tell which one is the SMART goal. The second goal 

• describes a Specific target (sending out 25 pitches) 
• provides a Measurable set of tasks (25 can be broken down into an action plan of 5 pitches per workday) 
• is realistically Achievable (it’s not something drastic like 100 pitches per week) 
• is Relevant to the overall goal (landing more writing clients)
• gives a specific Time frame (one week)

The first goal? Not so much. We could make the argument that it is at least relevant and time-based, but which goal stands a better chance of being accomplished? 

Disclaimer

I’m bad at implementing all of these. I don’t hit all of them each week, but I’ve noticed the positive change when I do, and I wanted to share it with you.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, this is not a magic bullet, and we can’t simply spread these habits over our lives like peanut butter and call it a day. They take hard work and discipline, more like chipping at a rock with a pickax. In 2020, one of my goals is to make my life look like this more often than it doesn’t (I’m giving you the bird’s-eye version, not the SMART goal version;)).

Which of these habits will you implement first in your business? Leave a comment and tell us about it!

{To get more writing tips sent straight to your inbox, put your name and email in the sidebar on the right for my free weekly e-newsletter. Join today and also receive your free ebook, Bust Writer’s Block!}

[image link]