Note from Jennifer: I think all writers struggle with time management at some point or another, and some struggle with it constantly. Juggling work and family and personal lives without feeling disorganized is a real skill. I’ve asked Cat DiStasio to share some of her time management strategies. As a writer and virtual assistant, as well as a parent, she has a lot on her plate but manages to keep up. Cat shares more advice for freelancers on her website, so make sure you check it out. 

By Cat DiStasio

I’m not sure how many full time jobs I have. I dare not count.

Among them are my jobs as the parent of a young child and the head of our tiny household. I freelance exclusively, and even that feels like several jobs at times. I’m a writer and editor. I’m a project manager. I’m also a social media manager and a virtual assistant. Some of those roles overlap, but you catch my drift. And because I’m self-employed, I’m also a salesperson, a marketer, an administrator, and an accounting rep. It’s exhausting, to say the least. But while some people sink into overwhelm at the mere thought of taking on such a heavy load, I’m cool as a cucumber.

While I won’t lie and say I’m never stressed about my workload, I’ll say it happens much less often now than it did before I unlocked a few secrets to managing my time as a full time freelancer with 18,000 things to do. (And I’ll let you in on my secrets if you promise to definitely not keep them hush-hush.)

Enough storytelling, though. Time is money.

Here are 10 time management tips for freelancers:

1. Stop saying “time is money.”

Yes, I know I *just* said it, but I didn’t mean it. While it’s true that SOME time is money, other time is sanity, and still other time is our very physical health. Make a decision not to sacrifice what you can’t afford to lose in order to make more money. As you continue down this list, the reasons will become evident.

2. Get really good at estimating your work time.

Every freelancer needs to be able to estimate the time it will take for different jobs, or different parts of a job, in order to quote a good rate in the first place. You also need to master this ability in order to effectively manage your time. Estimate your time doing a variety of tasks, on different days of the week, at different times of the day, through the course of your regular work time, and then track every part of it for a week. If your estimates are way off, your estimation skills may not be the actual problem. (Are you disinterested in the subject? Working with a difficult client?)

3. Don’t be afraid to shift priorities around as often as necessary.

You’re the boss. You’re not married to the task list you made last night when you’ve got new, urgent emails in your inbox in the morning. Or when you or your child wake up feeling under the weather. Make your workflow work for you, not the other way around.

4. Protect your sanity.

This means leaving adequate time for sleep, meals, and unstructured downtime. Leave the 24/7 hustle to, well, anyone else. You have to pace yourself.

5. Don’t over commit or create stress for yourself.

Don’t promise an assignment earlier than the deadline. If you finish early, great! It’ll be a pleasant surprise for the client. But if it winds up taking longer than you anticipated, or something else comes up you need to take care of, you’ll be frustrated and stressed out. And it’ll be your fault.

6. Make a backup plan when you need one.

Most busy people can benefit from a contingency plan. For me, that’s looking for a pocket of time in my schedule that I can work ahead, in the event that my child wakes up sick the next day. For some writers, it may be having someone to outsource certain tasks to if they get too busy with assignments all at the same time.

7. Don’t you dare procrastinate.

It’s one thing to take a break and do something else when you need to, especially on a difficult project, but if you’re staring down a deadline and keep looking for excuses not to work on your assignment, you have to find a way to get a hold of yourself. If there are tasks you absolutely don’t want to tackle, find another way to get them done. Outsource to another writer, enlist the help of a virtual assistant or a transcription service, etc.

8. Watch the clock.

Set timers. You don’t have to live and die by the schedule you create, but you do need to be consciously aware of the passage of time. Use alarms or reminders on your phone (or an hourly chime app) to alert you of the time, in whatever increment fits your work style. Some writers prefer to hear the time quarterly. Others work in 20-minute Pomodoro sprints, and then break for 5 minutes. Some only want to know the time on the hour. Experiment and find a rhythm that works for you. And then stick with it.

9. Divide your time wisely.

Don’t waste time doing things that can wait when you have a deadline looming. One of the biggest benefits of freelancing and working from home is the ability to multi-task and divide time between work and personal chores, don’t go overboard. Likewise, avoid becoming distracted by marketing tasks when you should be working on a big article. Instead, schedule time for marketing immediately after your deadline. If you’re tempted to jump on it early, tell yourself it’s not time for that.

10. Set deadlines for yourself and stick to them.

Freelance work comes with a lot of deadlines by nature. In order to take full control of your available work time, you’ll have to impose a lot more. Some writers find it easier to think of them as goals rather than deadlines, but if you decide to send out 50 LOIs by the end of the week, it doesn’t matter what you call it. It’s still a thing you’ve decided to do, and should follow through with. On top of that, the more structured your goals and their deadlines become, the more easily you will see your business as a whole, rather than just slogging through client work.

Do you have any time management tips to share?