7 ways I improved my time management skills as a remote freelancer

Developing remote worker or freelancer time management skills takes trial and error, plenty of discipline, and isn’t always linear. As a freelance creator, here’s everything that helps me

Me fighting (and succumbing to) the urge to scroll

The importance of reliable time management skills became painfully obvious about a week into my freelance life. Like many other freelancers, I found the 9-5 structure limiting, creatively stunting and truly uninspiring. It made me feel zero zest for life in or outside of work and navigating hobbies and responsibilities in my own time became more of a chore than a joy.

I remember thinking: This can’t be the way I’m supposed to spend my one precious life. And, thanks to a strong support network, I could quit.

When I left my 9-5 job at a legal practice, the overnight shift from feeling utterly boxed in to being free to pursue projects that meant something to me was seismic. Freedom and flexibility are top of the list of the benefits of freelancing, after all. However, therein lay a new and opposite problem: how to create structure in a structureless workday?

While I could never go back to the ‘daily grind’ of an office job, there is a lot to be said for a dedicated working environment, reporting to a manager and the momentum of colleagues all pursuing the same goal.

I realised that if I wanted to take charge of my own productivity, I needed to harness these basic tenets of office life. At the same time, I applied what I knew about myself, my habits and what’s important to me from a work and life perspective. This meant I could design a working routine that played to my strengths and likes, and guarded against my weak spots.

I’m still a work in progress when it comes to freelancer time management skills, but these simple practices help me take control of the day every day. Take a look for yourself – they might help you too.

Links to aim for: DIY brand shoot, pitching mistakes, portfolio, services

How to improve your freelancer time management skills

Distracted and concentrating can look the same, I swear

1. Work out your flow state time

Ever sat down to work and felt a powerful wave of motivation just take you? Suddenly, making progress feels effortless. The urge to check your phone evaporates and you fly through tasks without resistance and get masses done.

Baby, that’s the flow state. It’s the gold standard in productivity, and it can be yours!

When you’re a freelancer, you dictate when and how you work, so hacking the flow state is 100% possible.

For me, it took finding out when my most productive window is and the kind of environment that suits me best. Personally, the earlier I can start work, the better. Plus, starting the day by walking my dog, Marco, and doing a no-scroll activity, like reading or playing a word game, sets me up well. Using a standing desk boosts momentum and switching to the kitchen table for a couple of hours helps me reset.

Play about with your routine to find the hours most conducive to finding your flow. Knowing how to hack your productivity will enhance your time management skills.

2. Become an expert in the week ahead

Because we freelancers work on multiple projects at once, we can get consumed by their ‘to-do’ pile. With a lot on your plate, everything feels urgent and unfocused, making it tricky to prioritise your workload. The uncertainty adds stress, killing your productivity and passion.

This feeling isn’t what you went freelance for! Thankfully, your time management skills will calm the storm.

Abandon your tunnel vision for a moment and take stock of your long-range goals or deadlines. What are the easy wins? The slow burns? Which projects will benefit from time invested now and what can be put on ice while you tackle urgent matters?

Make this information accessible and digestible. Glancing over it regularly will give you a clear and far-ranging picture of how much needs to be done and when, taking the guesswork out of your day-to-day. When you’re an expert in what actually needs doing this week, ordering your workload is a doddle.

3. Make a timesheet

I use Excel to track how many hours I’ve spent working, but there are various apps out there to help with this.

Tallied against work done, tracking hours tells me a lot about where I can make better use of my freelancer time management skills. Plus, it helps me get honest with myself about how on task I really am. It’s my own time I’m wasting, after all.

Tracking how long it takes you to do different types of work will also help you work out:

• how much to charge per hour

• which of your business services yield the best returns

When you skip the flow state and go straight to the slay state (I love this suit)

4. Don’t underestimate admin

Invoicing, doing a timesheet, archiving emails, logging expenses – all of these can seem like they’re stopping you from getting to the good stuff (aka, your fee-earning work). But I promise you, completing admin to a high standard isn’t a waste of time.

Good admin keeps you in control of your business. It stops you from overlooking important details and maintains efficiency.

I like to use admin as a vibe switch when I’m running out of steam on a project. Giving my creative brain a break and engaging my head for organisation (like when I was planning my DIY brand shoot) is just another creative way to flex my time management skills.

5. Use all this info to help plan your day

“Plan your day” hardly reinvents the wheel, but there’s a reason this tip comes up so frequently – it works!

I’ll be honest, when I started writing this post I thought daily planning was going to be number one on this list. But the deeper I thought about what goes into my daily plan, the more I realised that making an effective schedule hinges on more than simply what’s on the to-do list.

A bit like admin, that 15-minute daily planning session before I get stuck in often feels like a barrier to getting on with fee-paying work. More often than not, though, a planning session pays for itself because it gives me a framework to stick to decisively. The certainty keeps me on task and lets me get heaps done.

6. Minimise distractions

Yes, it’s another ground-breaking insight from Captain Obvious. And this one can be tricky when much of your job is social media!

I manage this with a work phone and a separate personal one that has app time limits. There are apps you can download that turn your smartphone into a ‘dumb phone’ or system profiles you can set up to block certain apps at particular times, too.

Honestly, even just leaving your phone in another room or on a different floor will keep you off Instagram and focused on what really matters.

7. Plan things to look forward to

Being a freelancer means you can build your day around fun as well as work.

Having something fun that forces you to stop at 4 or 5pm or a midday coffee date with a friend encourages you to set targets and push on through your workload so you can drop everything and enjoy the downtime you’ve worked so hard for.

Your daily fun can be as elaborate or as low-key as you like. It doesn’t even have to cost you anything. Making a tasty lunch, blocking out 30 minutes for an episode of my comfort show or sitting in the park to read are all things I factor in from time to time – as long as I have xyz done first! Having something that’s just for you set in stone is a true motivator and makes great time management skills all the more worthwhile.