As a new freelancer, it's important to start off on the right foot. The following three tips are essential if you want to achieve success in this new adventure.
1. Tap Into Your Grit:
Grit determines how successful a person will be. Grit is a sustained amount of high energy work put towards reaching a goal, regardless of any setbacks or slow progress. According to the University of Pennsylvania Psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth whose Ted Talk on grit has been viewed over a million times, grit has outperformed intelligence, innate ability of any kind, and even good looks in determining future success.
2. Increase Focus with Pomodoro:
Work sessions do not need to be super long. In fact, they should be kept relatively short, to improve productivity, 25 minutes to be exact. But these are not just any 25 minutes; they are 25 minutes of hyper-concentration. When you start a new work session, there should be nothing else going on but the work in front of you. Each 25-minute work session should be followed by a five-minute break to clear your head. When you have completed four work sessions, follow it up with a 20-minute break. This work rhythm is called the Pomodoro Technique, and it makes working more efficient and refreshing compared to the traditional way of working for long stretches of time.
3. Track Active Work Time:
It's tempting to track how much time you have been working throughout the day by using a simple time logger or calendar. But this data does not tell you how much time you have been generating new value. Use the Pomodoro technique we discussed earlier with the focus booster app to track active time spent creating new value and then use that data to optimize your daily and weekly schedules to make sure you are putting in the required effort towards achieving your goals as a freelancer. These records double as a quick and easy way to bill your time.
In closing, the three keys to success as a new freelancer are to tap into your grit, increase focus, and track active work time. All things which seem obvious, but as someone starting out, they are easy to overlook.
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Thank you to Jeff Newton over at Americano Mondays for the sweet photo!