10 tips for freelancers how to prioritize tasks
Have you ever thought: “How much does a steamer cost to build?”, “And how much - to make a design layout?”, “And what does the price consist of?”
The steamer is an extremely complicated thing; its cost is the price of materials (metal, plastic, and what else is needed), the wages of shipyard workers, depreciation on equipment wear, engineering survey payments, and so on and so forth ...
And what about the design layout? What is its price? Well, let's say we put in the cost of “equipment depreciation” - money for PCs and software that need to be updated regularly. And what else? It remains, in fact, only the remuneration of the designer-maker-up. How to calculate it? There are two ways: either pay for man-hours (how much time was spent - and paid so much); or another more common approach is piece-rate payment (i.e., I appraised the brief-TZ on the layout, estimated its complexity, called the cost).
')
What is in the first case (directly), that in the second (indirectly), the cost will depend on the time you spend on your work. And what is this time made of? There are internal factors: motivation, work skills, muse, in the end ... They are subject only to your willpower, then za-zen and other self-improvement can help you. But there are also external factors: from the situation in the office to the methodology by which you work - and with them everything is more interesting ...
External factors are usually more amenable to optimization. What makes the optimization of these external factors? Save time. And this, in turn, is an increase in revenues. The formula is simple. For example: You have optimized the external factors of your work, and now what you did in 2 hours before is done in 1 hour. For example, in 2 hours you designed one banner, receiving 1,500 rubles for it, now in the same 2 hours you develop two banners, earning 3,000 rubles, and at the same time you spend the same amount of effort. It sounds tempting, isn't it? How to achieve this, what is the “silver bullet” here?
There are a number of tips that are worth mentioning before going to the topic of the article:
Perhaps these five tips will not speed up your work twice, but if you apply them correctly, you will accelerate by a third for sure! After this introduction, you can finally go directly to the topic of this article, namely to the translation of the publication of one well-known blogger in certain circles, and part-time freelancer-designer - Stephen Snell. All of the above tips will not work without the main, without the foundation of any activity - the ability to plan their work. Planning, in turn, begins with the prioritization of current affairs and tasks. This is what Stephen tells about, based on his many years of experience as a freelancer.
***
If you are a freelance designer, then in your daily work there will be many problems associated with prioritizing various tasks. When you start your own freelancing business, it always means that you will not only deal with direct ordering, using your professional skills, but will also deal with financial issues, communication with customers, marketing and other aspects not related to development design. For many freelancers, these peripheral tasks and responsibilities are the most difficult part of their work ...
A freelancer always has a lot of things to do, and time is always limited for their implementation. The ability to correctly prioritize between tasks, respectively, receiving the order of work is a pledge and the basis of high productivity of their labor. If you have been working as a freelancer for some time, then you must have realized the importance of these questions and are looking for answers to them for yourself. But even if you are a beginner or are just going to try yourself in freelancing - in any case, you should think in advance about how to properly, and most importantly, effectively prioritize your business.
With the right approach, you will be able to perform the most important, important tasks on time and with maximum productivity, although if you are like me, you will always do less than you want ... Nevertheless, if you do not think about the priority of your current affairs , you will definitely miss the deadlines for completing orders or you will work on something less important and urgent, compared to the higher-priority tasks that you currently have.
In this article, I will talk about the main points related to the prioritization of the tasks of a freelance designer. All of the following is based on my personal experience, which I received, having made many mistakes and stuffed no less cones ...
All freelancers or free designers have every day their intense work, saturated with tasks and tasks, always limited in time. What are the principles to plan your work, correctly setting priorities for the tasks? ..
The first and most obvious way to rank tasks is to always set a separate deadline for each of them. Most of your projects have a deadline: for some, it is designated strictly, for others it is, rather, a kind of guideline. Whether it is a project completion date or just a milestone for the end of a stage of work, keeping deadlines is an important part of customer interaction.
To rank the work, the following rule applies: the closer the deadline of the task, the higher its priority. You should also take into account that even if there is a lot of time before the deadline, this does not mean that you will have time for everything. Set your own deadlines for individual subtasks - this will help you not to miss the deadline agreed with the client.
The next factor that interests us is when and how will they pay for our work? Will the payment be divided into several parts, corresponding to the degree of completeness of the project? If yes, then you will most likely assign such a task an increased priority in order to complete its part faster and send the invoice to the customer ...
But is it worth betting on a task that you complete faster than you can get paid? Hoping for early payment, not having concrete agreements for that is not the most successful reason for raising priorities. Especially in today's economy, when a constant flow of money into the business is vital, and your customer’s financial spending can be clearly planned without the possibility of adjustment.
One of the main principles of prioritization is the time it takes to complete a task or project. Suppose you have a list of 10 tasks: solving two takes considerable time, and the remaining 8 can be done fairly quickly (for example, email correspondence, sending an invoice, etc.). In this case, it should be minor tasks to put increased priority and quickly deal with them. As soon as they are finished, you will have only 2 tasks, on which it is much easier to concentrate without distraction to other matters.
Tip # 4 is fairly obvious, but an important factor. You will have tasks that require a lot of time to complete; problems solved in just a couple of minutes, and, of course, those tasks that did not fall into these two categories. If you have only an hour of working time, it is best to concentrate on what you have time to complete in such a period.
With some customers, you may be working on an ongoing basis. They will act as a stable source of steady income, as well as recommend you to other clients. First and foremost, taking care of customers who keep you afloat is a good way to prioritize.
In addition to the above, it is worth noting that a strong relationship with the client will not be superfluous either: you will know which of them you can ask for a short delay (if, for example, you have a “blockage”). When working with clients, try to learn more about them, in the future this will help to prioritize tasks from them.
A freelancer always has a lot of things to do. To keep them in my head is not only unreliable, but also very difficult. Good practice is to use the To-Do List. Even more, I recommend having several to-do lists. I usually use the Weekly To-Do List, making a list of things that need to be done in a week. Then, I break things down into small tasks and use the Daily To-Do List. Thus, the Weekly List allows you to see the picture as a whole, and Daily - to directly control your work, knowing exactly what and how much you need to do, so as not to feel unsuccessful or overwork, catching up with deadlines.
Earlier, I published a post in which I made a review of various services for maintaining a to-do list - “ The best options for managing a to-do list online ”. Each of them has its own functional features. But in fact, it does not matter which service you use, even if you just keep your to-do list on paper, this will allow you to focus on the most important tasks, thereby more correctly setting the priorities for your business.
One of the most important factors influencing how we should prioritize is the rule of “strict compliance with these obligations”. Your reputation is the second thing that brings you income, following your skills and abilities. When promising something to a customer, always keep your promises. Even if, by agreement, you do not have a strict deadline for the task, you should still make an approximate time limit with the client and follow them exactly. This attitude will have a positive effect on the perception of the quality of the services you provide, the client will always appreciate and remember this, and later, when he has another need for such services, he will again turn to you.
If you can get a new order with already formally defined deadlines, or you complete the current project from your to-do list, always consider how much time you have to do other things. If you have time for rest, for a hobby, for communication with friends, then you will always be able to move further in work, completing current orders or taking new ones. That, in turn, ensures the stability of your income. Yes, setting priorities for work tasks, never forget that you need to allocate time for rest and so on - only this way you can keep yourself in good shape and, accordingly, have a good performance.
All designers often find themselves in a situation where they can’t do their job because they need something from the customer. Often, this is the content for the site layout: text and / or images, in other cases - feedback, to agree on the current stage and not to redo it anymore, but to continue the work. These problems become a headache for the designer or the person who works with the client, because they completely block your work, adversely affecting the agreed deadlines for the order.
When you prioritize your tasks, always consider how much you can do without asking the customer for anything. There were so many times that I started working on something, only to get to the point where I could not continue without receiving anything from the client. Waiting for feedback can be a big pause in your work. It is very good if you take this into account and plan for the time of this pause to perform any other work so as not to stand in vain. In general, all other things being equal, those tasks that you can accomplish without being distracted by the client’s expectations (even for 10 minutes) should have a higher priority, and you should start on them first.
The last aspect: you should always take into account what stage your project is at. Psychologically, if you are close to completion, you will subconsciously want to do the work in order to finish the project. The same thing, but to a lesser extent, happens when you come to the end of a major milestone in your work. This happens to almost everyone during the completion of work. In the beginning it can be different. If the project is interesting, you are inspired by it and as soon as possible try to get to work. But it can be different: due to the fact that the project is not so interesting, and you are at the very beginning, the fact that there is a lot of work ahead makes you postpone it all the time. Consider this and be ready to make an effort to gain progress at the very beginning - it will be easier further.
From your personal experience as a freelancer, what conclusions did you draw regarding how to prioritize your tasks? How exactly do you determine when you need to work and which tasks to perform?
From myself I will add a few more questions:
Empirically and intuitively or, on the contrary, logically and formally, do you determine the priorities of your tasks? And, therefore, more problems on a conscious or emotional level? (“I do not know what to undertake” vs. “There is no willpower to take on what is needed”).
Anya,
tester Online tool for Design SketchBuilder
The steamer is an extremely complicated thing; its cost is the price of materials (metal, plastic, and what else is needed), the wages of shipyard workers, depreciation on equipment wear, engineering survey payments, and so on and so forth ...
And what about the design layout? What is its price? Well, let's say we put in the cost of “equipment depreciation” - money for PCs and software that need to be updated regularly. And what else? It remains, in fact, only the remuneration of the designer-maker-up. How to calculate it? There are two ways: either pay for man-hours (how much time was spent - and paid so much); or another more common approach is piece-rate payment (i.e., I appraised the brief-TZ on the layout, estimated its complexity, called the cost).
')
What is in the first case (directly), that in the second (indirectly), the cost will depend on the time you spend on your work. And what is this time made of? There are internal factors: motivation, work skills, muse, in the end ... They are subject only to your willpower, then za-zen and other self-improvement can help you. But there are also external factors: from the situation in the office to the methodology by which you work - and with them everything is more interesting ...
External factors are usually more amenable to optimization. What makes the optimization of these external factors? Save time. And this, in turn, is an increase in revenues. The formula is simple. For example: You have optimized the external factors of your work, and now what you did in 2 hours before is done in 1 hour. For example, in 2 hours you designed one banner, receiving 1,500 rubles for it, now in the same 2 hours you develop two banners, earning 3,000 rubles, and at the same time you spend the same amount of effort. It sounds tempting, isn't it? How to achieve this, what is the “silver bullet” here?
General tips on optimizing the work of a freelancer
There are a number of tips that are worth mentioning before going to the topic of the article:
- Use prototypes - an intermediate result of work that can be shown to the customer, coordinating the work at an early stage, rather than being engaged in alterations after the fact.
- Use the right tools for your tasks. You shouldn’t shoot a gun on the sparrows by making captions to the images in Photoshop, as well as you shouldn’t try to retouch the photos in Paint.
- Automate the routine - a simple macro arranging the layers can save you a lot of time.
- Automate everything that you can. The clock machine today does not cost anything, unlike man’s time. Why not transfer to the computer the work that you do manually? This can be anything from placing a prototype layout on the Internet with auto-notification of the customer to generating the basic structure of the code or the entire css of your html-layouts.
- When choosing a new tool, first of all, pay attention to how it is convenient and quick to solve routine tasks. Yes, some editor may be super-functional, but you will have to use this functionality through a cluttered and complex interface. As a result, much more time is spent on work than when using a less functional, but more convenient solution.
Perhaps these five tips will not speed up your work twice, but if you apply them correctly, you will accelerate by a third for sure! After this introduction, you can finally go directly to the topic of this article, namely to the translation of the publication of one well-known blogger in certain circles, and part-time freelancer-designer - Stephen Snell. All of the above tips will not work without the main, without the foundation of any activity - the ability to plan their work. Planning, in turn, begins with the prioritization of current affairs and tasks. This is what Stephen tells about, based on his many years of experience as a freelancer.
***
10 tips for freelancers how to prioritize tasks
If you are a freelance designer, then in your daily work there will be many problems associated with prioritizing various tasks. When you start your own freelancing business, it always means that you will not only deal with direct ordering, using your professional skills, but will also deal with financial issues, communication with customers, marketing and other aspects not related to development design. For many freelancers, these peripheral tasks and responsibilities are the most difficult part of their work ...
A freelancer always has a lot of things to do, and time is always limited for their implementation. The ability to correctly prioritize between tasks, respectively, receiving the order of work is a pledge and the basis of high productivity of their labor. If you have been working as a freelancer for some time, then you must have realized the importance of these questions and are looking for answers to them for yourself. But even if you are a beginner or are just going to try yourself in freelancing - in any case, you should think in advance about how to properly, and most importantly, effectively prioritize your business.
With the right approach, you will be able to perform the most important, important tasks on time and with maximum productivity, although if you are like me, you will always do less than you want ... Nevertheless, if you do not think about the priority of your current affairs , you will definitely miss the deadlines for completing orders or you will work on something less important and urgent, compared to the higher-priority tasks that you currently have.
In this article, I will talk about the main points related to the prioritization of the tasks of a freelance designer. All of the following is based on my personal experience, which I received, having made many mistakes and stuffed no less cones ...
All freelancers or free designers have every day their intense work, saturated with tasks and tasks, always limited in time. What are the principles to plan your work, correctly setting priorities for the tasks? ..
1. Always remember deadlines.
The first and most obvious way to rank tasks is to always set a separate deadline for each of them. Most of your projects have a deadline: for some, it is designated strictly, for others it is, rather, a kind of guideline. Whether it is a project completion date or just a milestone for the end of a stage of work, keeping deadlines is an important part of customer interaction.
To rank the work, the following rule applies: the closer the deadline of the task, the higher its priority. You should also take into account that even if there is a lot of time before the deadline, this does not mean that you will have time for everything. Set your own deadlines for individual subtasks - this will help you not to miss the deadline agreed with the client.
2. Consider the terms of payment
The next factor that interests us is when and how will they pay for our work? Will the payment be divided into several parts, corresponding to the degree of completeness of the project? If yes, then you will most likely assign such a task an increased priority in order to complete its part faster and send the invoice to the customer ...
But is it worth betting on a task that you complete faster than you can get paid? Hoping for early payment, not having concrete agreements for that is not the most successful reason for raising priorities. Especially in today's economy, when a constant flow of money into the business is vital, and your customer’s financial spending can be clearly planned without the possibility of adjustment.
3. Focus on major, major tasks.
One of the main principles of prioritization is the time it takes to complete a task or project. Suppose you have a list of 10 tasks: solving two takes considerable time, and the remaining 8 can be done fairly quickly (for example, email correspondence, sending an invoice, etc.). In this case, it should be minor tasks to put increased priority and quickly deal with them. As soon as they are finished, you will have only 2 tasks, on which it is much easier to concentrate without distraction to other matters.
4. Consider how much time it takes to complete a task, and how much you have at all.
Tip # 4 is fairly obvious, but an important factor. You will have tasks that require a lot of time to complete; problems solved in just a couple of minutes, and, of course, those tasks that did not fall into these two categories. If you have only an hour of working time, it is best to concentrate on what you have time to complete in such a period.
5. Evaluate your relationship with a specific customer.
With some customers, you may be working on an ongoing basis. They will act as a stable source of steady income, as well as recommend you to other clients. First and foremost, taking care of customers who keep you afloat is a good way to prioritize.
In addition to the above, it is worth noting that a strong relationship with the client will not be superfluous either: you will know which of them you can ask for a short delay (if, for example, you have a “blockage”). When working with clients, try to learn more about them, in the future this will help to prioritize tasks from them.
6. Use To-Do Lists
A freelancer always has a lot of things to do. To keep them in my head is not only unreliable, but also very difficult. Good practice is to use the To-Do List. Even more, I recommend having several to-do lists. I usually use the Weekly To-Do List, making a list of things that need to be done in a week. Then, I break things down into small tasks and use the Daily To-Do List. Thus, the Weekly List allows you to see the picture as a whole, and Daily - to directly control your work, knowing exactly what and how much you need to do, so as not to feel unsuccessful or overwork, catching up with deadlines.
Earlier, I published a post in which I made a review of various services for maintaining a to-do list - “ The best options for managing a to-do list online ”. Each of them has its own functional features. But in fact, it does not matter which service you use, even if you just keep your to-do list on paper, this will allow you to focus on the most important tasks, thereby more correctly setting the priorities for your business.
7. Strictly comply with the obligations given to customers.
One of the most important factors influencing how we should prioritize is the rule of “strict compliance with these obligations”. Your reputation is the second thing that brings you income, following your skills and abilities. When promising something to a customer, always keep your promises. Even if, by agreement, you do not have a strict deadline for the task, you should still make an approximate time limit with the client and follow them exactly. This attitude will have a positive effect on the perception of the quality of the services you provide, the client will always appreciate and remember this, and later, when he has another need for such services, he will again turn to you.
8. Think, and how much time will free what you do
If you can get a new order with already formally defined deadlines, or you complete the current project from your to-do list, always consider how much time you have to do other things. If you have time for rest, for a hobby, for communication with friends, then you will always be able to move further in work, completing current orders or taking new ones. That, in turn, ensures the stability of your income. Yes, setting priorities for work tasks, never forget that you need to allocate time for rest and so on - only this way you can keep yourself in good shape and, accordingly, have a good performance.
9. Starting to order, consider: How much work can you do, having what you already have (TK, brief, content, etc.), without additional reference to the client for anything?
All designers often find themselves in a situation where they can’t do their job because they need something from the customer. Often, this is the content for the site layout: text and / or images, in other cases - feedback, to agree on the current stage and not to redo it anymore, but to continue the work. These problems become a headache for the designer or the person who works with the client, because they completely block your work, adversely affecting the agreed deadlines for the order.
When you prioritize your tasks, always consider how much you can do without asking the customer for anything. There were so many times that I started working on something, only to get to the point where I could not continue without receiving anything from the client. Waiting for feedback can be a big pause in your work. It is very good if you take this into account and plan for the time of this pause to perform any other work so as not to stand in vain. In general, all other things being equal, those tasks that you can accomplish without being distracted by the client’s expectations (even for 10 minutes) should have a higher priority, and you should start on them first.
10. Consider the degree of completion, readiness of your tasks.
The last aspect: you should always take into account what stage your project is at. Psychologically, if you are close to completion, you will subconsciously want to do the work in order to finish the project. The same thing, but to a lesser extent, happens when you come to the end of a major milestone in your work. This happens to almost everyone during the completion of work. In the beginning it can be different. If the project is interesting, you are inspired by it and as soon as possible try to get to work. But it can be different: due to the fact that the project is not so interesting, and you are at the very beginning, the fact that there is a lot of work ahead makes you postpone it all the time. Consider this and be ready to make an effort to gain progress at the very beginning - it will be easier further.
Questions for discussion in the comments from the author of the original article:
From your personal experience as a freelancer, what conclusions did you draw regarding how to prioritize your tasks? How exactly do you determine when you need to work and which tasks to perform?
From myself I will add a few more questions:
Empirically and intuitively or, on the contrary, logically and formally, do you determine the priorities of your tasks? And, therefore, more problems on a conscious or emotional level? (“I do not know what to undertake” vs. “There is no willpower to take on what is needed”).
Anya,
tester Online tool for Design SketchBuilder
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/245063/
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