How to Stay Motivated as a Freelancer

Lack of motivation can happen often when you work for yourself. We exist in a world where work can become very busy to periods where we'll have a lull in projects. These are the days where it can be really difficult to stay motivated. Below are tips on how to stay motivated as a freelancer.

Redesign Your Work Environment

Rebooting your work environment is a good way to motivate yourself as a freelancer.

• Clean Work Space
• Rearrange Furniture
• Binge watch Marie Kondo Netflix for Inspiration

As a freelancer, one of the benefits that you have is the ability to have a mobile work environment. Working outside of your home or in another area can be an additional jolt of inspiration for your motivation.

Create Lists

I use lists every day of the week. Lists are helpful in keeping track of tasks that may fall through the cracks when you're busy. Typical types of lists that I've created are:

• Blog/Vlog Topics
• Project Ideas
• Side Projects
• Short-Term Goals

Join a Community

Staying active and social can be very helpful to stay motivated when you're a freelancer. Also, joining a community of other freelancers/self-employed individuals can keep you on your freelancing game. It accomplishes in helping you to network and also growing your professional network. Linkedin and Meetup are great resources for finding and growing your network.

Structure Your Day in Breaks

Working for yourself can sometimes lead to burning the candle at both ends. Sometimes it can be difficult to not work long hours but it's important to remember to take breaks throughout the day. A popular method called Pomodoro is to take a break every 25 mins for 5 mins.

Summary: How to Stay Motivated as a Freelancer

In conclusion, working as a freelancer can be a difficult adjustment if you're used to working a 9 to 5 job. In addition to all these tips, make sure you're getting proper rest in order to have enough energy throughout the day.

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How to Find Inspiration for Your Projects

One thing that is common in the creative field is creative blocks or ruts when developing projects. The term artist or writer's block is quite common if you've ever created something. In this article, I will talk about a few ways on how to find inspiration for your projects.

BriefBox

The website, BriefBox, is an online collection of sample project briefs. It's primarily aimed at designers but I think it's perfect for other creatives to use as ideas for their next project. I could see a videographer taking a website design for a festival and expanding on that brief to create video related projects.

Film

I'm a huge fan of cinema so I tend to get a lot of ideas from watching film. It's also helpful to unplug from social media sites like Instagram and Youtube and just watch something original. Even rewatching old movies can often jumpstart your artistic vision during a creative funk.

Going for a Walk

Just taking a walk, getting away from digital media like your phone or laptop can be relaxing. Most noteworthy is that it allows you to absorb your surroundings outside of the digital world.

Mood Boards

I think list and mood boards are a great way to gather ideas if you're in a creative rut. Below are a few tools that I have used in the past for creating Mood Boards:

• InvisionApp
• Pinterest
• Trello

Topics Outside Your Niche

One thing I think is important for creative growth is to look at what other creators are doing outside your niche. For instance, I specialize in the areas of photography and videography but I often get inspired by creators that are great at telling a story. These range from foreign language influencers to fashion vloggers on youtube.

Summary: How to Find Inspiration for Your Projects

In conclusion, these are a few methods to jumpstart your creativity when you encounter a creative block. I hope you found this article informative and helpful. If you have anyways that you have used to find inspiration for your next project I would love to know.

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7 Things to do When you Become a Freelancer

When I began doing freelancing there were a lot of things I wish I knew. Freelancing was always something people talked about but there isn't a guide on how to go about it when you're starting out. Below is a list of 7 things to do when you become a Freelancer.

1. Create a Website

There are legitimate reasons as to why many small businesses or freelancers shy away from building their own website. From costs ranging from domain name registration, hosting fees, and security, having a website can be expensive. Since Social Media is free it's easy to see why some freelancers might default to just being on Social Media sites.

2. Document Your Projects

One thing I regret not doing early on when going into freelance was documenting the behind the scenes of my projects. I love the series How I Work from Lifehacker because it showcases the tools and processes that many creatives and business people go through.

3. Focus on Evergreen Content

In addition to documenting your projects, I would recommend focusing on creating evergreen content. Creating content that is evergreen means it focuses on things that will always be relevant. Content such as advice, "How To" articles, Tutorials, and tips. This will be content that you can share and never gets old. Things like news, reviews or dated content do not fall into this category.

4. Find a Mentor and Network

Many of the tips that are referenced on this list I had to learn by myself and through research. However, I would have like to have had a mentor to show me the ropes of this freelance world. Networking provides another way in which your business can get clients. Word of mouth has always been something that can help when you're starting a business.

5. Invest in a CRM

Another resource I wish I knew about when I started freelancing was using a Customer Relationship Management or CRM. CRMs are helpful in that they keep your contracts, invoices, and email correspondeses with clients in one place. Among some of the good CRMs available for freelancers are:

• Dubsado
• HoneyBook
• Tave

Also, some CRMs help to keep your business accountable by tracking how much income you are bringing into your business.

6. Have a Social Media Presence

I like to think of Social Media as free advertising. Primarily because most of the attention are on these sites. Some good Social Media sites to be on are:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Youtube

7. Setup a Daily Schedule

It took a while for me to adjust to the setting my own schedule as a freelancer. Coming from working at a 9 to 5pm, I found the schedule of being a freelancer to be a wake-up call. As a freelancer/entrepreneur you're in charge of marketing, production, and selling. Having a schedule helps in making sure you're giving all these tasks the time they deserve.

Summary: 7 Things to do When you Become a Freelancer

In conclusion, I think it's beneficial to have a plan in place for how you're conducting business. Whether that plan includes the tips listed above or other tips, I hope these seven things will help if you're starting out as a freelancer. To recap, the seven from this list were:

• Create a Website
• Document Your Projects
• Focus on Evergreen Content
• Find a Mentor
• Invest in a CRM
• Have a Social Media Presence
• Setup a Daily Schedule

If you have any suggestions for tips that have helped you as a freelancer I would love to hear them.

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How to Prioritize Your Tasks as a Freelancer

What should come first is the question I often ask myself when I'm focused on being productive. Below are a few ways on how to prioritize your tasks as a freelancer.

Important vs Urgent

Things that are customer facing tend to fall under the Urgent category. One thing I learned working in technical support, is that if a website is down it upstages everything else. Instagram recently was unavailable for almost an entire day and sent many of its users into a panic. These types of issues are considered urgent.

Deadlines

For client projects, deadlines become a huge factor in deciding what I should work on next. These tend to follow the Important vs Urgent pattern. A project due in two days has more urgency than something that is due in a week. I think everyone wants a service or product to arrive to them as soon as possible. I think establishing a process for your freelance services will dictate how fast your service can be completed. From there you could implement rush fees if a client needs a service for a quick turnaround.

Admin Tasks

I typically leave administrative tasks for slow days. However, these tasks are still an important part of any business. Even though they are on the lower end compared to other tasks.

• Branding
• Marketing
• Website Maintenance

Summary: How to Prioritize Your Tasks as a Freelancer

In conclusion, these are just a few factors to consider when prioritizing your tasks as a freelancer. Whether you work as a freelancer or for a company being able to prioritize your work tasks will help in making you very productive.

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