How do you keep yourself disciplined when you are freelancing at home? (paralyzed.se)
When you are freelancing at home you don’t have fixed hours and you don’t have anyone shouting at you when you aren’t working. In other words it’s really easy to slack off. So what can you do to keep yourself disciplined and focused? Here are 7 tips to help you to keep yourself disciplined.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 38.1 ms ] thread- get your pace up by doing something physical (bike or jog for 45 minutes or so)
- set a goal to achieve for the day, don't stop to do other stuff until you've reached that goal
- get a task manager to be able to track your time and mark off stuff done and what remains
- reward yourself with something when you've completed a set of tasks
When you reward yourself, is it for finishing creative tasks, or tasks that you just need to apply grit to?
This is something I have been wondering about myself when it comes to 'autorewards' (or whatever it is called when rewarding oneself for tasks accomplished).
I spend so many evenings avoiding doing the things I know exactly what I need to do.
What's important is how you use your task list. Do you find that you begin by jumping into your work, and then glance at your task list rarely? If so I'd recommend a change of strategy. Try using your task list as your home base instead. Work religiously to eliminate the items found on it, and ignore all else. If you need to do something that's not on the task list, then add it to the list -- even minor tasks.
I find I'm able to zip through my work when I attack it like this, as you'll eventually get to the point where crossing an item off the list itself feels like a reward.
However, I found very hard to go after the jobs myself, because I hate to deal with clients (don't we all?).
The best part, however, was that when I was done I was done. Even if it was only 2 PM, if I met my goal I called it a day. That prevented a lot of stress and a possible burnout.
Also I had a set goal of money I wanted to earn every month and once I attained it, I stopped worrying about quarrelying for every possible offer I could get. I gave myself the leisure of taking only the ones I wanted to do.
- Routine
- Routine
- Routine
That's the only thing that keeps me disciplined. Throw in disruption to my routines and my coding productivity plummets.
Environmental triggers like having a cup of tea or coffee ready, music playing, and the right windows open are surprisingly significant too.
I've been having luck with the "Pomodoro" method - I keep a cheap 30 minute countdown timer on my desk, and a simple worklog for the day open in my text editor. One of the key benefits of this for me is it stops me going down ratholes - after 30 minutes I can pull my head out of the trench and look and see if I really have been digging in the right direction.
* Some general routine, mostly aiming to get certain things done during the late morning/early afternoon
* Various reminder tools. Big help when something occurs to me but I do not want to stop what I'm currently doing; I have fast ways of leaving reminder notes for myself
* An improving ability to put things in perspective and be more selective with my time
If you're not in the zone you can still make a little progress, and if you slip into the zone you can grab something bigger from the list and keep going.
In case you only work 8h a day and then stay away from the computer please stand up and tell us how you do it (eating less?)!
However, if it's fun, I can go 80 hours a week by myself at home on it.
I recall a contract I did for a big software company a few years back - the other devs there were insanely jealous of the 40 hours of programming I was putting in a week by working remotely. They spent so much time in meetings and reviews and planning that they were lucky to break 10 hours a week of actual programming.