FreelanceFolder: "Procrastination can be dangerous for a freelancing business.
If you put critical tasks off for too long you may find yourself without enough time to get them done properly. This is important because rushed work tends to be sloppy and less desirable for clients.
Procrastinating may even cause you to lose a client, or worse, your business. Yet, many of us put off necessary tasks every day without even realizing it.
16 comments:
This article presents many of the tips that every other avoid procrastination article does. However this article does put many of the tips in an interesting view point of the freelancer. Setting a schedule should include things like your taxes! Plus the environment of no teacher or boss to set deadlines for you, and the negative effects including not finding other jobs.
One tip that I really stand behind is starting your assignment as soon as you get it. Unfortunately I haven't been able to do much of that lately, but it really helps. It's important to prioritize as well, but not letting the projects you set aside pile up.
it is so true how procrastination is the enemy to freelance workers. it is safe to say far more than salary workers who are paid by the year not by the task.. either way they get paid if they get the job done. if you are a freelance worker your paycheck (your bread and butter) is on getting the job done getting it done well and pleasing the client or consumer or company. the danger you have of not having returning clients or reference clients is greatly heightened if you procrastinate and it starts to effect your work.. YES IT AFFECTS THE WORK!. so many people i know (even myself at some points) produce work which is not up to par when they procrastinate but spend alot of their time convincing themselves that its not .
I find this article to be a very thorough and accessible set of tips that provide a nice approach to procrastination. I really appreciate step one, and how if it doesn't get written down it does not get done. Although it may seem pointless, I feel that it's imperative for me to write down most of my tasks throughout my day, even if I don't necessarily complete all of them, it helps me to get an understanding of what I need to do. Also, for my next day, I have a gauge of what I can done in a certain time span, etc. With that experience as my example, I feel that most of these steps cover an overall them: procrastination is a personal obstacle that can only be overcome on your own.
I always love these articles. Even if a lot of it is common sense or something I have seen before there is usually some pice of useful information that can assist me in my ongoing crusade towards productivity. In this instance I really like the idea of an accountability partner or group. I think I will look into this and develop this idea because I struggle a lot with procrastination and I have friends that do to so this could be the perfect answer.
Fear of success? I wonder how you can tell the difference between a fear of success and a fear of failure? It makes more sense to me that people would put off a project because they're afraid they won't be able to do it well, good enough, or at all. And because they are afraid that they'll fail at their project they do. I've never hear doff a fear of success. And I doubts it's more common than people who are afraid of failure. But I wonder how you tell the difference between the two. Both of them involve putting off the project out of fear of reaching the final product. But one is afraid it won't be good and the other is afraid it will? Sometime I wait and wait for that genius idea to come to me, but it never does so I end up starting at the last minute.
Either way, once you get started you're fears kind of fade away. Once you see the product start to come together, it's not as scary to start.
…a fear of success…
This is a great reminder article. They should have handed a copy of this to me on our first day of grad school orientation. I actually have worked on a lot of these issues and used them practically. The point that I need to deal with next is .... don't over commit. That is something I will continue to improve on my 2nd and 3rd years of my MFA. Another procrastination technique that I need to combat is I always feel like I need large chunks of time to do a project. I often get a pocket of 30-45 minutes during a day, but I would never undertake a larger project unless had a three-hour chunk of time. Because of this, I forfeit many hours of the day when I could be accomplish things. This article could be very beneficial to me, I will print it out and hang it on my refrigerator...sometime when I have like two hours to dedicate to that task.
This article offers absolutely nothing new to the discussion of how to deal with procrastination. I wish the author would have given more credence to this idea of the psychological issues inherent in procrastination. Again, this is not really a new idea, but still something that gets buried in "keep a schedule" and "remove distractions", which aren't particularly useful suggestions. The tasks I tend to procrastinate on are the tasks I don't want to do because, for one reason or another, I am afraid of what the outcome is going to be. I think this is tough to overcome, but is an important issue.
This article makes a lot of really good and important points. The first tip makes a good point about putting other things on a schedule that are not literally scheduled like meetings. These are typically the things that don't get done. Getting organized is something that many people overlook; it is true that when something seems like a hassle to begin, it is easy to just simply not begin it. Although finding an accountability partner is important, it is not as important as breaking large tasks into smaller ones, in my opinion. This and starting that task the day you get it are both very useful tips, as are the rest on this page.
These are all very simple tips that people very often over look and procrastinate instead. Of course, the tips about finding a motivation is important, because often times people know that these are the things to do in order to stop procrastinating, but they have no motivation to do so.
This list is more or less the same list that is posted all over the place... and while the points are valid, it's not really adding much that is new. Though one that usually does not get pointed out is the accountability partner. I really like this one. Although at some point you really should learn to become responsible for yourself, it is easier a lot of times to feel okay with letting yourself down rather than letting others down. I know that if someone is expecting me to get something done it is more of a motivating factor than if I simply want to get it done. If having this "accountability partner" helps to get you on the right track, use that to your advantage.
I am going to echo some of these comments that some of these tips seem like common sense, or like things we've read before in other articles here on the blog. But I'm stating to think that maybe reading these tips over and over again is part of what makes this advice useful. At a certain point you can't ignore it anymore, and perhaps re-reading this advice over and over motivates you to say "alright, I'll try it." I'll try to reincorporate some of these ideas into my work flow and hopefully do less procrastinating.
One of my favorite tips here is to "find an accountability partner." This is a great tip for procrastinators in a number of situations. Having someone to be responsible to and who will hold you to your word can be a great asset when working on your own. The challenge is to find someone who is comfortable performing this task and who WILL make you keep to your word.
The rest of the points do make a lot of sense, but one of the key points, which i don't think was emphasized enough here, is to "Eliminate Distractions." Getting yourself away from the TV and logging out of facebook can really help you to get focused enough to move forward with many of those other tips. While working on the first draft of my thesis I essentially locked myself in my room (where there's no tv) and allowed myself to have ONLY research-based internet access. It worked pretty darn well for so simple a thing.
I wonder how well these 10 tips to improve (insert any facet of life) articles actually work. sometimes they seem to be common sense, but maybe it is simply a matter of reminding people of the things they already were aware that they should be doing. this article, no matter how useful it is considered to be, is certainly useful to people in theater who's work is much more deadline based, and often leaves a large looking time period for a small looking amount of work. Unfortunately it is inevitably more work and less time than one would hope or suppose.
I think my favorite is rewarding yourself for the work you have done. We all know that this can get a little out of hand if you don't watch yourself. Of course it is all about moderation. My favorite way to reward myself to take a break from my work and do something that I normally don't have time for like watch a tv show or read for a little bit. When I come back to my work I don't feel the need to procrastinate and I am refreshed making my work better.
I agree with Hannah about the fear of failure. Thats one of my biggest issues with school assignments in the classes that aren't what i'm interested in doing. Its really hard for me to start an assignment, but when i do, I can just do the assignment and I'm fine. Other than the fear part of the article nothing it discussed was new.
I think procrastination tips help you if you want them to help you. This article is nothing new. Scheduling every single thing you do does not work for everyone. Broad schedules can work better for some people. However, as far as breaking up smaller tasks into larger tasks, that is a useful tip (although nothing new). As for bribing, that is a new one to me (though maybe not to everyone else.) No we shouldn't really need to bribe ourselves to get work done--but is has it's results and it can be a little bit fun. So maybe I'll bribe myself a little bit more. (Yay stuff!)
This article is a load of crock...
The only relevant point is #3 Find an accountability partner. The rest can still be justified by procrastination. Sometimes you have to feel the pressure to get it done. (Can you say thesis and its almost April... yeah) Anyway, these methods are psychological BS. They sound great in theory but suck in practical application. All you can do is get the job done and that is what it comes down to. You have to have faith in yourself and your work and a good work ethic. JUST DO YOUR JOB.
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