We all have different styles of working. Some people prefer to work from the comfort of their homes while some might prefer to work in the library or in their offices.
When it comes to assimilation, a lot of people prefer to work in a serene location where you can hear the sound of a dropped pin. I have also met people who prefer to study or work while playing soft or loud music at times.
If you are a freelancer, you might want to follow the following steps to be more productive:
1. Have a routine and regular schedule: A lot of freelancers are very energetic and sometimes, feel like 24 hours is not enough to work. the truth is that you need to have a proper schedule to be more productive. Having a routine will help put your day in shape and keep you sane.
2. keep your focus: There are days that you will have your mind divided across several projects in your hands. The craziest thing is that if you do not keep yourself together, you might end up procrastinating and tagging your life as “busy” but the truth is: “No one is really busy; They just name themselves as ‘Busy’.
Focus on the tasks at hand and deal with them effectively. You may decide to time yourself so that you do not waste your whole day on a single project. Spread your working hours across all the projects you’ve got.
3. Take breaks in-between: You need to take breaks. You can call it whatever you want: coffee break, cigar break, fufu break, etc Just take a 15-minute long break every now and then. This will help you to remain sane. You may even take a short walk down your street so you can enjoy the fresh air out there before getting back to work.
4. Switch your working space often: There is no rule that says you must work from your room all the time. Try to be flexible every once in a while. You may decide to go to a cafe or somewhere else on your campus where there is no/little distractions. Switch between your favorite places every now and then.
5. Block all disturbances: If you are working from home or your room on campus, you may want to let the people that you live with, know that you will be very busy and will appreciate their silence for the next say: a couple of hours or so. You may want to log out of all social media except you need to make some important postings or so. Block all disturbances!
6. Get the right tools for your job: As a freelancer, it is important that you have all or most of the resources you often need on your desk. If it’s software then, have it installed on your laptop. You may also want to subscribe to some SaaS that is relevant to your work if you like. Having all resources in front of you means that you may not need to get up every now and then looking for those resources before you can work.
7. Get your data subscription updated: In Nigeria, one of the biggest challenges of working from home is the availability of the internet. Unfortunately, up till now, browsing the internet is still ridiculously expensive in Nigeria. Despite this huge mountain, a lot of freelancers are still finding their way around working online using the cheapest but fastest internet services. I will blog about ‘how to get cheaper internet in Nigeria – for freelancers’, soon.