You took your freelance work full-time and are finally working on your own terms.

But now you want to work smarter, not harder. How do you minimize distractions, maximize the time in front of your computer, and craft an efficient freelance workday (so you can enjoy your freedom and flexibility?

Here are our time-tested tactics for avoiding distractions and getting the most out of your work day.

Limit your distractions

Know your prime working hours. This may seem “duh”, but make sure you’re working at the time of day when you're at your maximum efficiency level. For many freelance writers, the morning is their most productive time. Knowing when you're most productive will help you structure the rest of your day.

"If you need to meet a friend for coffee, take meetings, or get groceries, do it outside your prime working hours."

Closeout distractions. Use Do Not Disturb mode for phone calls, close excessive browser tabs, and stay off social media. You can even set web blockers for specific websites to ensure you can't access them during defined work hours.

Limit notifications. Turn off distracting notifications when you’re not working. When limiting notifications doesn’t help, you may have to delete certain apps from your phone.

Set up auto-responders. An auto-responder takes away some of the time spent in busy work and manages the communication expectations of those corresponding with you. This makes the perpetual emails landing in your inbox less disruptive to your workday as they come in.

Be clear about client expectations. Reducing the urgency of your response time to emails can help you work efficiently. Communicate a timeframe in your contract or during onboarding where you state that you will respond between 24 to 48 business hours, for instance.

Optimize for efficiency

Wasting time is a common complaint from freelance writers. Many new freelancers tend to spend an excessive amount of time perfecting proposals. No matter how excited you are about the new lead, spending 10–20 hours working on the proposal to win that deal is inefficient. If you lose the pitch, that's time wasted.

Instead, invest time into creating a proposal template that you can reuse and reduce your time on it. Similarly, it's tempting to want to spend a lot of time building a great-looking website or portfolio, but that may not be the best use of your time from a revenue perspective.
Develop an efficient writing process. From getting the writing brief to building the outline, research, and first draft, figure out your most efficient writing workflow and keep optimizing from there.

When you send the first draft, include a list of questions or points you want the client to look at so that the process is collaborative. Especially with a new client, your work is unlikely to be perfect upon first submission.

“Many freelance writers get bogged down by creating something perfect. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Freelancer writers often spend a ton of time working without involving the client, only to have them eventually respond that the work is off the mark. Establishing an ongoing communication channel as the piece develops ensures you won't have to do massive rewrites because of avoidable communication errors.

Manage your time

As a freelancer, there's much more work beyond writing. How do you divide your time efficiently between other tasks such as business outreach, finance management, and administration? Here are two common ways to structure your workweek:

Prioritize revenue-generating activities. Whatever tasks bring income into the business get done first.
Themed days. Give each workday a theme. For example, Monday is for business outreach and prospecting. Tuesday through Thursday are for client work. Friday is for finances.

The Pomodoro technique is also a helpful time management work method. It's based on 25-minute stretches of focused work with five-minute breaks.

Consider the least-distracting time to get your admin work done. You don’t want it to interfere with your writing flow, so it might be a good idea to do admin work at the beginning or end of your work day. Having control over your calendar is good for efficiency. You can, of course, be flexible to some extent and change your schedule as your life evolves.

Finally, however, you choose to divide your time between tasks, remember that it comes down to self-control and being strict about not letting distractions get in the way while you're in work mode.

Work efficiently and maximize your free time

When building an efficient freelance workday, there's no one-size-fits-all approach. Figure out what works for you and be proactive about setting in motion a process that makes you the most efficient.

Find out where you work best (a home office or a co-working space), when you're most efficient (early or late in the day), and how to make it happen. Then nail down that deadline and get the work done.

Building an Efficient Workday as a Freelance Writer