The Efficient Freelancer

What’s on the iPod: I’m Shakin’ by Jack White


It was one of those days yesterday where the plans to get work done were trumped by other things. Phone calls and emails to clear up details ruled, so I just went with it. I have one hard deadline this week, so there’s still time.

I was talking with a freelancer yesterday and the topic of working smarter came up. She wondered aloud if she were working as efficiently as she could be. Listening to her process, I think she is. But it’s a great question, and it’s one we should probably be asking ourselves more often. I don’t ask it often enough of myself.

I thought of some of the ways in which I do work efficiently. Here’s what works for me:

Plan the article at the query stage. This is my favorite way to save time. My questions are my article subheads. Sure, that can change, but if I set up the questions to reflect the information I want to convey, I’ve got my outline already. For example, one article was on how life insurance agents could increase sales in a dwindling market. The questions were:

• Are insurers going to cut more products/coverage in the future?
• How will that affect agents meeting their sales targets?
• How can agents maintain or increase business in this market?

Each area was then easy to fill with input from the industry experts and with my research. Time saved: about two to three hours.

Transcribe as you interview. I’m one of those weird creatures who tapes conversations and takes notes simultaneously. I have this habit of jotting down quotes that stand out in the conversation and quickly looking at the tape counter so I can find it faster later. If the interview is particularly full of great info, I’ll listen to the entire tape, but with most interviews I can find great input without having to transcribe the entire conversation. I just upload the digital file to the computer for safekeeping should anyone question a quote. Time saved: four to six hours.


Let email rest. Right now I probably have 40 emails in Outlook unread (some of it actual email and not junk). I look at email at the beginning of my day, somewhere around 10 am, noon, and again in the afternoon. On slower days I’ll check it as it comes in, but when I’m on deadline, I’m not going to go there. I know my propensity to answer every email immediately and to have my attention diverted. Time saved: two hours that should have gone to a project.


Schedule it, but don’t schedule every minute. If you plan it, you’ll do it. I don’t have to hand this article in for quite a while, but I schedule most projects like this in advance in case something comes up. Things come up. Plan for it. Expect something more pressing to interrupt, for personal stuff to get in the way, for clients to appear with the project needing quick turnaround.

Plus, I like to leave room in the day for emails, Twitter, and client projects that come in unexpectedly. Yesterday, for example, I was working on an article with a longer deadline, but was able to drop that when a smaller client project with a shorter deadline appeared. I’m still able to get the larger one done in time, and I have the time available for the “need it yesterday” stuff. Time saved: more like evenings and weekends saved.

Have your blurb written. I send out a ton of letters of introduction, each one personalized to the company and person I’m reaching out to. What I don’t do is reinvent the wheel — I include the same small blurb about my experience in each one. The samples may be different, as will the sentence describing those samples, but it’s not cheating to tell them what you tell everyone else about yourself. It gets you used to thinking of yourself in those terms. Also, the first sentence, and possibly the last, are the same for each letter. I personalize it with company information and how I could fit with what they’re doing/need to be doing. Time saved: fifteen minutes per letter.


Make a list. If I’m working on more than two things, you bet there’s a list involved. Too many things could get dropped or overlooked otherwise. I think I’ll remember, but I know how I get when I’m concentrating on one project. This week, I’ve made notes about sending invoices, work to be done for one client, things to send to two other clients, emails to send back to yet another client. I have a sticky notes app on my desktop, and I use it daily. Time saved: more like butt saved, but probably a few hours.

Ignore the pseudo-offers. Ever since I put a contact form on my website, I’ve been getting a fair number of offers that are more than questionable in nature. Too many offers to blog on a blog they’ve never read, offers for gigs that mention “ad revenue” for pay, you name it. I don’t go there. Ignoring it and deleting is the best response, anyway. Time saved: countless hours of engaging unnecessarily.


In what ways have you become more efficient?