Freelancing is increasing and will continue to rise in upcoming years. People love the freedom, flexibility, and independence freelancing gives. It also provides an opportunity to work on new projects with new clients. Managing multiple projects effectively is one of the freelancers’ main challenges.
As a freelance, you need a strategy for managing everything correctly, or you will fail on a client project.
Tips to successfully manage multiple projects as a freelancer
When you become a freelancer, you are not a master in one area; you are also a business owner and a project manager. Your responsibility is to build client relationships and stay organized. This whole process can be stressful and overwhelming. But it is doable if you develop your skills and excellent time management as a freelancer. To ensure that you’re doing everything, we will give you tips to manage different projects successfully.
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Time Management is vital
Having excellent time managment skills is a crucial factor in succeeding in freelancing. Time is one of the freelancer’s most valuable resources to help them achieve their freelancing goals.
It means checking how much time you spend on your work. Especially if you have numerous projects on your desk, it’s imperative to analyze how much time you spend on each task. Use time tracking apps to help you monitor and manage your time. And when you’ve collected data from tracking your time, identify what you should have done to work more efficiently.
2. Develop a schedule
As we already talk about the importance of time managment, the next part is scheduling. For completing all tasks, develop a schedule. It’s essential to clearly understand how you are spending your time and whether you can are making any progress.
If you are a freelancer, you have the freedom to choose your work hours, but numerous things could distract your productive hours.
Having a schedule will solve all these problems, and then if you have already created a plan that is best for you, the best thing will be to stick to that.
You should also schedule a time when you are not working. It can be spending time with family or friends. You’ll become less productive if you constantly have work in the back of your mind. Don’t be afraid to ensure you balance between life and freelance work.
3. Prioritize tasks based on importance and have a list
Once you have everything in your schedule, it’s easier to understand what needs to get done first, what might take longer, and where you have the strictest deadlines. Be realistic about deadlines. Procrastinating is a problem that, as a freelancer, you must overcome. You should deal with deadlines sooner or later. The moment you have a deadline set it up on your priority list. Then have a realistic plan on how to finish your work on time.
The next step is to list all projects you should work on. It may seem overwhelming initially, but it will help you determine which task should be your priority. Then you will complete your tasks based on their importance.
4. Set realistic deadlines with clients
Freelancers tend to promise the clients they’ll complete the project at the earliest possible date instead of setting realistic deadlines. Sometimes you can’t keep up, and you will ruin your relationships with your clients.
Strict deadlines aren’t just stressful but impact your productivity and health.
It will be a good option to ask the client if it will be convenient to receive the project in a manageable time for you. You may even add some time in case emergencies happen.
In many cases, you might find that clients accept that. In this case, having a job done strictly, the deadline is not what clients want; they want quality projects in an acceptable time.
4. Don’t forget to give your clients updates
If you are managing multiple projects efficiently, the next thing is giving your clients regular updates. Even if your due date is a few days away, giving your clients an update will ensure that you are working on the project.
Communication with the client is vital, but as a freelance, you should also set boundaries. Tell your clients know when you are available for video or phone calls.
If you tried hard but didn’t think you could complete a project on deadline, you need to ask for an extension. It’s not the best, but it is better than failing to deliver your work. If you need to ask for an extension, do so as soon as possible. Inform your clients about it as quickly as possible.
5. Use the right tools
If you are a freelancer who has different projects on the desk, simple but important advice you can hear is to be organized. For that, there are many tools to manage your projects and tasks. There are different kinds of tools like communication, accounting, and payments. Applying mood boards helps you to manage your daily work arrangement, and provides a place to unleash your creativity as well.
As we already discussed the importance of managing your time, therefore using a time tracker is the best solution. Take opportunities that have productivity and project management tools give. These tools help you to monitor the progress of each of your projects efficiently.
And bonus tip.
Take breaks.
A break does not mean working less. It means separating yourself from work entirely so you can really relax. Do anything besides working. It will be beneficial for your health but also will increase your productivity.
Conclusion
People quit their 9-5 job to get the freedom to choose when and how to work. But only by knowing how to manage multiple projects can you succeed as a freelancer because it is a business you should care about. To help, you gave steps on how to achieve that goal. Ad first knows that time managment is vital and who develops that skill. Also, you can’t go on working properly not having a schedule. The ability to prioritize projects and realistic deadlines is essential for successful freelancing. And as you have multiple projects, you should juggle and use tools to improve your work. Following this roadmap will guarantee that you can manage various freelance projects.