Being self-employed is a wonderful way to live your life. But as a freelancer, things might seem a little chaotic a lot of the time. As you’re constantly looking for new opportunities and trying to prioritize upcoming deadlines, it can be incredibly difficult to maintain order, and therefore focus on the main tasks at hand. Luckily for you, we’ve identified seven hidden ways you can easily earn by bringing order from chaos, to help you succeed as a freelancer.

1. Develop systems for your workload

Every business, entrepreneur, or freelancer requires systems in order to succeed. Chaos thrives where systems don’t exist, so you need to develop a way of strategizing your workload. As a bare minimum, we recommend developing a system for the following aspects of your life as a freelancer:

• Client acquisition and onboarding – potential sources of work, client database.
• Project management – timeframes, deadlines, and daily work schedule.
• Financial management – taxes, personal budget, and business expenditure.
• Marketing and advertising – how and where do you promote your services?

Systematising your workload is the first step towards reducing the chaos in your schedule and will significantly improve your productivity and earning potential.

2. Adapt your communication style 

You will quickly learn that you must adapt your communication style to connect with your clients effectively. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach isn’t likely to help you when you try and bring order to your workload. For instance, you might need to be super direct with certain clients, while others require a more subtle, considered approach to win their business. As you become more experienced, you will understand the subtleties at play when communicating with your clients, which in turn will help you prioritize and order your projects.

3. Define and understand your priorities 

People tend to get into freelancing for different reasons. Whether you’re hoping to earn money from your gig as part of a side hustle or transitioning into freelancing to start a new career, you need to be clear about your priorities and ascertain your objectives. Adopting a scattergun approach to client acquisition, for instance, might not help you find the work that you need to develop your portfolio. It’s also unsustainable to look for work from too many sources at once, so you need to prioritize your objectives and be clear about what you’re looking for. You might find it helpful to operationalize a strategy that articulates precisely what you hope to achieve from freelancing, as this will help direct your daily practice.

4. Delegate certain tasks

Some freelancers erroneously think that, because they’re self-employed, they have to do everything themselves. This simply isn’t the case. As a freelancer, you’re part of a huge global network of gigsters who you can turn to for assistance in tasks that might be out of your skillset. In addition, delegating certain tasks enables you to focus on what you’re good at, reducing the feelings of chaos and stress that can make you feel out of your depth. You might, for example, consider delegating the following tasks to other freelancers:

• Accounts and taxes.
• Web development and maintenance.
• Blog writing and social media.
• Graphic design.

While you need to make sure you can afford to outsource your tasks, doing so will help you bring a sense of order to your workload and enables you to focus on your priorities.

5. Strive for balance in your life

There’s more to life than work, and you must remember this as a freelancer. The most successful freelancers understand that their workload shouldn’t overwhelm them, and they strive for the perfect balance in their lives. Everyone needs to spend time with loved ones, enjoy leisure activities, and hobbies, and have time for vacations once in a while. If you’re too focused on your work and neglect the other aspects of your life, you will struggle to maintain order in your professional life.

6. Adopt a positive mindset 

Is your glass half full or half empty? Positive people can see potential opportunities in every situation and don’t get caught up in the negatives. While you might think that it’s easier said than done to adopt a positive mindset, the truth is that it has to start with you. If you choose to respond negatively to the vast majority of situations you face in your professional life, you will feel like the world is closing in around you and conspiring against you. As a freelancer, try and remain objective and look at even the most challenging situations from a positive viewpoint. You will quickly see that such a stance will work to your advantage and increase your earning potential.

7. Understand the importance of switching off

It’s unsustainable to think you can remain online and connected to your clients 24/7. Trying to be ever available will add to your feelings of chaos, and you will become stress and overworked. Every experienced freelancer understands the importance of switching off once in a while and setting boundaries with their clients. Equally, most clients appreciate that it’s unfair and irrational to expect their freelancers to be contactable every hour under the sun, so boundary setting is usually accepted and appreciated. Articulating and understanding your boundaries will help you bring a semblance of structure and order to your workload and ensure you can remain productive during your working day.

Final thoughts

If you begin life as a freelancer without any thought or consideration, your daily schedule can easily descend into chaos. And as you might expect, chaos is bad for business, and you will struggle to remain productive and earn a living. The seven tips that we’ve introduced in this post will help you bring order to the chaos associated with being self-employed and enable you to be more focused and attentive to what’s important. This way, you will thrive in your life as a freelancer and won’t feel overwhelmed by your impending workload.