6 Painless Ways to Boost Your Productivity as a Freelancer

I love working from home. The flexibility to take my lunch break whenever I want, visit the gym when it’s not crowded or walk my dog when I need to clear my mind...

You just can’t put a price on that!

But with that flexibility comes temptation. The temptation to watch a bit of TV (which turns into a two-hour break). Eat a snack and call a friend about last night’s football game. Take a nap. Go shopping. Name your weakness.

That’s not good. Because as a freelancer, your most precious nonrenewable resource (besides your knowledge, talents and experience) is your time. Using it wisely is one of the quickest ways to boost your income and get more free time.

How can you become more productive? Here are six simple and easy-to-implement tips that have helped me boost my productivity by more than 30 percent over the last two years. I guarantee that you’ll get similar (or even better) results if you apply them.

#1: Start by developing a productive attitude. Treat your craft as a business, not a hobby. And treat your time as a business owner would treat her most valuable inventory: with great care. After all, time is part of your own “inventory.”

This doesn’t mean you should work more hours. You could be working full-time, part-time or half-time. It doesn’t matter. But when you’re at work… work! Which leads me to the next point…

#2: Set working hours every day. And stick to them. For instance, I’m at my desk every day by 7:00 a.m. I find that the early morning hours are the most productive for me. My mind is clearer and my creative energies sharper.

End time is 6:00 p.m. That sounds like a long day, but I take an hour to go to the gym every day. I also pick up my son from school four days a week. Some days I take him to school in the mornings. And when we get home, we usually spend an hour doing homework and playing. I also often have meetings, lunches or coffee with friends and personal appointments. So it’s not all work time.

#3: Schedule your day. The night before or first thing in the morning, look at your overall project schedule and determine how you’ll allocate your time that day, hour by hour. Include personal time in that schedule. Above all, stick to it. Be disciplined. This tip alone will boost your productivity by 10 or 20 percent almost immediately.

#4: Always work on the task at hand. If you’ve allocated 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. to Project XYZ, work on that project for the whole two hours. It’s OK to take a break halfway through (more on that in a minute). But then get back to work on time. Don’t turn on the TV. Don’t check Facebook. You’re at work!

#5: Turn your phone’s ringer off if you’re easily distracted. Let calls go to voice mail and return calls during two or three designated times during the day. Similarly, turn your email program off if you don’t have the discipline to stay away from it. And at a minimum, turn off the chime or indicators your email program uses to notify you of incoming emails. Not only is it distracting, it also keeps you from building momentum on the task at hand.

#6: Use the “50-minute focus” technique. Developed by marketing whiz Dean Jackson, this technique is like strapping a jet engine to the back of a Ferrari! (OK, maybe not that fast, but still!). It’s amazingly simple and equally as effective. Here's how it works:

* Get a timer with an alarm. I use an online egg timer, but you can use a wristwatch or a kitchen timer.

* Select the project you want to work on, preferably one where you really need to make some serious progress.

* Set the timer for 50 minutes.

* During those 50 minutes, be totally focused on that project, just as you would be at an important client meeting. Don't check email. Don't take a break. Don't let your mind wander to the plans you have for the weekend. Be totally immersed.

* When the timer goes off, stop working. Completely unplug from the project for 20 minutes (yes, 20 full minutes!). During that time, you can take a break or get a few non-project tasks done. (I like to read.)

* After 20 minutes, assuming you still plan on working, do another 50-minute focus.


Fifty-minute focus sessions are like blocks of super-productive time you can squeeze in anywhere, anytime. I find this technique particularly helpful when I'm tired, under deadline pressure, or just feel unmotivated for some reason. Once I get absorbed in the project, my lack of motivation often disappears. Plus, I love the built-in incentive — that 20-minute break!

What about you? What techniques have helped you stay focused and boosted your productivity? What has NOT worked for you? Share with us in the comments below.

5 SEO Tips Every Newbie Should Know

If you want your website to rank higher and more often in Google (or any other search engine), it’s essential that you know a handful of techniques regarding SEO (search engine optimization). When you optimize your web pages so Google can more easily find you, you’re sure to be found much more often when prospects are searching for your products or services while searching online. If you can take advantage of the five tips that follow, your web pages will receive more traffic from the people you really want to find you…potential clients and customers.

The most important word to remember through each of these tips is, “keywords.” Think of keywords as search engine magnets. The more relevant keywords you have, in the right places on your pages, the more energy you are giving Google to find your website and have it appear in search results.

Tip #1: The Power of Links
Each tip that follows is something you can do to your actual web pages that can improve your Google visibility, but this one doesn’t. My first tip is for you to get as many links as you can to your website, from other websites. These are called, “inbound links,” and Google loves them. When other websites have a link to your website, Google is more likely to see your website as authoritative and more important. This means everything else you do on your web pages when it comes to SEO will be more valuable. However, not all inbound links are created equal. The bigger the website you can get to link to you, the more impressed Google will be. Start with your Chamber of Commerce website, and keep it going from there.

Bonus Tip - Remember, “keywords” still matter in links. A link to your site (or even within your site) that is hyperlinked as a keyword is much (MUCH) more valuable than just a hyperlink that says, “click here” or “www.yourwebsiteaddress.com.”

Tip #2: Page Titles
Page titles appear as the headline in Google search results. You should have page titles that are both relevant to what’s on that specific page, as well as keyword rich. Google allows you to use up to 70 characters in your page title, so maximize that real estate wisely. A perfect headline example for an accountant in Raleigh, NC may be: “Raleigh, NC Accounting Services | Acme Accounting and Bookkeeping.” That took up 65-characters and contained several keywords that may be used when someone is looking for an accountant in Raleigh, NC. See how easy this is? :)

Bonus Tip: Here’s a link to a free SEO character counter. By the way, did you see how the link we just mentioned used keywords as the hyperlink? This is what I was talking about in Tip #1.

Tip #3: Page Descriptions
When you’re looking at any search result in Google, the non-bold text under the page title is a “page description.” Google allows you to utilize 155 characters for your page description. Use the same rules as the page titles tip, but also think of these 155 characters as a mini-ad for the content that’s on the specific page your optimizing. To follow up on the Raleigh, NC accountant example above, your page description may be: “Acme Accounting and Bookkeeping is a local Raleigh, NC firm specializing in accounting, write up, bookkeeping, payroll and tax preparation services.” That’s 148 characters that contains both a perfect description of your home page, which is also keyword rich.

Again, use the free SEO character counter to help you maximize the perfect page description.

Tip #4: Maximizing Page Content
The power of keywords also extends to the content on your web pages. Although your page copy doesn’t appear in the Google search results, Google will index this content to make sure it matches up with your page title and page description. You’re going to want at least 300 words on each of your pages for Google to index (500 is even better). Be sure your keywords are mentioned close to 3-5% of the page content. This means in our example, that the words, “Raleigh, NC Accounting” should be mentioned in some form at least 15 times in a 500 word page. But remember, you don’t want to make your keywords feel “stuffed” into your page. Spread them out, so they feel natural, and not forced.

Tip #5: More Pages = More Juice
The more pages you feed Google, the more juice you have on your site to be found by Google. The best way to do this is by having a blog as part of your website. A blog is a simple way to produce weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly articles, posts, or company information that can be picked up by Google. Not only do more pages give Google more information to find you (and display you in more search results), it also keeps your site fresh with content, which is another thing that Google loves.