Freelancers speaking frankly: Part III – time management & client-generation

In my last blog, I wrote about two major challenges faced by many of the freelancers I’ve been interviewing: overload and isolation.

This week I’m delving into two other issues that loom large: time management and client-generation.

So in the spirit of efficient time management… let’s get to it!

Time management

When was the last time you didn’t have to squeeze your life into a schedule designed by someone else?

If you’re anything like most people, it will be a very long time ago. Probably before you even started forming memories.

The workplace, university, school and even nursery demand that we march to the beat of rigid timetables.

At best, this can be a helpful and comforting rhythm – a sympathetic routine which keeps us balanced and content.

But at its worst, it can be a stranglehold, especially if the schedule is inflexible or overly geared towards work at the cost of wellbeing.

It’s for this reason that so many people jump for joy when they cross the threshold of self-employment. Finally, we have the chance to establish our own routine! What could be more liberating!

Here’s the kicker though: because we haven’t had much, if any, practice, many of us are spectacularly bad at this.

Here’s just some of the stuff you need to decide for yourself when creating your own schedule as a freelancer:

• What time to wake up
• Where to work from
• How many days per week to work
• How many hours per day to work
• What times you’ll be available to clients
• What to wear
• Who to work with
• Your preferred mode of communication
• How much time to work on the business (as opposed to in it)
• How much time to dedicate to training
• How much holiday to take

When you’re employed, every one of those things is, to a lesser or greater extent, decided for you.

It sounds easy then – delicious, even – to be in the privileged position of curating your own timetable.

But a lack of pre-existing structure means you are wholly reliant on (you guessed it): YOU.

We have, in effect, exchanged one monstrous system for another. We no longer have to do what anyone else tells us, but we now have to contend with something possibly even scarier: ourselves.

And I hate to break it to you, but you are fallible.

You are liable to moodswings, and slumps in motivation, and bad decisions. Because you are a human, and not a computer following a line of code, you will mess up. And there is no reward system to keep you on track or menacing potential punishments to hasten you into action.

Just… little old you.

It’s for this reason that many freelancers struggle to establish healthy, productive and reliable working routines, despite their best intentions.

"I find it hard to be disciplined if I’m honest", said one person I interviewed, "There are a lot of distractions when you’re working from home and no one is checking up on you." (this is the opposite of the ‘cracking the whip’ tendency I mentioned in my last blog). The result is usually mild guilt and self-loathing, followed by a large dose of madly racing to finish a piece of work at the eleventh hour.

For others, it’s less about motivation and more about knowing how to prioritise: "I have to juggle client delivery, running the business, marketing myself…" said another person I spoke to, "I rarely get the balance right. Usually delivery takes over and I never find the time to work on my online presence, for example."

Another interviewee said a similar thing: "I haven’t had time for any in-person meetings – I’m glued to my desk. It’s frustrating as I know making the effort to build deeper relationships will pay dividends in the future, but it always gets left at the bottom of the pile."

And even when you try to insert some sensible structure, such as dedicating particular days to particular clients, the real world often doesn’t care about your boundaries:

"I fought so hard to keep Mondays for this client and Wednesdays for that one", said one freelancer, "but the work was somehow always leaking into non-designated days, messing up my best-laid plans and diluting my focus."

One mindfulness expert told me that her biggest time management issue was the fact that her clients’ desired hours simply did not match hers: "People don’t want to do long mindfulness sessions in the middle of the day – they want to do it after work or at the weekends. The exact times where I also want to be relaxing with my family!"

I’m happy to say there are LOADS of simple and effective ways to improve your time management skills as a freelancer – but that’s for the next blog.

For now let’s turn to the final of the four major challenges:

Client (ergo income) generation

Well, I left the biggest one till last.

You can’t be a freelancer if you aren’t providing services to anyone. And if that person isn’t paying you, then you’re not a freelancer, you’re a volunteer.

There’s a sort of hierarchy that I’ve observed in this area.

The universally agreed worst position to be in is having no clients at all.

Surely no one can stay in this category for long before admitting defeat and returning to employment?

Well, mostly, yes. But there are some exceptions.

One person I spoke to had little to no work on the horizon but didn’t seem alarmed. When I dug deeper it transpired that her partner’s income covered their joint expenses, and as such she didn’t worry too much about the money side of freelancing. She saw it more as an opportunity to put something of herself into the world, and I was reminded of the archetypal artist – concerned with producing something of meaning and beauty with little thought as to commercial value. Another person I spoke to only works a handful of mornings a week, and seemed relaxed and upbeat – “I have money coming in from property and some other investments”, she said, somewhat guiltily, leaving me feeling sad that anyone should feel the need to apologise for their sound financial planning.

Next up on the ladder of client generation is having an erratic and unpredictable flow of work. “I couldn’t handle the volatility of monthly income – I was always worrying about it, and got fed up with the need to constantly generate leads”, one person admitted. They’ve since returned to employment but are hankering to get back to working for themselves, if only they can solve this riddle.

Then there’s what I call the lopsided stage. This is when one need is being met but another equally important one isn’t – for example, being busy and booked well into the future, but not earning much. Or being well-paid but disliking the work, or the client.

“The biggest headache for me right now is difficult clients”, one branding specialist told me, “I’ve often had clients not make time for a full briefing at the start of a project, then complain further down the line when something isn’t to their liking. And don’t get me started on clients who only care about vanity metrics…”

“I only seemed to get approached by weirdos and time-wasters”, lamented someone else, “I’ll put loads of effort into thoughtful social media posts and get excited when I see messages in my DMs – but upon further inspection, they’re not the right fit at all. Even worse, sometimes I get stuck on long free consultation calls with these people – it wastes my time and leads nowhere.”

One particularly self-aware woman told me how she had actively turned down lucrative work, sensing that it would drag her early-stage business in the wrong direction: “I started this business to live out my highest values”, she stated, “What’s the point of having money if I’ve had to sacrifice the principles I care most about in the process?”

My own version of lopsided came a few months into my freelancing journey – I was loving the work (tick), I was earning very well (tick), but I was working non-stop, to the exclusion of basic wellbeing (big cross).

The ideal position, it seems, is a balanced one: we are as busy as we choose to be, earning what we want to be, enjoying our work and nurturing our life outside of work.

Do you know anyone in that position? Are you a freelancer who’s got this delicate balance down to a fine art?

Next time, I'll reveal antidotes to the challenges of overload, isolation, time management and client generation – some sensible, some thought-provoking and some downright surprising.

Until then,

Fabienne

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