Getting Organised for Freelancers & Startup Founders

Step by Step Strategy to be as productive as possible

Hello Reader,

A Little Bit About Me

I work in two capacities, as Founder of Team Improvus and as a Freelance Business Psychology Consultant. You will know as well as I do that being your own boss is a right challenge as we balance the range of tasks on our plates. In this article, I am sharing the method I use, and teach my coaching clients, to get organised and maximise productivity.

Now, I don’t have a quick fix for you, this approach is a habit I have instilled in myself and takes consistent (monthly) effort.

Start with your Vision

For me, I always start the process of getting organised by articulating my vision. Taking the time to clarify my end goal ensures that I am funneling my efforts in the right direction and not just filling up my time with aimless tasks. This strategy helps me be as productive as possible because all of my freelance and startup work is pointed in the right direction. 

‘What is your vision?’

I’m confident you already have a vision, nonetheless, I recommend glancing at it again to check if it still resonates with you today - do update it if needed. If you are struggling to articulate your vision, feel free to reference my post on How to Know your Vision; which includes a template I use for my startup & freelancing, as well as other questions to help find direction.

Identify Clear Objectives

Once I know my vision, my next step is to identify my objectives (also known as KPIs). The question I ask myself is, 

‘What am I going to measure?’ 

Each of our startups / freelancing will be different, but some of the elements I include are financial income, creation of regular blog content, website visitors, social media audience & engagement, how many workshops I facilitated, and so on. Whenever possible, I make my objectives graphable because this makes measuring easier, for example; I will post two articles per month throughout 2021 or I will increase my website visitors from X per month to Y per month by December 2021.

My objectives vary in regard to timeline. I prefer shorter objectives of roughly 3 to 6 months, as this gives me the flexibility to adapt to new opportunities or the general fluctuations of the world (eg. Covid). That being said, I have noticed that as I have become more experienced as a founder and freelancer, my objectives have lasted longer because I have a greater idea of what to expect.

Identifying clear objectives, similar to the vision, provide me with focus and direction. It gives me the ability to measure my progress and ensure I am working towards my goal.

Master Task List

Excellent, my next step is to break down my objectives into bitesize actions. The smaller the task the better as it makes it easier for me to commit to. My aim with this step is to create a master task list which I can then reference at any point.

Key Points

• Include tasks which need to be done as well as what we want to do.

• Include deadlines whenever possible (I make my own if relevant).

• Personally, I include Life Admin in my master task list so that it doesn’t fall by the wayside.

• Format: both on paper and digitally are grand, whatever works for you.

Prioritise

With my master task list created, I then prioritise the various actions according to Importance and Urgency. As you can see, I have noted down the deadlines for my various tasks and I have also ranked them according to importance. This process helps me be as efficient as possible, as I know what needs to be done first!

Reference the Tasks Regularly

The final step in my organisation strategy is to reference my master task list regularly. There is no point in putting in all this effort to get organised if we don’t use it to guide our work. So, I create a daily plan of action from my task list which keeps me focused and productive. Learn how to design your Daily Plan in this post.

There you have it, a wee process to get organised. As I said, it has taken me some consistent effort to build this habit, but the rewards are vast, as it removes a considerable amount of stress and time wasting because I know what I want to achieve and the steps to get there.

Happy Doing!

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