Your Time Is Money, Don’t Waste It

On average, employees can waste up to 70% of their productive working hours as a result of:

• constant interruptions – such as that colleague always asking questions about a task –,
• unnecessary meetings – the pre-meeting to prepare the team before the actual meeting, for instance –,
• poor quality settings – an uncomfortable chair or a desk that is too low –,
• inappropriate equipment – your digital team can’t work with Window XP anymore –,
• and ineffective management strategies – it turns out the micro-management approach really doesn’t work.   

Unfortunately, productivity loss is a standard issue in businesses, so that while the workload might accumulate, the primary causes are left untouched. But when you decide to become your own boss, the tables are reversed, and you’re the one at the middle of the productivity crisis.

However, for freelancers and solo entrepreneurs, there is no time to waste. When you work on your own or with a tight team, you can’t afford to misuse the time you’ve got available. Time is money, and that’s precisely why it is your most precious asset.

How can you effectively maximise your time without losing on the quality of your work? Here’s a small guideline to help new entrepreneurs streamline their activities.

You are paid for your time

Lack of supervision can make it difficult for independent workers to manage their time at first. But you can’t afford to sit on the sofa and watch your favourite show on the TV all day. You need to act responsibly because ultimately you are paid for your time.

The more your time is, the more difficult it will be to make ends meet at the end of the month. However, it doesn’t mean you should sit at your desk and work all day long without a break. The secret of productivity doesn’t lie in overworking yourself.

On the contrary, in the long term, you might find that you get less done during these long sitting sessions. Instead, you need to schedule regular breaks and intervals so that you can recharge your batteries. You can find free timing apps such as Pomodoro to keep you on track.

You can set how many hours you want to work in each sitting and how long your breaks have to be so that you can stay focused and productive. You also need to find the right working balance for your lifestyle. If you work from home, you can work at the time that best suits you.

Not everyone performs at their best during the 9 to 5 window. It’s worth experimenting to find out if you work better in the morning, in the evening, or even at night.

Know how much your time is worth

When you work as an employee, your salary takes into consideration additional costs such as health care, taxes, licensing, etc. But when you’re a freelancer, you need to determine how much your time is worth to cover all extra costs.

While freelancing platforms offer an excellent starting base for independent workers, they’ve also created an impossible challenge. Indeed, people compete on price on freelancing websites, meaning that you can come across freelancers offering jobs for as much as £1.5 or $2 per hour.

Needless to say, this isn’t the way to assess your time value – without mentioning the fact that it isn’t sustainable either. To avoid issues, you need to understand how to calculate a fair hourly rate as a freelancer.

Start with your ideal yearly salary, to which you need to add the costs of freelancing. By determining the number of billable hours per years against your adjusted yearly salary, you can estimate your hourly rate.

Save time when quoting your services

Not everyone can use an hourly rate. More often than not, your independent activities will be determined by projects. Clients will need to know your quote not for the number of hours you intend to work but for a full project.

How much will it cost to renovate my bathroom? How much do you charge to repair my car? How much can I expect to pay to rewire my home?

When you work per contract, you need to be able to estimate the value of each project effectively and rapidly. In other words, you can gain a lot of time and money in investing in a contractor pricing software solution that can run the calculations for you.

Comparing your hourly rate with a variety of material costs and additional fees related to a specific product, size, or process can take several hours, if you intend to prepare your quote by hand.

That is, ultimately, several hours during which you can’t be productive. An automated quoting system can make sure you’re not wasting unpaid time.

Automate your marketing activities

You can’t maintain your business without the necessary marketing activities. Indeed, all companies need promotion to get noticed and attract clients.

However, marketing is often a series of repetitive tasks that have to be completed, which utilises time you could best use elsewhere. While you can’t automate an entire marketing campaign, as a solo entrepreneur, you can focus on delivering the best interactions to your leads and prospects to encourage them to commit to a purchase.

Using automation can free up time for existing customers. As a rule of the thumb, you want to establish a friendly relationship with newcomers to your website, using, for instance, an automated response after they’ve filled the contact form. You can also recapture leads who have abandoned a purchase using an automated remarketing campaign that does all the hard conversion work for you.

Mark Reynolds, a marketing consultant, emphasises that a scattergun approach is no good and says you must have a strategy to succeed. While automation software can definitely help, you may need somebody to take over your strategy completely. This will ensure a tailored approach to your business, the best results, and much more time for you to focus on other things. 

Find a copywriter to maintain your blog

It is inconceivable, nowadays, to have a website without creating a blog on it. However, for a lot of freelancers, blogging can be a waste of time – especially if your professional activities are not desk-bound.

Who has got the time to write an article about the importance of checking your pies when you’re juggling with multiple plumbing projects during the day? But it’s difficult to grow your audience range without a blog that can capture popular keywords as they appear.

You can outsource your blogging activities to a professional copywriter. A copywriter can tell your brand story and maximise SEO results by publishing informative articles on a regular basis. On the one hand, you’re saving a lot of time that you can dedicate to productive work. And on the other hand, your blog presence can grow significantly.

Don’t create content, share life experiences

It can be difficult to share your work with your audience when your activities are not digital. Some constructors and home decor designers choose to work with photo galleries to show the before and after difference.

But you can create engaging content with only a smartphone when you are on site. Indeed, vlogging gives you the opportunity to showcase your skills and your work in a real-time setting.

Admittedly, using editing software tools, you can enhance the quality of the video before posting it online.

Who can best benefit from filming their work? Freelancers whose skills focus on working on real materials – such as DIY crafters, electricians, home painters, etc. – can turn their work projects into a quality portfolio in a matter of minutes.  

Embrace the advantages of the virtual office

If you’re looking to expand your home-based business, you can struggle to be taken seriously. Customers who call you might be surprised to dial a private landline and talk to your partner before you can answer the phone.

Similarly, it can be difficult to attract clients when you have to use your home address as a business base. While you can rent premises in town, it’s fair to say that for self-employed professionals who need to be on the go for their activities, being office-based can be a waste of time. It forces you to maintain the premises, regularly get in to check your post and clean the place.

ON a day-to-day basis, it’s time you could use for more urgent matters. But you can save yourself a lot of time and keep a professional profile with a virtual office.

Your mail can be sorted and handled in advance – and scanned or sent directly to the address of your choice—, and phone calls can be directly answered by a virtual receptionist who makes sure all necessary information is recorded for future purposes.

Improve your creative approach

How do you stay creative day after day when your work is home-based? Whether you are a crafter or a freelance web designer, creativity is at the core of your activities.

However, maintaining an inspiring routine can be time-demanding. And when time is the essence, you need to use it wisely. You can develop your creative input by improving your skills about a specific topic. Improve your drawing abilities can help you to create websites that are more aesthetically pleasing, for instance.

Mastering wood building can help you to renovate furniture and inspire new projects for your crafting business. When you choose to invest time in yourself, you need to make sure it can profit your business too.

As Benjamin Franklin once said, Time is money. If you don’t want to go bankrupt your efforts need to be focused on maximising productive time while delegating unproductive activities.