ClearView Writing

As a freelance writer it is all too easy to fall into the trap of continuous procrastination. Days drift by watching a multitude of random DVDs and streaming nonsensical TV shows. All too quickly you can find your lack of work affecting your income; whether it is work you do for others or yourself.

I find the best way to overcome this is to set my own personal deadlines. Of course a deadline is not a deadline without enforcement, so if I miss my deadline there has to be a punishment. This is a vital part of how I work, I am after all a lazy bastard. Ensuring failing to do my work incurs a penalty, from not going out to doing extra work, puts the work I have to do into perspective, and helps me get it out of the way all the quicker.

This all may seem a little obscure, maybe even a little strange. But it is well known that incentive is the best propagator of productivity. Just like the lack of motivation is the ultimate killer for those attempting to break into the freelance world.

Of course saying you will set your own deadlines is the easy part. What you really need to consider is what constitutes a manageable, realistic and achievable deadline. If a deadline is too much work in too little time, or too little work in too much time there really is no actual point in having it there in the first place.

If you keep missing your deadlines because they are too strict you will become overworked, burn out and eventually give in. If your deadlines are too lax you will become too lazy, maybe still miss the deadlines but will probably not punish yourself for the lapse.

Learning to create your own perfect deadline is something that you can only really learn from experience, but you should aim for something that stretches you, but not too hard and something that will not let you become too lazy but will keep you motivated enough to reach your goal.

Personally I find 5 articles a day, 4 short ones and 1 long one does me fine. It isn’t much, but ontop of a full time job it’s plenty, keep yourself stretched but not so snowed under you don’t have time to enjoy life!

The most important thing is not to beat yourself up too much about it. Take your punishment, do extra work or whatever you have decided, but do not dwell on it, you need to make sure you lose out over not finishing on time, but you really don’t want to get yourself into a downward spiral of not finishing work because it depresses you, failing the deadline and then becoming more depressed due to that!

And remember please, deadlines don’t work for everyone. If you find setting deadlines is harming your productivity as a freelance writer do not use them. Different techniques work for different people, this just happens to work for me!