As freelancers, we theoretically have discretion in how we allocate our time, which is our most precious resource.

If we do not manage time effectively, we may well end up paying the firm or the client for the privilege of writing for them. In order to avoid this, it is vital to keep the amount of time we spend on any one job to a minimum, while still producing the kind of incisive and powerful prose our clients deserve.

For a non-technologically oriented writer, several very low-tech tools can help us accomplish this.

The first tool may be exclusively internal, but can be visible as well. It is crucial that everyone around us treat our work with the same seriousness that it holds for our clients. You need to regard your obligations as equal to the most demanding office job. This holds true even if you type in bunny slippers, or, shorts and a t-shirt. Everyone in your extended circle of friends and family needs to support you in order for you to be even slightly successful.

A loving but oblivious family can sabotage you decisively. Embracing the attitude that you are an important crafter of a needed product will go far towards encouraging others to treat you accordingly. Those around us will take us no more seriously than we take ourselves. How can one embody this? It could take varied forms. Read the rest of this entry »

For any freelance writer, the time and the productivity management should become essentials for solid personal and career growth, but being good at those things is not always intuitive and easy for a lot of people.

You have to possess certain personal traits and characteristics to be always organized and on schedule with your tasks.

Now this shouldn’t sound as permission or an excuse for being late with your orders. Although there are not that a lot of users within our community, who are late on their assignments, there are numerous individuals, who make a habit out of it.

And that’s why I wanted to offer a couple simple solutions for your work. These solutions would not only help you meeting the deadlines, but are fun to use. And I’m sure that these solutions will even be useful for those of you, who are usually courteous with your freelance writing duties. Just because, these solutions should be able to free some time for your personal chores and hobbies.

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As you have probably already figured out, we at the ResearchWritingCenter are obsessed with deadlines. Why? The answer is that meeting the deadline and making timely delivery are among the main criteria that make our customers love us. People generally tend to prefer and come back time after time for reliable service. Duh!

That customer preference for timely turn-ins is why we are starting an aggressive campaign to help our employees who are struggling with their own time management problems. You probably know that time management issues act like a chain of dominoes; one negative outcome after another. You put off the work and do something irrelevant instead. Then, you do not have enough time to do a superior job because now you are up against the deadline. So, you say to yourself: “Who cares!”, and do a rush job. Isn’t it logical to assume that the quality of a rush job will never even approach being “good”, never mind “great”?

One of the main issues with time management is the choice of the right time to start with a task. When folks receive an order with a deadline offering more than a few days lead time, they often think that this allows them to postpone beginning to work. This is wrong, wrong, so wrong, simply because you can never be sure what the task includes, exactly.

Yes, you might very well already have, in hand, an outline and the general assignment from the customer. But that is not the whole picture. There is also the research, locating credible sources, note taking, compilation of the information, etc., and the list goes on infinitely.

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