Are You a Freelance Developer? Here’s How to Stay Productive…
The challenge of productivity is ever-present for most people, and developers are no different. In fact, with more developers working remotely than ever before, the question of how to stay productive has never been more relevant.
Even if you’re somebody who finds it easy to get into work and, once started, are not easily distracted, then there are still ways to supercharge your performance.
Set Regular Work Hours
One of the joys of working on a freelance basis is the freedom. People that work 9–5 jobs of their freelancer friends with envy. They imagine their remote working counterparts serenely whirring up their machines at around 10, after a lie-in, or finishing early on a Tuesday to get a few hours gaming in or grab a beer.
Those of us who depend on freelance work for our bread and butter, know how misguided these imaginings really are. Sure, there is freedom, but every minute spent indulging in non-productive tasks is money lost. If a freelancer spends a day coasting, there is no one else to pick up the slack and their payday will certainly be affected.
That’s why setting regular ‘office’ hours is actually beneficial to a lot of developers. It helps them to segment professional and personal and manage client expectations.
Schedule Your Day
Being busy is a sure sign that you are making a success of freelance development. Of course, being pushed for time is also a risk to your business. You may have the skills, determination and attitude needed to make it, but the day will come when there is more to do than can be reasonably held in one person’s head!
Make schedules that tally with deadlines. Make sure that you pencil in time for breaks- quality downtime is as important as quality work time- the one can’t exist without the other!
Consider the Pomodoro Technique
Get up, log on, and work as hard as you can for as long as you can. Sound familiar? This is the approach most developers have to work. And there is something to be said for it, there must be, or the internet wouldn’t be a thing!
However, this is not for everybody all the time. As a freelancer, you need to have productivity methods that are reliable even if times are tough. No one is going to pay you for burning out.
The pomodoro method is one of the worst kept secrets in the world of productivity. It is also one of the most effective and underutilised. Maybe one of the reasons that more people don’t use it is that it sounds too simple to be of much use. It works something like this:
- Pick a task to work on
- Set a timer for 25 mins
- Start working, and don’t stop until…
- The buzzer sounds, then take a 5 minute break
- Repeat
- After four repeats, take a 25–30 min break
- Repeat as needed!
This splits your day into manageable chunks. Try it next time you are struggling to slog out another line of code, it works!
Plan Regular Digital Detoxes
This is a rather grandiose way of saying, stop looking at screens for a few hours. Too often, we log out of work and log into social media feeds, toxic news stories and clickbait tunnels. For a developer who is already spending a disproportionate amount of time living in a digital reality, switching off is essential- not only for productivity, but for your wellbeing.
Know Your Goals
In a way, this is the most important of all. I am not talking about productivity goals, I am talking about life goals. Maybe you want to retire when you’re 45, buy a campervan and drive across Europe. Maybe you want to send your kid to private school, or are just paying the bills while you develop the next big thing in mobile gaming. Without a true, meaningful purpose you will struggle to stay productive even if you are the most organised person on the planet!
