Top Tips for Staying Productive when you’re Self-Employed

Being self-employed can be fantastic. As many of you know, I’m both employed and self-employed, but I work from home for both of my jobs. There are plenty of reasons why I love working from home, but it does have it’s drawbacks too.

Being self-employed is something that many people dream of. When you’re trudging through the week taking orders from somebody else, being your own boss becomes extremely appealing. But the reality of being self-employed is often very different from our expectations.

I work from home Monday – Saturday in my employment as well as squeezing in a fair few hours for my own business too. This means long hours sat at home without anyone to keep me company. It can be pretty lonely and there are times when I wonder if I’ve made the right choice. But, for us, having me at home makes far more sense financially and it works well whilst the kids are little.

One thing I do sometimes struggle with is productivity. This isn’t really a problem in my job as there’s always work for me to get on with and most of it is pretty time-sensitive, so I don’t get the opportunity to faff about! But, when it comes to my business, I really do need to keep myself focused, and that’s sometimes easier said than done!

Top Tips for Staying Productive when you’re Self-Employed

In order to make a success of being self-employed, you need to be able to focus and stay motivated, that’s the only way your business will succeed. That might sound easy, but you’d be surprised! These tips will help to ensure that you stay productive no matter what.

Focus

Some days it’s easy to just get on and get things done, but we all have our off days. On quieter days, when I haven’t got any deadlines looming in the immediate future, I can find myself wasting hours without getting much done if I’m not careful.

One of the techniques I learnt whilst at a conference recently was the pomodoro technique. This technique gives you 25 minutes of focused work time before allowing yourself a short break. I find that if I set the timer and just work for 25 minutes, I actually get lots done. It’s really important to have focused work time without any distractions.

Consider working outside the home

One of the beauties about being self-employed is that you can work from home. But that’s not always the best option. Working from home means that you can have all kinds of distractions. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve ended up doing the cleaning, or just quickly sorting out some washing rather than actually working. Home isn’t always the best place to be if you want to be productive.

Hot desking is great for people who want to work in a motivating environment from time to time. You can find places to hot desk online, such as this site which shares places to hot desk in Liverpool. This can be a great solution for self-employed people who want to work in an office environment from time to time.

Write down your goals and break them down into smaller targets

Every small business owner needs to have an idea of where they want their business to go if they want to make a success of it. Of course, you can’t predict what the future will hold, but it is good to have some ambition about where you want to be in a year or even five years’ time.

Once you have your big goals, break them down into smaller tasks. During quiet times, make sure that you do one of these smaller tasks so that you are always working towards your big goals.

Know when to ask for help

For most small businesses, there will come a time when you need to employ somebody to help out. It’s important to recognise when the right time is to do this and to know exactly which areas you need help with. You need to be making enough money to cover a salary and be regularly getting enough work to be confident that you can continue to cover that for the foreseeable future.

Taking on staff is an exciting yet daunting time for many people. Of course, when you do take on extra staff, you need to implement strategies to make sure that they understand what’s expected of them and remain productive at all times. It’s also a great idea to use time and attendance software to ensure that you can easily keep on top of things like staff holidays, attendance, punctuality and productivity.

Consider a business premises

If you’re employing people, then it’s probably at this time that you’ll want to start thinking about getting premises for your business too. It’s a good idea to do lots of research before diving into renting office space, and you can find lots of really useful information online, for example, have a read of this information about office space Liverpool.

Renting office space is great if you want to give your business a really professional touch, it somehow gives you far more credibility than just working from your kitchen table, but it’s not always the right thing for every business, so make sure you do your sums and research before taking the plunge.

If you’re self-employed and struggling to be productive, then these tips will help you to up your game.

*This is a collaborative post.