Youll find yourself juggling several tasks as your freelance career progresses.
Yes, youll earn more if you work more.
Youll only end up exhausted.
That way, youll have more time and energy to concentrate on the critical areas of your freelance business.
Email Management
Like most working adults, you probably receive hundreds of emails regularly.
Reading and answering messages doesn’t require intense focus, but they take up a chunk of your workday.
AnAdobe reporteven states that people spend over five hours daily checking emails.
Moreover, you cant just stop responding to emails altogether.
Various parties, from international freelance clients to federal agencies, will reach out to you via email.
In some cases, you might even have to respond quickly.
Instead of indiscriminately ignoring your emails, consider investing inrobust email management tools.
Find a platform that suits your needs.
Theyll either specialize in organizing your inbox or streamlining bulk email delivery.
Social Media Post Scheduling
Social media posting is paramount to digital marketing success.
Regularly engaging with clients and fellow remote workers will help you build a solid online presence as a freelancer.
Most people classify social media posting as shallow work.
However, it still takes a lot of time, especially as your following grows.
Youll find yourself spending hours just checking your inbox.
If you want to cut the time you spend managing your social media accounts, consider automating various functions.
Try different tools that might meet your needs.
Client Onboarding
Client onboarding sets the tone for any freelance project.
Rushing the process creates vague, unfeasible goals.
Alternatively, overanalyzing trivial details and repeatedly answering the same queries hampers productivity.
The most effective, time-saving approach is to automate several areas of your client onboarding process.
Lets say you ask your new clients similar questions.
Just verify you wholly understand your clients needs afterwards.
Prospecting Clients
Many freelancers dislike looking for new clients.
Between reaching out to prospects and attending initial consultations, youll easily spend dozens of hours a week prospecting.
Worst of all, you wont even convert all your leads.
For a more efficient approach, use automation tools.
We suggest trying out different programs based on which prospecting tasks you wish to automate.
Lets say youre a writer.
Email-finding tools can trace the editors and admins of different websites working with content writers and guest bloggers.
Appointment Booking
Many freelancers spend as much time planning meetings as they do attending them.
With that said, emails only take a few clicks to send.
Allotting more than an hour or two for scheduling appointments is unreasonable and unproductive.
To streamline the process, use an appointment booking app.
Simply send the participants your invite link and wait for their response.
Workflow Management
Freelancers often underestimate the time it takes to complete a project.
Lets say youre a content writer.
After all, youll also have to do topic research and draft edits.
Work projects always come with minute management tasks.
In-depth workflow management eats up time.
Instead, automate it with a project management tool.
That way, youll have more time and energy to focus on your core responsibilities.
Contract Drafting
As a freelancer, clients expect you to provide project contracts.
Writing a contract from scratch generally takes a few hours.
you could pull templates online, but you should still set aside an hour or two for editing.
After all, generic agreements will only compromise your freelance business.
Instead of copy-pasting random contract drafts, youll save more time by offloading the process to an automation tool.
There are severalapps that produce customized contract drafts.
Basic Finance Tracking
Keeping track of your finances will become more challenging as your freelance business grows.
Youll have to record all payments from every client.
Depending on your order volume, even simple finance management could take several hours.
Many professionals hire accountants to manage their finances.
Although you could also work with a finance professional, consider using automation tools first.
You wont even have to pay anything.
A quick Google search will reveal severalsimple, free personal finance Excel spreadsheet templatesyou can customize.
However, dont feel compelled to execute a fully functional, efficient automated system right from the get-go.
Workflow automation takes time.
Eliminate small, tedious tasks first, then gradually work your way toward automating more critical administrative responsibilities.
Also, dont buy premium automation tools haphazardly.
There are several free software programs and mobile apps on the market.
With the right strategy, you might already use them to automate several daily functions of your freelance business.
