How To Manage Freelance Overload

There’s only so much time in the day, and sometimes despite your best efforts to plan ahead, life intervenes and scuttles your deadlines and best-laid plans.

I know more than a few freelancers who have found themselves trying to juggle deadlines with family illnesses and other lesser crises. And most freelancers I know have taken on too much work at one time or another and found themselves juggling and scrambling to meet all their deadlines.

So how do you avoid freelance overload? And if you find yourself in the precarious position of having to juggle deadlines with unexpected and unavoidable life events, what can you do?

1) Get honest. If you have a legitimate emergency, pick up the phone and call your client or editor right away and let them know your circumstances. Ask for a deadline extension if necessary. Most editors I know would rather find out that you might be running late before the deadline, rather than after the deadline.

2) Pare down. The other day I talked about the importance of sticking to the knitting—in other words, focusing on your core business. To avoid overload,  it’s important to ask yourself how incoming assignments tie in to the primary focus of your business. Granted, it can be tempting to accept assignments that don’t necessarily tie in to your core business in this economy. But if you take on too many of these types of assignments, you’re likely to spread yourself too thin and not further your primary business goals.

3) Prioritize. When you’re crunched for time, look for nonessential to-do items to strike off your list. What on your list can be put on hold until the crisis has passed? Or are there less important tasks that can be delegated to someone else? Or simply let certain things go temporarily—so what if there are a few more dirty dishes in the sink than normal?

4) Call it good enough. Many writers and editors I know have a strong perfectionist streak. If you’re on overload, sometimes you just have to do your best and call the job good enough when you’re done. And chances are—if you’re like most writers and editors I know—what you call good enough is much better than average.

5) Just say no. “No” is one of the shortest words in the English language, but often the toughest to say. But if you’re already on overload, set strong boundaries around your time and don’t volunteer for additional items. And while you’re at it, if you’re really pressed for time, turn your phone off, quit checking your e-mail, and shut out all other distractions until the job is done.

Photo credit: oddsock (Flickr)