It’s a tough question, but one you can only answer yourself.
Maybe you escaped the 9-5 to enjoy the freedom of being your own boss, choosing when, where and how you worked. Maybe you’ve always been self-employed and have never had to conform to a corporate structure. Whatever your situation I bet you’ve spent some time thinking about how to make the most of your day, and how to improve how productive you are.
Much as I loathe to admit it, I’ve had to come round to the view that maintaining regular working hours at least some of the time can help improve productivity, but how do you do it as a self-employed person without compromising the sense of freedom you’ve fought to secure? Here are a few tips:
1) Working to your natural rhythym: We’ve looked already at trying to work when you’re naturally at your best. You don’t need to fix your working hours, but how about, as a general rule, keeping these times sacrosanct? If you dedicate these times to achieving your main goals, anything outside of that is a bonus.
2) Breaks: The other thing the 9-5 gives you is an excuse to stop at lunchtime. Regular breaks are essential for productivity. It’s very easy to over-work when you’re self-employed, but you’re not productive when you’re tired. Everything takes twice as long.
3) Leisure time: when you’re self-employed you’re free to choose your leisure times…but if your friends and family all work in a corporate environment they won’t be free when you are. So you need to find a balance that works.
4) Client demands: If your clients expect you to be available during normal working hours you may find yourself to some degree needing to be on call during that time. I don’t know many self-employed people who work 40 hour weeks though, and you’re still going to need to schedule time for business development. Many businesses suffer because they don’t spend enough time working on the business. Too focused on ‘doing the job’ their business systems don’t keep pace with the natural growth of the work. I’ve seen many small businesses miss out on opportunities which would have made them significantly more profitable because they were too busy with the day job.
The beauty of being your own boss is your ability to be flexible. The demand of self-employment is to find that balance between flexibility and being profitable.
