Day 3 of my goal to write every day, document my freelance writing journey, and share the knowledge with others who want to become freelance writers. I provide writing tips, tactics, and strategies to help you earn well. I share everything I’ve learned to date, together with hacks and tricks that have helped me.
I’m not sure how many of you know Trello? I’m not going to go into too much detail because it’s been a long day, instead, I’m going to insert a quote from their site:
“Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process.”
Using Trello cards you can upload documents and add comments. But what does Trello have to do with why freelance writers should set deadlines? Well, nothing really.
But there’s one important aspect you should know as it has relevance to what I’m going to tell you. When you want to communicate with someone on Trello cards, you add a comment and add @personname. The person then receives an email notification that there’s a comment awaiting their attention. Failing to do this simply means the person will have no idea there’s a comment for them; the only way they’ll know is if they visit a card and stumble upon it.
Well, the other day, person x, at the agency I write for sent me a message saying that a blog post I’m writing for them was overdue. In fact, according to her, it’s a day late and she requested I submit it to her by 12:00 that morning. It’s now 09:00 am and I haven’t even started! I thought to myself, “Hang on. The due date wasn’t even specified”.
I’m sure you can guess what I’m going to say next. Yes, she failed to notify me of the due date because she didn’t use @personame. Granted, she was actually communicating with someone else on that board where she notified him to tell me about the date. But yes, you guessed it, he failed too.
In either case, I did the logical thing: I committed to sending them the article by 12:00 am. I had three hours to write, rewrite, edit, polish, and send a 600-800 word article, together with extra bits and bobs of research, and not too mention some time wasting, a cigarette break, a visit from a girlfriend and long stares out the window. But you know what? I finished the article at 11:55 am.”How do I remember the time”, you may be asking. Well, because I was so aware of the time! Who wouldn’t be when a deadline is looming?
The whole process made me think. I finished that article in time because there was a deadline and I gave myself no choice but to finish. Without a deadline, I’d be writing that article for another two hours, if not more. And that’s the thing – freelance writer or not – without deadlines you’ll wonder aimlessly. Sure, you’ll get the work done, but it’ll take that much longer.
As the cliche goes, time is money, especially in the world of freelance writing. So today’s freelance writing tip for you (and myself): set deadlines.
Here are a few extra resources if you want to take things further:
- Learn about the Pomodoro Time Management Technique, developed by Francesco Cirillo. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals.Are you a master procrastinator?
- Then watch this comical TedTalk by Tim Urban about how setting deadlines can reduce anxiety and procrastination.
If you enjoy writing and are serious about improving your writing skills, becoming a freelance writer, and want to earn more, I can help!
Feel free to email me at nick@nickdarlington.com.
P.S. No, I’m not selling you anything. I’m not going to ask you to buy my book or sign up for my course (I don’t have one), I’m simply offering you help.
But remember while I can offer you assistance and support, you have to put in the work. No action = No results.
Cheers
Nick D