Managing your time with two freelance clients or more

Oh, how wonderful it is when you get to the point where you have not just one freelance client, but two or more.

When more and more start responding positively to the services you are offering online as a freelancer.
It is a blessing.

But it also comes with some challenges.

Which I am going to touch on a bit in this article – and offer some tips along the way that you can use:

• To complete tasks outsourced to you on time.
• To handle the assignments you get without your life spinning out of control.
• To fall more in love with your work.

How I got to have a second and a third freelance client

Lots of emailing.

I just did more of what worked the first time.

I used the same email template.

I linked to the same articles from the emails I sent out.

And then when the responses came in, amidst all the rejections, someone said yes.

And when I had client number two, I did the work they outsourced to me while occasionally sending out more emails to more sites – looking for writing gigs.

Again it took awhile. But eventually, somebody said yes, and outsourced work to me.

That is how I got to client number three.

And that is when I had to learn how to deal with more than one client.

All the theory I had accumulated, I had to put in practice.

I had to learn how to split my time between two or three more projects from different clients.

I had to learn how to plan well. To make sure all my assignments were getting the attention they deserved.

I had to learn ways to make sure my breaks didn’t turn me towards activities that would lead to procrastination.

I had to learn to sit for long periods of time to do the work even if some funny clip was just a click away.

Basically, I was having one huge lesson:

• on managing my time (without any supervision)
• coming up with to-do lists that helped me work on the jobs outsourced to me while still sparing some time to educate myself and look for more clients

If I can boil it all down to a few things, I had to learn how to use my time in a way that I could still dedicate enough time to:

• Enjoy my personal life. To spend time with the people I like. To crack jokes and laugh. And to spend time on my hobbies.
• Look for new clients. Since I wasn’t bidding on job sites, I had to spare some time to research new blogs I could write for and use cold pitching to see if they would be interested in working with me.
• Complete the assignment I had (and beat the deadlines). So, sometime I would be working on an article and then before I even finished it another client would also send work my way. So, I had to learn to spend just the right amount of time on a project before I moved to the next one.
• Educate myself. So, taking some time off work to just read articles on my phone. I had to find ways to keep abreast with the changes that were happening in the niche I was writing on.
• Work on my own projects. Since I had my own blog, I also had to learn to carve some time just to write new posts for my own site. Or edit some of the posts I had already published.

And I think the most important lessons I have learned working with more than one client are these three:

To get to work right away. When a client sends work over (say if it is an article writing job), just create a quick outline for the article, look up the resources they mention, or just go online to lookup infographics on a topic similar to the job they outsource to you.

To make sure you do as much as possible in one sitting. If you can complete a project in one sitting, the better. Or if you can just handle the challenging parts of a project first, that leaves you with a lot of room to work on other clients’ projects without worrying about getting behind on anything.

To tell the client if you are not going to finish the project on time. To tell them soon and to tell them why – no excuses.

Areas lots of freelancers waste their time on when working with multiple clients

Spending way too much time doing research. If you spend a lot of time on one client’s project, definitely it will eat on the time you could have spent finishing a second assignment. So, just learn how to strike a balance; to just spend the right amount of time on every project. Once you do, you will stave off a lot of pressure and get rid of anxieties that will show up threatening to take joy and fun off your career / business.

Distractions. So, anything that feeds procrastination. Anything that keeps you from concentrating for long periods of time so you can get more work done. For example, surfing the web (jumping from one site to the next), watching videos on YouTube, or chatting on social media sites and messaging apps.

Things you don’t want to slip while working with multiple clients

Your sleep. While working with multiple clients, you want to make sure that you get enough sleep. 7 or 8 hours per night, some recommend. It is fun working on different projects when you are well rested.

Your hygiene. Because you are working from home, your hygiene can slip quickly especially if you have back to back projects sometimes for days in a row.

Your interactions offline. With your friends, neighbours, family and relatives. If you manage your time we’ll, there will be more of you for them to see -and enjoy being around (to chat, share ideas and just be a pillar of support for each other in good and bad times).

Exercise. Working out using whatever method that works the best for you – push ups, squats, jogging, running, pull ups etc.

Your education. So, learning new things that can help you get better at delivering your services to your existing clients. Learning new ways to bring in new clients. Learning new ways to grow your business. Generally just finding ways to keep getting better and better at what you do.

If you are looking for even more clients, make sure to place your ad listing on Niabusiness Classifieds.

A client maybe going through some of the listings on the site and decide to get in touch with you to see if they can outsource work to you. You never know. So just spend a few minutes on the Place Ad page and create your own listing. It is free.