One of our Facebook Group members, Edgar Sarceno, asked:

"How do you stay focused as a freelancer?"

This is actually a really big challenge that we freelancers face.

As freelancers, we're masters of our own time. That means that we get paid according to the productive time we spend working. If we do great work, we get paid a lot of money by the hour. If we do crap work, we get crap pay (and probably crap reviews, which will lead us to even worse pay).

The problem is that there are a TON of distractions when you have the freedom of working from home (from anywhere, actually).

Personally, I love reading/listening to books and watching TV shows. Since I don't have a boss watching over my shoulder, I have the tendency to lose track of time watching one episode of Game of Thrones or The Office after another.

You may have different distractions. Do you have kids at home? Do you have friends that always want to hang out?

Being the master of your own time can be a curse as well as a blessing if we don't know how to focus on work and getting things done.

I wanted to give you some quick tips about maintaining focus as a freelancer. Each of these items could be further explained, but I wanted to keep short and be more of an overview. And even though I tried to keep this short, it had to be broken into two parts.

So for part 1:

1.) Have a Dedicated Area for Work

Once our body gets used to associating a specific location to something, it's hard to change that. For example: if you plan to work in your bedroom, your body will have a hard time getting out of 'sleep mode' and into 'work mode'.

I have this problem in my (current) studio apartment. Since there are no separate rooms where I currently live, it's sometimes really hard to get work done in my apartment. My body associates my apartment with rest and relaxation. So I often get tired and sleepy when I try to work hard. It's not impossible to get work done, but sometimes it gets hard. Especially when I'm not in the mood to work.

What I do sometimes is go to a cafe to get work done instead. This gives me a separate location where I can get into 'work mode' (Unfortunately, this has also spoiled cafes for me where I associate them with work.).

2.) Remove notifications

There's a certain peak in 'work mode' where we're extremely productive and produce our best work. Studies have shown that it takes around 20 minutes to get to this peak. However, if we get interrupted or distracted while at peak work mode, that timer resets and we have to spend 20 minutes to get back to that peak again.

I remember being extremely focused and productive while working on a project at arond 10am when all of a sudden, I got a call that lasted around 10 minutes. After the 10 minute call, I tried to get back to my work again - but I just couldn't. I tried over and over again to get my rhythm back, but I was only able to do so after lunch. So instead of the distraction losing me 10 minutes (the duration of the phone call), it cost me more than two hours.

What I do now is close email, close Facebook, and put my phone on silent when I'm working. When I get in peak 'work mode', I've eliminated most of the possible distractions. That way, I can do my best work and keep my clients happy for the high rate that they're paying me.

3.) Keep your ears occupied

I easily get distracted by noises and sounds. As I talked about in the previous point, when in peak 'work mode', a single distraction can cost hours of work. If you get easily distracted by dogs barking, jeepneys honking, or people talking in cafes, you might want to eliminate those distractions by keeping your ears occuppied.

The tough part with this is that when I listen to songs, I sometimes feel like humming or singing along - so that can be a distraction in itself.

What I do instead is listen to one of two kinds of sounds:
a.)White Noise - this is a steady sound with no major changes in volume or pitch. The most common white noise is when you tune in your radio to a frequency without a station - it's just a constant 'tchhhhhhhhhh'. That's what white noise is. Most white noise isn't usually irritating or loud. It can be patterns of birds chirping, soft winds, unintelligable cafe chatter, or the sound of an electric fan. There are lots of 'white noise generators' out there. If you search for 'white noise' in the app stores, you'll find lots of apps that do this for you. Or you can do a YouTube search if you want to listen from your computer.

b.)Binaural Beats - this are sounds at a certain frequency that are scientifically proven to stimulate focus and creativity. I won't get into the scientific explanation here, you can check Wikipedia for that. But a lot of binaural beats are constant beats without lyrics - think the musical version of white noise. I have a brain.fm subscription for my focus needs, but you can do searches for 'focus music' in the appstores or YouTube if you don't want to spend on a subscription.

PART TWO HERE