Distractions in Freelancing
Being a freelancer is not that simple as it looks like from the far bright glistening world. It has many disadvantages and few people are able to cope up in this clustered world of so called luxury. To earn and sustain a reasonable – maybe a significant amount of money – to earn your livelihood is no easy task and it requires a lot of dedication and commitment.
Among the many disadvantages of freelancing (DISADVANTAGES OF FREELANCING – Read in Detail), there is another important factor which hampers in the way of success for freelancer, and which is completely forgotten by many people out there. This factor is ‘distraction’.
A freelancer’s world is full of distractions. In this short article, I am going to hover upon many general distractions that we freelancers frequently face. Following is the list of the possible common distractions.
1. Working from Home:
I reckon that working from home was an advantage as a freelancer, as long as I actually started the work. It is a great advantage with no doubt about it. However, it usually shapes up as one of the biggest distraction that hampers in your way. You often need to take care of many household chores, like opening the door, receiving the phone calls, listen to the babies, running on to the beep of the microwave: there are a lot of potential distractions while working from home. Your relatives are here for a barbeque night, or your family is arranging for an upcoming party; you will have to manage with all these hindrances.
2. Cell-Phones:
Cell phones are also the source of a major distraction while doing your work. With every now and then, you – or at least I – check my phone for any messages of calls that were missed, and most of the time, I start interacting with people, who are trying to contact me (and few do for a genuine issue, while most of them are just time killers).
3. Lack of Strictness:
You are your own boss, and no one is there to actually tell you that you are not working properly as the way that you are supposed to. You need to manage all the tasks alone, and you should be motivated for that. With this lack of bossly strictness, I often find myself hovering around the social networking website as soon as a notification pops up (Guilty me)
4. Lack of a Timely Schedule:
Often freelancers, to enjoy the freedom of working anytime they want, do not opt to specify a time schedule for their working hours. However, this proves to be a tremendous distraction and time consuming machine. For example, when I decide to work, a part of me realizes that I do not have to do this work right away, right now, as I can choose to do it in a couple of hours as well – this is where all the problem and distraction starts.
5. Too Much Workload:
Few people understand that how does too much workload can serve itself as a distraction to work, but freelancers, who have worked under such a circumstance would definitely be able to understand what I am talking about. Lots of work will be a reason to run away from your work, because of the too much pressure you have exerted on yourself, and your heart will automatically be attracted to more ‘entertaining’ things than winding up your projects. Surely there are many other things, aren’t they?
6. Internet:
I have always believed that internet has been one of my best buddies, with all these social networking websites and tons of entertainment. However, it all got very cleared when I opted to be a freelancer. Every now and then, the Facebook notification will pop up; the Email buzz will go on, and you will find yourself hopping around to these distractions.
Says It All!
These are some of the common distractions that freelancers usually face. It does not mean that they cannot be eradicated. Eventually, it all comes down to one’s personal commitment and dedication to his work. If a person is easily distracted, or he has been working for too long without much of entertainment, it will be hard for him to resist all these distractions.
As every lock has a key, every problem has a solution. Find out that how can you mitigate and remove all these distractions that a freelancer faces every day, so you can maximize your time, output and earnings.
