Investing Your Time – Part 1 for Investing in Freelance Writing
The only thing you will never make more of us is time. You can make more money. You can build more connections. You can create more opportunities. Every other resource can be replenished – except time.
Once you spend time – it is gone and can never be found again. Protect your time with even more gusto than you protect your other resources.
Most businesses develop a budget for spending their finances. It is even more important that you, as a freelance writer, create a budget for spending your time. The time budget that you develop will help you stay on track for reaching your success.
Investment Mapping for Your Time Budget
1. Review where you have been going. See how you are currently spending your time. Write down everything you do for a full week (or month). Be sure to include the amount of time you sleep, eat, or even drive. Once you record your activities, you can begin to determine your current time spending pattern.
2. Plan for where you want to go. Make a list of your goals. You must define your success for yourself o others WILL define it for you. The goals that you set will help guide your choices for the directions you take. The right steps will be key to reaching your desired freelance success.
3. Adjust what you do by what you see. You are currently using all of the 24 hours you receive each day. Building a successful freelance writing career will require some time. Investing that time wisely will guide your steps towards success. You will have to adjust your current pattern to make way for the new project. Let go of those activities that are not moving you forward or that may even be pulling you back. You must make changes in the way you are right now to make more of your tomorrow.
Review where you are. Plan on where you want to go. Adjust your actions to follow the course. The right time investments will lead you to your freelance writing success.
Do you know how you invest your time?
This is why I recommend that wherever possible writers actually outsource other tasks that eat into their time.
Think about chores such as cleaning your home or walking your dog – if you can charge $25 an hour as a writer but can find someone to do these tasks for $10 an hour then it makes financial sense for you to do so.
Thanks for stopping by the site, Brian. I have to agree that outsourcing can be a valuable tool. But it also pays to really look hard at the benefits you receive. For instance, although you make more money per hour writing than you would paying your dog walker, the benefits of walking the dog (for your health and your relationships with your dog) also need to be considered.
There is so much to balancing a time budget – so it is important that we invest a little of that time to make the rest of the time worth while!