You chose to make your living as a Freelance professional and operate a single person entity that requires you to identify and compete for paying clients and provide for those who hire you solutions that will produce the preferred outcome—resolve a problem, achieve a goal, side-step an obstacle, or access an opportunity. By nature, you are proactive and ambitious, disciplined and forward-thinking. You know how to get things done. You also know that because you primarily work alone, it is essential that you optimize the allocation of your time. You are aware that failure to effectively manage your time can bring negative consequences, such as compromising the quality of your work or elevating your stress level.

The ultimate goal of a Freelancer is to please the client. That means you’ll follow the recipe for a happy client by delivering high quality work and honoring deadlines, so you’ll meet, or ideally, exceed, client expectations. Moreover, along with the wonderful feeling you experience when you know that the client appreciates what you’ve produced on behalf of his/her organization, a happy client is likely to give you repeat business and maybe also send referrals your way. In other words, clients who had a good experience working with you may contribute to your ability to reach your target revenue and profit projections.

The essence of optimal time, and project, management is to map out and streamline your workflow so that you’ll maximize your productivity and simultaneously promote the excellence and timely completion of your work. Oh, and both you and your client will experience a happy feeling. Hiring you will make your client look good to the higher-ups. What could be better than that?

So you open the door to an excellent work experience by instituting workflow management processes—a strategic to-do list that documents and ranks the tasks, i.e. the building blocks, needed to bring about the successful and timely completion of your project. Workflow management ensures that you’ll maximize your productivity and efficiency by organizing and systemizing the sequence of tasks performed as part of project work—that is, the workflow.

If your project is complex, it’s especially urgent that you identify and prioritize the core elements of the work. Implementing project management practices will help you manage multiple workflows that are associated with a big job that has many moving parts. Project management is workflow management writ large; it helps you to take on a big picture perspective that guides your focus as you plan, execute and monitor the project. You’ll rely on project management competencies to successfully oversee complex assignments, when you must simultaneously manage tasks, track outcomes and progress and adhere to the timeline. You may have figured out that time management and workflow or project management are brand builders and you don’t want to drop the ball. As one of my former sales managers often said, “Plan your work and work your plan.”

Define the deliverables

When you’re interviewing with the project hiring committee, you’ll learn what your hoped-for client needs and how you can successfully address the wish list. If you receive the offer (of course you will!), the project specs might be detailed in the offer letter and will certainly be detailed in the contract. It’s still a good idea for you to confirm expectations during the onboarding process by suggesting that you and the client contact meet before you commence work. In that meeting, you can inquire about factors that may not be in writing—like what aspect of the project deliverable is the highest priority, so you’ll understand what really matters. Because you want to ensure that you will meet or exceed client expectations, you’ll need to know where to make your work shine.

Create a timeline to ensure that milestones and deadlines are honored

Keep at top-of-mind that although it’s the client’s project, it is the Freelancer’s job to keep the project work on schedule. You must be in control, diplomatically and quietly efficient, and ensure that all project workflows are organized and that you and the client are on the same page. As you map the project workflow tasks, prioritize the core components and assign realistic completion dates so you’ll build an achievable timeline.

Remember to factor in time needed for client review and feedback of your work, as well as time to incorporate revisions that may be requested. Keep both hands on the steering wheel and make sure that you’re heading in the right direction, You’ll stay in control and be able to more easily make a course correction when you monitor the progress every day or two. Your goal is to comfortably meet all milestone dates and, most of all, meet the project deadline.

Keep the client contact informed

Depending on the project work and the inclinations of the client team, suggest weekly project update meetings. If you’re lucky, the meetings won’t exceed 30 minutes. Alternatively, send an email to inform the client contact about your progress and to discuss potential obstacles or ask questions. Your goal is to reassure the client that you are expertly driving the bus and that project work is progressing according to schedule.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Ⓒ Deepak Sethi for Getty Images