How well you manage a freelance project from start to finish will often determine whether you get repeat business from that client, so doesn’t it pay to do things right the first time? This section will give you some pointers on project planning, setting milestones, communicating with your client, staying organized, and managing your time — all things you will need to be able to do well in order to have a successful freelance engagement.

Planning the Freelance Project

After the contract has been negotiated and the paperwork is signed, it’s time to get down to brass tacks to put together your freelance project plan. In preparing your quote, you laid the groundwork for this, because in order to estimate the time it was going to take to do the project, you had to rough out each of the steps required to meet the specifications.

A basic project plan contains the following elements:

• The objectives – what the project intends to achieve. The objectives of the project are derived from the initial project specifications you bid on and should be well specified in the contract that both you and the client signed. For purposes of the project plan, you can restate them and include clarifications.
• An activity schedule with milestones and checkpoints. The project tasks that need to be accomplished should be identified and placed on a calendar and mapped by duration and who is responsible. Significant accomplishments are identified as milestones and checkpoints for reviewing progress are scheduled. Any interdependencies between resources and other activities are identified.
• A set of deliverables for each activity. The deliverables that are due as the project progresses are identified. This will vary widely depending upon the type of work that you do.
• A list of resource needs – financial, material, human, and time resources by activity and time period. The project resources such as personnel, software tools, equipment, supplies, and materials are identified. Contact information, location, and any other information that may be needed is listed also.
• A plan for monitoring – checking on whether everything is going according to plan according to some indicator. A well-run project always has someone monitoring the schedule to make sure things are going as planned and ensuring that corrective actions are taken as necessary to get back on track. This is generally the Project Manager’s responsibility (which is you, if you’re working solo on the project).
• A plan for evaluation – checking what has or has not been achieved based on the objectives, activities, resources, timeframe, and monitoring records. Sometimes referred to as a “post mortem,” this is generally a meeting of all project personnel to review what went right, what went wrong, what changed, and how to possibly avoid problems the next time around. This generally never takes place because of the tendency to go off and do the next project, but it can be a valuable learning tool for improvement, especially if you’re new to freelancing. You can also mentally score the project as to whether goals were met and whether you consider the project successful or not.

Putting together a project plan for a one person freelancing operation may seem like overkill, but it provides you with a structured way to stay organized and it demonstrates to your client that you’re serious about the work you do.

Establishing Milestones

Progress in a project is identified by a concept known as milestones. Here you list significant accomplishments, benchmarks, or deliverables. It is a way of setting project goals to strive for in order to move the project along. An incentive to reach milestones occurs if they are tied into a payment schedule that you have worked out with the client.

As with any goal objective, it is helpful to break the activities that you need to perform to achieve the goal into manageable chunks so that the task doesn’t seem overwhelming. This is what milestones are. The name comes from the posts along the side of the road that measure your progress as you journey to your destination.

To set up your milestones, review what your deadline is for the project and then work backward to the project start date. That is your timeline. Now, determine any intermediate deliverables you may have, such as rough drafts, sketches, prototypes, mock site, etc. and plug in the delivery dates for those. Finally, look at the tasks that must be performed in order to create the deliverables and chunk them into convenient intervals, say a week, and make them your milestones. This will help keep you focused and move the project along at a reasonable pace. If you incur setbacks that delay your accomplishment of the milestone, then you will need to make adjustments in the project schedule, either by working overtime or by pushing the due date back. Of course, your client should be advised and have a say in any decision regarding this.

Communicating Progress to Your Client

As part of your process, you need to set up a methodology to provide regular updates or progress reports to your client to keep them informed on what is happening with the project. With some projects, it may be a weekly status meeting to review work accomplished and with others, a quick daily email or phone call. It is your responsibility to find out early on what the client expectation is in this area, as well as the method preferred, and then make sure it gets added to the activity schedule. This provides peace of mind and an opportunity for the client to provide feedback that can be instrumental in assuring you deliver what was expected.

In addition, as a business owner, you need to be able to communicate bad news as readily as the good. Every project experiences setbacks, mistakes, and problems, and you need to be both willing and able to accept responsibility for them when they’re your fault and make corrections as necessary. Often, you will be able to partner with the resources the client has to resolve the issue. Being up front and honest is always the best policy and demonstrates that you have principles and integrity.

Staying Organized and Maintaining Focus

It’s a paradox that the very reason why most people want to freelance — the freedom and flexibility it affords — also becomes their biggest challenge when it comes to actually getting work done. Most of us have had little to no experience in running our lives with complete freedom. Typically, we have held jobs that had a confined structure and a set number of hours that were prescribed in which to work: the typical 9 to 5 with an hour for lunch. That gave us a system that we could operate within and we developed routines around that structure in order to accomplish everyday things like spend time with family, do laundry, buy groceries, go to the gym, etc.

With that system no longer in place, many freelancers find the freedom hard to adjust to and lack the experience to self-direct themselves. As a result, they find that too many things divert their attention and their productivity suffers. What is clearly needed is a replacement system that accommodates both the new workstyle and their personal lives.

One possible scenario is to simply adapt the 9 to 5 routine that you’ve known most of your working life to your new freelance life. You get up in the morning, do the things you’re normally accustomed to, and then go to your desk somewhere in your home and work until lunch. You then go to the kitchen, prepare yourself something to eat, relax a bit, perhaps take a walk, and then get back to work. When 5 o’clock arrives, you shut things down and call it a day. If that familiar routine gets you focused, and keeps you organized, than that’s great! But for too many of us, that’s exactly what we were trying to get away from! Clearly, other alternatives need to be devised for the rest of us.

Be a Self-organizer

In order for this to work, according to Paul and Sarah Edwards, the authors of several self-employment books, you have to become a self-organizer. In other words, you need to adapt and adhere to some principles in order to create a new system that will help you coordinate the many aspects of your professional and personal life and provide the focus and organization you need to be able to work in an unstructured environment.

The seven principles that will assist you in designing a new system that will work for you are:

1. Set specific goals - This should be things that you want to accomplish in both your freelance life and your personal life. Examples are: Spend at least 5 evenings a week with your children; earn your master’s degree in the next 3 years; bring in $50,000 in freelancing income by December 31st.
2. Convert your goals into specific tasks - By breaking your goals down into smaller tasks, the goal becomes less daunting and you can plan the steps needed to accomplish them. So for example, to plan for your master’s degree, you may need to research programs, apply for loans, decide on a concentration, map out a schedule, etc.
3. Set priorities - In both your work and personal life, develop a sense of what is an important task and what can wait, and then vow to do the important tasks first. For example, if you have five phone calls to return, but only have a half hour before you have to leave for a meeting, quickly prioritize which calls are the most important and make those first.
4. Put like things together - This means combine similar tasks: run all your errands at once, store all the files you need for a project together, make all your phone calls in the same sitting, etc.
5. Create routines - This is a biggie. You need to establish a new way of doing things so they are more predictable and you become more efficient. Once you discover the best way your workflow operates, you can turn it into a routine and avoid having to make hundreds of little decisions over and over every day. One caveat: Make sure the routine you establish matches your work style. In the beginning, you’ll have to remind yourself to follow it. After a while, it will become second nature.
6. Remain flexible - Life is unpredictable and you may have to waver from a routine from time to time. Go with the flow temporarily, but then make sure you get back to it.
7. Evaluate the results - Does it appear to be working? Are you making progress in meeting your goals and objectives? Do a monthly evaluation and make adjustments as necessary. If you find that you aren’t following the system, then you need to either try harder or change it. A good system should be easy to follow and make life easier for you.

Managing Your Time to Meet Deadlines

Time management is an industry unto itself and beyond the scope of this web site to cover in depth. But there are a few principles that especially apply to freelancers that we will cover here.

• Become a list person - Studies show that people who put their “to dos” in writing are 90% more likely to accomplish their tasks than those who do not. As we get older, our ability to remember things diminishes, so why not give yourself a break? List your tasks in priority order.
• Be realistic about how long it takes to get things done - Keep a time log during a project or use time tracking software. After a while, you’ll become an expert estimator and will be able to set aside the proper amount of time to accomplish a task.
• Schedule uninterrupted time on your calendar at the time of day when you are the most productive. No emails. No phone calls. No answering knocks at the door. No exceptions.
• Focus on one task at a time and don’t multitask. People actually accomplish more by doing one thing at a time and completing it. If you can’t complete it, take it as far as you can, and then move on to the next priority.
• Learn to say no to new tasks unless they contribute to accomplishing your goals, or hold a higher priority than what you’ve already got.
• If you work at home, separate your work life tasks from your personal life tasks and schedule time to do those too. Use just one calendar for both work and personal tasks but don’t let one intrude upon the other.
• Keep all your contact information in one place and use whatever works best for you, whether it be software like ACT or Microsoft Outlook, a device like your Blackberry or Palm, or just a day planner on your desk. The key is to organize them so that you have easy access to addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.
• Learn to use snippets of time productively - For example, bring materials you need to read with you when you have lunch, are in waiting rooms, or use public transportation.
• End each day with a plan for the next - Rewrite your to do list for tomorrow and reprioritize your tasks so you know at the beginning of each day what you need to concentrate on.

Time is an nonrenewable resource. We all have the same amount. But you’ll come out ahead if you learn techniques to conserve it, leverage it, and use it wisely.

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