Everyone has been there: too many tasks, not enough time, and growing panic at the prospect of not getting everything done—let alone on time.
Graphic Designers who work in the corporate world are often working with a team, which can be helpful for accountability purposes. Team members can help them during times of overwhelm and tight deadlines.
Freelance Graphic Designers, on the other hand, set their own schedules. They can take on as many projects and/or clients as they like, and are in charge of making sure they get their work done on time. They are their own boss.
While being your own boss has undeniable benefits, it can be challenging if you haven’t had many chances to build professional boundaries and be in charge of your own schedule. Creatives, in particular, have an uncanny tendency to test their limits through procrastination, even when it’s the more stressful way of completing projects. Thus the (often dreaded) term appears: time management.
Why is Time Management Important?
Time management is simply the way you spend your time. How you manage priorities and complete tasks, and generally move through the time you have available in your everyday life.
It’s definitely not everyone’s strong suit, but there are major reasons that every freelancer, including Graphic Designers, should learn to manage their time effectively.
Produce Quality Work
The most critical part of being successful as a Freelance Graphic Designer is your ability to do good work. After all, Graphic Designers help build reputations and companies, often from the ground up. The kind of work needed to build successful quality designs takes time, which means as a Graphic Designer, you need to be able to use your time efficiently.
If you consistently find yourself in a rush to finish projects or are constantly running right down the moment before the deadline, the quality of your work won’t be as high as it would be if you had left yourself enough time in the planning phase. Not to mention, you’ll miss details and maybe even forget items that need to be included in the design because you were in a hurry to get it done.
Get More Done (without Working Longer Hours)
Freelancer Graphic Designers, and creatives as a whole, are often known for their passion for art. It’s what they do, which is why they’ve decided to make a career out of it. Sometimes when Graphic Designers are “in the zone” so to speak, they might work long hours and still find themselves unable to finish the task at hand.
Time management helps solve this conundrum. When you set aside time for each task, it helps prevent one task from monopolizing all the time you have available. When you complete the task, you can move on to the next (or take a short break and finish up a longer one). Using a strategy with your time during creative projects will help you get more done without putting in more hours than you need to.
Less Overwhelm & Burnout
When your to-do list is a mile long, it’s overwhelming. When half of those things are on deadlines, as they often are in the design world, there’s an intense pressure to hit all the deadlines at any cost—even if that means an unworkable number of hours. There’s nothing that causes burnout faster than a long list of tight deadlines.
Time management is one of the only ways to prevent this kind of burnout and overwhelm. Any freelance role will likely have deadlines, some of which may be tight. If you aren’t managing how you spend your time and on what projects, everything feels more difficult and overwhelming than if you logically decide how to complete the projects in a timely manner.
Less Errors & Missed Deadlines
When you’re in a hurry, or overbooked with work, it leads to errors and missed deadlines. This further leads to unhappy clients and sometimes even the loss of projects depending on what kind of issues that crop up.
No one wants this to happen, and it doesn’t have to. Freelance Graphic Designers have the option to set their own schedules, which means that they can design their schedules around existing obligations. This enables them to see if/when they can take on more work, or when it’s time to outsource to someone who can help complete projects. Time management is key for building and protecting a Designer’s reputation. It’s what allows them to keep running their business.
5 Ways to Manage Your Time as a Freelance Graphic Designer
Time management is important, but it’s sometimes easier said than done.
What are some ways that actually work for managing time? And how fast can someone try them out?
The good news is that there are quite a few methods to try, and you can start today. Here are some of the best methods Designers can use for managing their time as freelancers.
Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique has been increasing people’s productivity since the 1990s. It was developed by a man named Francesco Cirillo, who’s an entrepreneur. In college, he set a tomato timer for 25-minute increments of uninterrupted work time and found that his productivity increased. Pomodoro is actually the Italian word for tomato.
How this technique works is simple:
- Choose a task to work on during your pomodoro session. Turn off all distractions (like notifications on your phone and email) and prepare to focus solely on the task at hand.
- Set the timer for 25 minutes & work on your task until the timer goes off. If you want to use a tomato timer, that’s fine, or you can use another timer that you have on hand. There are many free programs online and cell phone apps, like Forest, that allow you to set a timer and block you from getting into distracting applications.
- When the timer goes off, put a checkmark on a piece of paper, or on your to do list. Make sure it’s a handwritten checkmark.
- Take a short five-minute break. Don’t do work tasks. Allow your brain to rest. The 25-minute session plus the short break is one pomodoro.
- Complete 3 more pomodoros (work sessions + short breaks).
- Take a longer break. 20 or 30 minutes is a good amount, or longer if you need.
Make Your To-Do List
There’s always a conversation going on about to-do lists. Is there a right way? A more efficient way? Can you do without them altogether?
For the Freelance Graphic Designer, having a to-do list is important, although how that looks is unique to each individual. Some people thrive off of detailed tasks, while others prefer a simple reminder that they need to work on a project that day or week.
One helpful strategy for making a to-do list less overwhelming is to plan your tasks at the beginning of the week. You can complete your list the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper, or in digital programs like Asana. It might feel odd at first, but these simple steps will help you envision what your week will look like and how to budget your time.
- Make a master list of tasks to complete. Include projects for work, side projects, and important personal tasks.
- When you have the tasks written down, label them. Are they for work, side projects, or personal? If they’re work related and you have more than one client, which client is the task for? Make the list as clear as you can and have fun with it. Color-coding and initials (for example PERSONAL or CLIENT NAME) are useful ways to delineate between tasks.
- Separate your master list into tasks for each working day. As you’re scheduling out your tasks for each day, consider the amount of work possible and if you have any scheduled events on specific days. If you work Monday through Friday in your freelance business, only schedule tasks for those days. If you like to work over the weekend, include those days, too.
- When you have a task list for your working days, mark your top 3 priorities for each day. Ask yourself: What are the most important things I must do today? If I get those done, I’ll know I did enough. Although it’s tempting to think of every single item as a “must do,” chances are that if some tasks got moved to another day, the world wouldn’t stop turning.
- Start your day with the priority tasks. Begin your day with the top three important items. If you get those done and you have other items on the list, you can complete those as well, but make sure your top priorities get the time they need.
Break Up Large Projects
Designers often work on multi-faceted projects. Freelance Graphic Designers are typically juggling multiple projects at a time, which means that it can be difficult to ensure everything gets completed well and on time. Multiple clients with large projects creates a new level of complexity when planning how to manage your time.
In order to keep yourself organized and on track with each project, it’s critical to break big projects into smaller, manageable tasks. Doing this will help you budget your time wisely. It will also allow you to give each piece an adequate amount of thought and energy that may otherwise be wasted trying to figure out how to tackle the project all at one time.
Each Graphic Designer has different specialties and workflows, which means there’s no one ideal way to break down projects. Once you try a few different ways, you’ll be able to better figure out what works for you and create your own system. The key is to learn what’s repeatable.
A few ways to break up large projects include: by task (Monday could be for all font tasks, Tuesday for color palettes, etc.), by step in the process (Monday is brainstorming, Tuesday is outlining the steps, etc.), or by client (Monday is for client X, Tuesday is for client Y, etc.). When you decide which way you’re breaking down the project, add these smaller tasks to your to-do list separately to make them individual priorities.
An example logo design project might be broken down into tasks such as:
- Narrowing down & choosing fonts
- Choosing color palette options
- Initial draft design
- Revision
- Send for client feedback
Time Block with Calendar Invites
Completing your daily to-do lists and figuring out how to tackle your projects probably feels good. It feels productive, and often creates a sense of “I can do this.” On the other hand, these lists can also feel idealistic, especially if you’re a freelancer who’s handling numerous clients and projects simultaneously.
Here’s how to get those tasks done (besides simply telling yourself you’ll do it): schedule them.
You wouldn’t make a doctor’s appointment and then that morning think to yourself Oh, I’ll do this tomorrow instead. The tasks you put on your to-do list are important to your work. You need to do them to complete client projects and grow your business, which makes them equally as important as any other appointment you might have on your calendar.
When you’ve decided your priorities for each day, you can put a calendar invite or “time block” on your Outlook or Google calendar to remind yourself and tell others that you’ll be busy during that time. With the time blocked off, your most important projects are sure to get the time and attention they need. You don’t have to put the name of the project on the time block if you don’t want to share that information with others who can see your calendar, but it should be clear to you what you need to be working on during that time.
Some fun and helpful ways to customize your calendar invites for time blocking are:
- Color coding by task or client
- Putting an encouraging message in the body of the invite so when you click on it you feel good about spending that time on the task
- Adding repeating time slots for focused working sessions
- Editing the working session invitation name by adding a checkmark to the title when you’re done with the task
Set Limits & Deadlines for Yourself
As a Freelance Graphic Designer, it’s easy to go overboard with work. Freelancing, in particular, is notorious for “grinding” and spending countless hours, especially while building a new business. In order to avoid the inevitable burnout and overwhelm that comes from constantly working (even on something you’re passionate about), it’s key to set limits.
When you’re your own boss, you set the expectations not only for yourself but also for your collaboration partners and clients. It’s up to you to define your availability, when you’ll be working, how fast you’ll respond to communication, and how quickly you’ll be able to turn projects around. It’s easier to set these boundaries at the beginning of a business or relationship (whether that’s with another contractor or with a new client); however, sometimes you don’t know you need a boundary until it’s broken.
The key to setting boundaries is to be clear and transparent, and communicate often. It’s better to over-communicate than under-communicate when it comes to expectations, that way everyone is on the same page.
Some limits & deadlines to think about and set before your next project:
- Smaller deadlines for each part of the project
- Your top priorities—everything else is a bonus
- Set client expectations (availability, working hours, response time, etc.)
What to Do with Your Newly-Found Free Time? Learn!
When you’re able to manage your time well throughout the days and weeks, you’ll find yourself with more time and flexibility. What better way to spend downtime during the “work day” than learning and honing your skills?
Noble Desktop has plenty of courses to learn the basics of Adobe programs you don’t know yet, or uplevel what you do know. There are Photoshop courses, Illustrator courses, and InDesign courses.
If you’re looking for a more comprehensive learning experience, there are plenty of Design Certificate options available, too. You can review the syllabi and course info to find out more, or check out a deeper comparison of what makes each certification unique.
All classes at Noble are offered in-person in New York City or live online. With live online courses, you get access to the same great instructor-led training but from the comfort of wherever you learn best (maybe even in your PJs!).