Overworked and Underpaid? Not Likely…
It’s not uncommon for everyone, at some point in his career, to get to the point where he feels as though he’s overworked and underpaid. The real truth, however, is that most of the people who complain about being overworked really aren’t. They feel as though there aren’t enough hours in the day to get work done, but in truth they’re really not focused on the tasks at hand.
The average corporate employee eventually refocses and gets back to work. If you’re a full-time freelancer, though, you may be distracted for longer periods of time. Time is money - if you’re not working you don’t get paid. So how do you bring yourself back on track?
Start by making a list of the things you do in an average day. Include the number of times you check your email, the number of times you Twitter, and the number of times you log into Facebook. (You didn’t know I knew you were doing that, did you?)
After just one short day you’ll realize how much time you’re wasting on non-productive tasks. Your next goal will be to find ways to eliminate those time-wasters from your schedule. This may involve working breaks (away from the computer) into your daily schedule or actually setting a timer to limit the amount of time you spend on unnecessary web browsing.
You will be amazed at the amount of time you’ve been wasting, but once you’re able to identify your problems it’ll be easy to solve them. Please share in the comments and let us know what you do to keep yourself from becoming distracted as you work through your daily tasks!
July 13th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I read somewhere that the average corporate employee only does one and a half hours of actual work per day!
One of the things I do to stay focussed is maintain a prioritised “to do” list, which is also great for capturing those creative ideas that drift past from time to time.