Welcome to the Gig Economy, where you can directly correlate output to your income. Only you can turn this side hustle into a consistent and lucrative payday. And if you don’t, you don’t have co-workers or a lousy boss to blame. You are the boss. And here are nine strategies you can use to increase productivity and make a serious self-employment income.
1. Wear the Boss Hat More Often
The impact of Covid-19 has a lot more people working from home and being their own boss. Many are beginning to realize if you’re going to be your own boss, you have to wear the boss hat to make sure things get done.
If you have the “how little work can I do and still keep my job” mentality in a Gig Economy, you’re only cheating yourself out of a sweet payday. So be the boss. Recognize where you’re not meeting expectations, and work on it.
2. Have Clearly Defined Work Time
You decide when you work. But if you leave that decision loosely defined, you feel little urge to work at any given time.
Without this drive, you are unlikely to get anything done until you’re down to a hard deadline, killing productivity and money making potential.
3. Set a Daily Goal
Identify what most essential tasks to accomplish today before beginning work. I like to set a daily dollar amount as my goal. This ensures I have a consistent income coming in and can more easily identify when I’m less productive than usual.
4. Take Real Breaks
When you’re working in the Gig Economy, any time seems like go-time. But this will only lead to burnout and eventually poor health, especially if your job requires lots of sitting.
Don’t spend your break doing more similar activities. For example, if your job is researching topics on the Internet to create content, the last thing you want to do on your break is get lost on the Internet.
Instead, go for a walk, do some yoga while your coffee brews, or fold laundry. Yes, even doing housework during your break gives your mind the rest it needs to get back into it.
5. Push Past Your Goals
You’re not trying to outdo your goal every single day. But at least once a week, up your goal to see what’s possible. Avoid falling into the trap of thinking you’re already making the max amount possible.
6. Write Out Your to Do List
I like to add my to-do list to my calendar. Each task is spaced out according to the estimated amount of time I know that task takes from experience. And throughout the day, tasks pop up to remind me they’re due soon.
As long as I stay pretty close to the calendar, I know I am on track for my daily income goal. And I’m usually well ahead of the due dates.
7. Be Stingy with Your Time
In the Gig Economy, you finally see firsthand why “Time is Money”, and you want to get the most out of it.
Don’t be too stingy when it comes to your kids and family. Do make time for them. But do get stingy when it comes to activities that take time with no real net benefit.
Certain mobile apps and extensions can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to do a task. So explore how technology can help do more with less. Some of these tools may slow you down in the short term as you’re learning them. But they can significantly increase your productivity and money making potential.
8. Track Your Time
Know how long it takes to do specific tasks that you need to do repeatedly, even if they vary a little. Streamline repetitive tasks and build a more accurate daily schedule using these estimates. But don’t beat yourself up if something takes a lot longer. That’s going to happen.
9.Identify Time Wasters
Time wasters are anything that takes you away from your work, even for a second when unplanned. You may justify these by calling them breaks, but they don’t function as breaks.
Don’t underestimate productivity killers like watching YouTube videos, social media, checking the news, reading a blog post.
Those aren’t bad things. We all do them. The issue is how you might do them. Something usually becomes a trigger for this bad habit.
So you’re working on something, and you feel stuck. Then, zoommm, you enter a website address on you’re away.
It may be for a second, or you could end up wasting hours.
Because this may have become a habit, you may experience physical or emotional discomfort if you don’t follow the trigger. It’s not easy to break a habit loop. But once you become aware of it, you realize you do control how you use your time.