New Year Resolutions of a Freelance Writer for 2021
New Year, new hope, new start!
After surviving a year full of challenges like a pandemic, lockdown, and economic disturbances, every one of us is looking towards 2021 for a better tomorrow. To make 2021 a fulfilling year, it is the right time to plan your New Year’s resolutions. For a freelance writer, success is proportionate to money. For most freelancers, a typical New Year’s Resolution is to ‘earn more money.’ But ‘making more money’ is not just a single step process; you need to look for achievable, step by step goals that can ultimately take you to the bull’s eye.
To stick to your new year’s resolution throughout the year, it is good to set a broad target and break it down into achievable and exciting goals. Here are some of the new year’s resolutions for freelancers to make in 2021.
1. Focus on the right thing
To stick to your new year’s resolution, make smart and achievable goals. When setting goals, make sure that they need to be specific, measurable, relevant, and timely. Another vital part is being optimistic about your goal’s achievability and confident about your ability to reach the aims.
2. Reduce workload by automation and outsourcing
Make your new year’s resolution to work smarter, not harder. In simple words, ‘streamline your business to improve your workflow instead of wasting time on little things.’ Create templates for invoices, emails, contracts, and other regular affairs instead of making them over and over.
And when you cannot automate a boring and tedious task, consider outsourcing it. Outsourcing will let you take time-consuming and tiresome tasks off your plate. That will make the work done and allow you to focus your energy on an enjoyable and money-making task.
3. Self-improvement is the key
Stagnancy can affect the creativity of a freelance writer. So, plan for courses to upgrade your skills in 2021. Whether it is an online workshop or free courses, or skill training at a local institution, go for any course to enhance your ability and add creativity to your writing skills.
It can be difficult for some people to enroll in expensive courses, but there are multiple free workshops and courses available to introduce you to new concepts and technologies. It’s good to keep an eye on those learning opportunities. And if you are willing to spend some bucks on upskilling, there are multiple options for you in 2021. Some of them are:
- Jorden Roper’s course, “Killer Cold Emailing.”
- Ashlyn Carter’s online course “Copywriting for Creatives.”
- Megan Johnson’s a guide to mastering Pinterest “Pinterest Ninja.”
- Mario Forleo’s free audio training course, “How to Get Anything You Want.”
4. Optimize your social media efforts for better business opportunities
To flourish your freelancing business, it is now essential to develop an online marketing strategy that helps you be noticed and grow an online business. In 2021, use the power of social media; stay active in social media to create brand recognition and increase the chances of being noticed by your potential clients.
Apart from improving digital marketing skills, you need a better observation of current trends of social media. This will help you understand and identify your readers and clients’ requirements and help to find a better way to serve them. For your freelancing business’s betterment, make a positive effort to optimize your social media efforts in 2021.
5. Learn to say no
As a freelancer, sometimes you find yourselves doing everything irrespective of pay package and skill crunch. All this happens because of the inefficiency of saying ‘no’ to low-paid or unenjoyable tasks or projects. Sometimes, when you are not sure about the project and its requirements, it’s better to say no to that. Otherwise, that can be a pain for you.
It is quite hard to say no to any project, especially at the starting of the career. After all, no work means no money. But taking too much work for a negligible amount of money will leave you exhausted both mentally and physically. Even working with terrible clients or working on unenjoyable projects can leave you feeling burnt out. So, it’s better to set your limitations and learn to say no to the projects that are not meeting your criteria.
Instead, focus on finding projects with better pay packages and look for potential clients to work with.
6. Automation of billing and collecting payments
When you work on multiple projects simultaneously, it becomes challenging to handle admin tasks like invoice making and collecting payments. There are numerous paid and free financial software that can help you to make your job easy.
FreshBooks and HoneyBook are two such useful software solutions to help you with invoicing and payment collection. But writers on a budget can find that software costly. In that case, free programs like WaveApps can be the savior; it has multiple similar features as paid software.
With financial software, you can
- Automate the sending of recurring invoices
- Set the invoicing terms
- Automate the late payment reminder
- Offer online payment options to clients
7. Make time for self-care
Money is essential for living, but it is not everything. Taking good care of your mental, emotional, and physical health is important to live a comfortable and happy life. Meeting deadlines, overlapping projects, stretched working hours, client request handling, everything is a part of freelancers’ life, but that should be a routine. Overstress not only tolls your physical and mental health but also ruins your personal life.
So, in 2021, when planning a new work strategy to make more money, set some fitness routine. Spend at least 15 to 30 minutes’ workout plan which will keep you mentally and physically healthy and help you rejuvenate your life. Meeting with friends, chatting with near ones, or enjoying sports or other entertainment can refill your life with happiness and make you energetic to handle challenges.
I hope this post will be helpful to set your new year’s resolution for 2021!
