Design your way

More and more frequently illustrators consider freelance work to be a suitable way of earning money.

Individual freelancing is good for those who wish to do a lot of traveling and for those who prefer flexible schedules to routine office hours. But there is always a downside to every advantage. A freelance illustrator is always in search of additional inspiration and motivation, capable to discipline and bring in a reasonable amount of order into the flexible schedule.

How to find enough strength to say “no” to one more tiny break, how to avoid arranging yet another day off, the fourth one this week?

How to explain to your family members that even though you are home anyway challenging you with all the domestic affairs during your working hours is still not the best idea?

These are only a few questions every freelance illustrator faces in the course of their work. Here are seven tips which will certainly help you cope with some of the difficulties and become much more effective in your work.

Remain Disconnected

There is always a great temptation to start browsing the Internet, to look through emails and to share your thoughts and inspirations with your friends and colleagues.

However, this is very counterproductive. If all possible, stay disconnected from the Internet during your entire working day. Send out all the correspondence at the end of the day.

If your work presupposes your being constantly available through the internet, consider blocking all the unnecessary social media and websites which you do not absolutely need during your working hours. Such a schedule can easily be executed by the majority of modern routers and hotspots.

Inform your family that your working hours have to be taken seriously. The argument “you are home anyway” is a taboo and should by no means be appealed to as long as they want you to be effective and successful in your home based business.

Arrange a separate room, where nobody will be allowed during your working hours and explain how much you need them to strictly observe this rule. Be clear and precise; illustrate your words with figures and examples. Make sure you reach understanding and do not merely insult your family members with all the restrictions you set.

Split Your Working Day into Segments

Split your Working Day into smaller sections. Make sure that you assign tasks to every one of these sections. Once and for all decide how much time you need every day in order to check and respond your email.

Do it during the first or the last twenty minutes of your working day. Dedicate the larger part of your working day to creating illustrations. If it is hard for you to work long sessions, consider breaking the main section into several ones, interrupted with short coffee breaks.

Rest Productively

Some illustrators are just not capable of drawing for long periods of time without any breaks. But if you want to be productive keep in mind that in order to have rest you do not necessarily have to sit idly. What you need is to do something different for a change.

And this something can very well be productive and bring you closer to success. Open your “to do list” and pick something you would not mind doing just now.

It can be placing an ad on Facebook, it could be reading a manual for the software you need to familiarize yourself with or anything else you need to but hardly ever manage to do.

Avoid Lengthy Emails

Many people waist hours and hours of their productive time on writing good looking and impressive emails.

These emails are carefully composed and then carefully checked; larger segments are rewritten over and over again. However, it is important to realize, that in modern time emails are not trendy.

Drop a few words in case you absolutely need to write an email, otherwise rather go to chat or make a call. Modern professionals do not have time for idle etiquette. This, however, does not mean that you have to be rude.

Never Miss a Chance to Grow Professionally

You can never grow to be too educated. However competent you are in your field you ought to keep track of new technologies and software released, new equipment available and emerging fields in which you can apply your skills.

Illustrator’s career certainly belongs to the number of highly technological ones and thus for you as for no one else it is critically important to keep track of the latest news in the field and to obtain new skills and learn about new approaches in the fields in which you have already grown to be an expert.

Remember, in the career of an illustrator an expert is not somebody who knows much, but rather somebody, who can quickly obtain new knowledge and new skills.

Start by Coping With Easy Tasks

Every project and every order can be broken down into smaller segments, into minor tasks coping with which is not as complicated.

Thus, please yourself with small victories. Look at the complicated task and, instead of allowing fear entirely take control over you make your first successful step. Find the easiest thing to do in the project and start by accomplishing this easy task. Success will inspire you and motivate for more effective work.

Professional Equipment

When setting up your small home office you should not forget about high-quality equipment. In the work of any illustrator much depends upon high-quality equipment.

You certainly need a productive computer, the best ultrawide monitor you can afford, printers, scanners and other graphics related tools. Do not forget about a comfortable mouse.

Few people care to choose the right mouse, but an illustrator spends hours and hours clicking the mouse, dragging and dropping objects, and thus for your overall productivity you need to pick a reasonable quality mouse.

These are only a few tips which will certainly improve your performance if you take them seriously. There are further improvements to be made. But even with these simple hints in mind, you will be able to open new professional horizons.

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