No matter if you’re a freelancer or a full-time employee, working remotely can bring enough waiting around for responses that you will inevitably find yourself under time constraints somewhere down the line. This is why time management is key to making sure you finish all the projects you started. Here are some of the best techniques you can employ as a digital nomad.
Routines
Routines are one of the most effective ways you can teach yourself to sit down at a specific time and start working. This can be a good breakfast routine followed by a time of working and then a nice lunch, more work, and a time for socializing in the evening.
But don’t let this classic image of a day constrain you. Some people would rather flip the script around and socialize in the morning and work at night. There is no end to the different ways you can organize your day. What matters is sticking to your schedule for months. This will make you feel less stressed and you will naturally have a better grip on things.
Schedules
Schedules are hard to do. Every person seems to have their own path and story as to how they find what works for them. Some people work for many hours at a time and relax for a long time after. Some people get easily distracted or tired, so they need a more structured approach like the Pomodoro technique, which means working for 25 minutes with a 5-minute break four times in a row and then taking a 30-minute break and repeating.
No matter how you structure your day, it needs at least a few key components. You need enough time to be able to complete enough work (more on that later). Don’t try to do everything in one day - the biggest strength of a good schedule is that work can be done calmly and on time, not in a rushed and exhausted crunch.
Also, make sure you schedule not just work time, but relaxation time as well. This is equally as important as work time. Without it, you’re just inching towards burnout that will destroy everything you’ve been working towards.
Lastly, schedule something to look forward to in a day - make sure it’s more than one thing. For some, this is food or a nice shower, for others, this might be socializing or some quiet time with a book. Making sure you have something to look forward to keeps you motivated and you will have an easier time focusing on work.
Tasks and planning
Possibly the most important part of your time management comes at the very beginning - planning out your work. The best way to do this is by first looking at a given project and its deadline. Break down the project into smaller parts that can be imagined and understood and then allocate how long it will take you to finish each part of this project. Finally, see if you fit into the amount of time of your deadline. If not, adjust your plans or the project to have enough time.
The second part is breaking the larger parts of the overall project into smaller tasks. If, say, you planned that sourcing team members would take you two weeks, break the amount you need to find them into a week and then into a day. This will naturally give you a clear answer to what needs to be done every day and you will rest easy that as long as you stick to the schedule, you can be reasonably sure to make the deadline. Personal advice - always plan with a week or two extra, just on the off-chance, something doesn’t go according to plan.
