Grow as a Freelancer With a Daily Routine

What’s the best way to go after your big goals?

We often think that we need to do something big, or extraordinary, to finally land the clients we’ve always wanted to work with or hit the income goals we’ve set for ourselves.

But the best path isn’t in grand gestures. It’s in small but frequent steps – in doing the small things with consistency. 

In the words of Darren Hardy, author of The Compound Effect:

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.

Darren Hardy

Each time you do something, think of it like casting a vote. A small but significant indication of who you want to be, or where you want to go in the future.   

Building a daily routine of small but impactful tasks that you carry out each morning can be your superpower to help you grow steadily over time as a freelancer and make progress on the things that matter.

Here are some tasks that you can think about adding to yours.

Table of contents:

Building a daily routine that will help you grow as a freelancer:

1. Send one pitch a day

For people to hire you, they need to know who you are. But sending pitches can be super demoralising, so break it down into something manageable – one a day.

School of Motion’s Joey Korenmann explains a fantastic way to do this in his book, Freelance Manifesto. He has a great system for generating new business, which you can read a summary of here.

And if you struggle to write actual pitches, we have a step-by-step guide on how to craft the perfect pitch, so give it a read.

Related: Reach Out Strategies For Freelancers, Freelancers’ Guide to Crafting the Perfect Elevator Pitch

2. Read – even just a page or two each day

One thing most successful people have in common is that they read a lot.

If you want to be a successful freelancer, reading and constantly learning and improving yourself is a big part of the process.

I like to kick off my daily routine by reading for 20 minutes.

If you don’t know what to read first, check out our latest blog post where we share our favourite books that can help you grow your freelance business.

Related: Books to Help You Cultivate Your Freelance Business

3. Grow your network

People hire people, so putting effort into building and growing your network goes a long way. 

With restrictions easing everywhere, going to co-working and freelance meet-ups finally possible again.

But if you prefer to keep it online, there are also plenty of spaces where you can connect with fellow freelancers but also with your target audience as well.

To make this all feel less intimidating, you can dedicate 10/20 minutes to it each day in your routine.

Facebook is a great place to find groups that are relevant to your freelance business, but you can also find plenty of paid memberships that you can join and get yourself out there.

And if you are not sure how to get started networking, give this short video a watch – in it, Alistair explains how to get yourself out there, even if you dread the word:

4. Join our Morning Meetings

Small decisions add up to big impacts. I love starting my day with a short, easy to digest motivational video to get me set up for the day and get me in the right headspace.

This is what inspired us to create our short Morning Meetings series for freelancers. 

You can sign up to receive a 2-minute video with one actionable tip in it each day.

5. Spend 10 minutes on a core skill

As a freelancer, you should always be looking to develop and grow. I also dedicate 10 minutes a day to improving a core skill – one that will have an impact right across my business.

The latest one I have been working on is learning to type properly, and improving my typing speed. I’ve managed to almost double my speed in just a couple of months. 

I do a lot of writing, so I can’t even imagine how much time this small but consistent time investment will save me over the course of my career.

Another great way to do that is to watch 10 minutes of an online course you’ve bought but never got round to watching it.

You can also sign up for Freelance Bootcamp, which consists of bite-sized videos to help you improve your freelancing.


If you like this article, you might like these as well:

Books To Help You Cultivate Your Freelance Business
The Best Workplaces for Freelancers to Get More Work Done
A Simple Trick to Start More Conversations About Your Freelance Business


Until next time,

Maja

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Photo credit: Cytonn Photography, Road Trip with Raj, Denice Jans