Finding success as a freelance proofreader is a wonderful thing. When all of the hard work you’ve put in starts to pay dividends, you can and should take a lot of pride in that.
But once you’ve found success, whether that means contracting with one big client or a number of smaller ones, it comes with its own set of problems. One of those is learning to manage multiple projects (or clients) at the same time.
When it comes to balancing multiple projects as a freelance proofreader, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Some days will still be slow, even with multiple projects or clients. For others, it will feel like every client needs something right now. On top of that, the way you work best may look different from how another person does things.
Regardless, by using the following tips and strategies, you can come up with a system that works for you.
Prioritize based on rate
Although hopefully if you are a proofreader you enjoy it, never forget that the end goal is making money. This means you need to be strategic about which clients or accounts take priority.
Simply put, it’s always a smart move to prioritize contracts with the highest rates. The more work you do for these clients, the more money you will end up with at the end of the day.
But when comparing work, be sure to calculate the effective hourly rate (EHR). This is an easy calculation: simply divide the total income for the job by the number of hours you worked on it. Using EHR will account for differences in contract types—per hour, per word, or per job—and allow you to make more-informed decisions.
So if you have three clients who routinely send you work, generally speaking, you would want to complete everything from the highest-EHR client first, then move to the second client, and finish with the lowest-EHR client. (In practice, some of the strategies below may alter this arrangement, but it works as a good starting point.)
Track your work
Always, always, always track your work.
If you don’t know how long a task takes, you will have a very difficult time planning your workload schedule. Consequently, your stress level will rise.
Work needs to be tracked by client and by job. Tracking hours worked per client is obviously important because you may need that information to bill them—and you definitely need it to calculate your EHR.
Tracking hours by job is also important. Clients often send similar types of documents or content for review (e.g., a client always sends you a 1,500-word blog post on Tuesdays). If you can develop a good estimate of how long each type of document takes to proofread, it will be much easier to slot it into your day.
There are many good tracking tools available for both Mac and PC. You can even use a spreadsheet and manually enter start/stop times. The method doesn’t matter—the key is to track your work religiously, by client and by job.
Be intentional about when and where you work
You have a lot of freedom as a freelancer, and you should definitely take advantage of that fact. But freedom needs to be tempered with discipline.
You will go much further on your proofreading journey if you establish—and stick to—consistent working hours. Again, it’s okay to be flexible, but having a baseline of when you work will help you be more consistent and efficient. And when you have multiple projects in the queue, efficiency is key.
The same goes for your working environment. Set up a space in your home that is dedicated to working and primarily do your proofreading there. When you sit down at your desk or workstation, it’s a signal to your brain that it’s time to get serious and get down to work. This will help to combat procrastination, as well—another obstacle you don’t need when trying to balance multiple projects.
Ask for due dates (or assign your own)
Working by due dates is another good way to balance multiple projects as freelance proofreader.
Always ask the client what their desired turnaround time is, and if they don’t have one, assign a due date to yourself. Having a due date attached to every task in your queue makes planning your day much, much easier. Contrariwise, tasks without firm due dates—even ones that are entirely made up—tend to slide to the end of the list, where they languish and often die.
The last thing you want to do as a professional is get behind in your work. Using due dates is a simple way to stay on top of your workload.
Complete the small tasks first
It can be easy to feel overwhelmed when you are proofreading for multiple clients.
It’s a not-uncommon experience to clear your queue of tasks, go to lunch, and come back with a deluge of requests. Seeing everything come in at once can be a stressful event, so step back, take a deep breath, and relax.
What often happens is the list of tasks in your backlog will be of varying effort levels. Some documents will take five minutes or less, others may take hours, and still others will fall somewhere in between.
But this is when you can use inertia in your favor. If you can identify the simple tasks in the list (which you can do because you’re tracking your time, right?), you can knock those out first. Not only will this give you the reward of quickly checking off several tasks, but it can serve as a nice warm-up for the harder tasks.
Next steps
As mentioned above, there is no “right” answer when it comes to balancing multiple projects as a freelance proofreader. What works in your situation may be different than what works for someone else, and that is okay. The important part is reviewing possible strategies, incorporating those that you think will help into your own systems, and modifying them as you go.
Which of the above strategies can you implement today?
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