If you’re freelancing or considering leaving your 9-5 job and joining the gig economy, you’re in good company.
Currently, over 57 million Americans, according to CNBC, are living the dream of working in a non-traditional job, such as freelancing.
You might start with only 1 or 2 clients, but over time, you’ll likely find yourself juggling multiple clients.
What does a freelancer do with more than one client when they want to ensure they give the best possible service to each one?
Take a minute and discover a few things you can do to manage your wealth of clients without the overwhelming feeling of being overwhelmed by multiple clients and their projects.
What’s a Freelancer to Do When Managing Multiple Clients?
Begin With the Dailies
Managing multiple clients means knowing what you need to do for them each day.
Create a to-do list.
This may sound simplistic, but your to-do list is more than a sticky note or two tacked to your whiteboard.
A freelancer’s to-do list contains all the daily tasks needed to keep projects organized and clients happy.
Some freelancers color co-ordinate the list, assigning a different color for each level of urgency.
A simple list where you check each task as you complete it may work better for you.
The key is keeping track of the dailies in a way that works for you and your clients.
In addition to the dailies, you’ll need a prioritization system for your multiple clients.
Next, we’ll talk about how to prioritize clients throughout the week.
Split Up Your Workload
The more clients you have, the more critical it is to prioritize your tasks.
Break up your workload and assign each client a day and time.
The way you break up your workload depends on how many clients you have and how many days you want to work. It also depends on the specific projects you’re working on for each client.
Prioritize your weekly client schedule by deciding how much time you’ll need for each project.
If it makes sense, give bigger clients and their larger-scaled projects precedence at the beginning of the week.
If you’re not quite to the place where you’re juggling a bunch of clients and want to learn how to get clients, check out online resources for the variety of ways you can get the word out about what you do.
No matter how many clients you have, take advantage of apps designed to help keep projects moving forward.
Get the Apps
We’re living in the digital age—no one manages projects manually.
Instead, freelancers use apps.
While we won’t discuss specific apps, here’s an overview of 3 types of apps you should have in your freelancer tool belt.
Scheduling Calendar
Calendar apps show your upcoming schedule with the bonus of event reminders.
Many apps allow you to share calendars with clients making it easier to collaborate on projects.
Task Organizer
It’s hard enough to manage your own to-do list, but when you’re managing multiple clients and deadlines, things can get overwhelming.
These apps help you manage complex tasks and multiple projects.
Use them to show your clients how well you organize your workload.
Time Tracking
These apps create records of your billable time.
You can use records to help identify inefficiencies.
Time tracking allows you to share project status updates with clients, including an itemized breakdown of the work you complete for them.
When you’re researching apps, consider looking for those that allow project sharing and work across multiple devices.
No More Multi-Tasking
Remember when you interviewed for your 9-5, and the job requirements included multi-tasking?
Now, you’re a freelancer, and it’s time to change the way you look at multi-tasking.
Instead of making you more productive, multi-tasking means you’re in a constant pattern of stop-and-go.
Giving a little here and a little, there may make you feel like you’re accomplishing a lot and keeping up with projects.
Instead, you might interfere with your ability to focus on one client and finish their project within the agreed-upon timeframe.
Multi-task people often struggle with focus and productivity (Business News Daily).
Do one thing at a time, and don’t switch your focus to another project or client until you’re finished.
Set Up a Meeting Day
Clients may request a weekly meeting with you to review progress and discuss new projects. When you have meetings scheduled on different days throughout the week, it can interfere with productivity.
Schedule a meeting day so that all clients can have a slot on the same day.
This means you’ll spend less energy refocusing on tasks you need to complete.
You’ll also end up with fewer projects left in a stage of partial completion at the end of each day.
Tip: Don’t forget to bill clients for meetings.
If you don’t want a separate line item on your bill for meetings, factor them in when you discuss your rates.
Only Make Promises You Can Keep
Of course, you want to promise the moon to your clients, but realistically, you can’t do it all!
You’ll end up over-promising and under-producing.
Learning how much to promise clients takes time and experience.
When you first start out freelancing, you’ll want to accept every project that comes along, but don’t do it!
Emergencies happen, laptops act up, people have challenging days where the unexpected means they may not meet a deadline.
You can prevent disappointing clients by making realistic promises.
Over time, you’ll learn your limits and how to plan your personal life around your freelancer’s life.
You’ll learn how much time you need for various tasks.
You’ll also learn when it’s best to say no to a new assignment because either you don’t have time, or it’s not in your skillset.
What’s a Freelancer Doing to Manage All Those Clients?
We hope we’ve inspired you to look for more clients first and then manage them successfully.
It’s all about keeping track of your to-do list, schedule, and task management and learning your limits.
Now, when a colleague asks you what a freelancer should do with all their clients, you’ll have some answers.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, continue browsing our blog, where you’ll find articles on a variety of topics freelancers find helpful.