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and old files, don't do the same to your home (this might change as you get more comfortable in your home-office; be wary)

4. Start Scheduling. Don't write down anything other than work related tasks. You should keep a separate calendar if you feel the need to write down that you are headed to the doctor or want to exercise every Tuesday or Thursday morning. Your work schedule should be very simple. For example, here's what mine looked like on a random day in June:

June 9, 2007
Elance Bidding
Email MySpace Contacts
Scan and Send Non-Disclosure Form
Triangle Direct Posts
Edit and Send off Mobile VoIP Article (need more details in introductions)
Need an Article x10
Brave New World Book Summary
Dating Site Edits (if they arrive)

My schedule might appear a touch over simplified, and you will slowly learn what works best for you. But, notice that everything on that list is a specific action related to a task. I didn't include anything like "Lunch" or "Baseball Game". Everything I did after work that day was written in a different schedule. It's not that other parts of my life are not important (or that I won't forget at some point to go to the DMV) but I want a space in which I can easily look and see exactly what work I need to do for any given day.

As I complete each task, I will change the color in my Word document to red to mark that it has been completed. It's a very simple process and I know other writers who go a few steps further and purchase Microsoft Project to keep track of everything for them, something I would almost consider myself if this didn't work so well for me. Some writes are even able to remember what they are doing and don't keep schedules.

However, my advice to you is this; always keep a record of your work for any given day. Even if you can remember, you probably won't remember in 4 months if you need to look back and see which day you supposedly sent off Part 2 of a project that has gotten mixed up. Records are vital to keeping track of who owes you money, what you've completed and how productive you've managed to be.

5. Be Flexible. The final piece of advice I can offer in keeping organized is to remind you that as a freelance writer, you should always remain flexible. If a project doesn't arrive on a certain day, just move it to the next day. If someone needs edits right away, squeeze them in. Two or three times a week I have to reorganize my schedule completely to fit in a project that needs to be finished or take on a new one that I promised to complete quickly.

As a new freelance writer, you are likely a few weeks or months away from keeping track of big projects in this manner, but trust me when I say that if you start now, you'll thank yourself for it later. You will speed up just about everything by staying organized and eventually start branching out further. You'll be amazed at the difference good organization can make.

Learn more about this author, Anthony Chatfield.
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