A freelance job gives you plenty of opportunities to set flexible work hour, but it also brings an illusion you have a good deal of free time. Find yourself surfing the Internet for hours with indifference? Can’t concentrate on a task until the deadline? There’s a need to revise your schedule!

To develop an effective personalized time management system, consider biorhythms. Being your own master gives you a privilege to work whenever you want. Night hours or daylight – as you wish. Your body is a perfect time organizer. Learn to get in sync with it!

Biorhythms are body clocks that affect physical, emotional and intellectual aspects of the human organism. The individual cycles come under two headings. The early-risers or morning people are characterized by high activity in the first half of the day. Those who don’t mind working late hours are evening people or night owls.

Let’s consider time-management nuggets upon both types!

How to set up schedule for an early-riser

Morning people don’t need an alarm clock. Right after waking up they feel fresh. They are hungry in the morning and need full breakfast. People of this type run themselves out during the first half of the day. They work late hours with difficulty. Early-risers are good at both office and freelance job. They fulfill tasks in advance.

Recognize yourself in the description above? Consider this:

• Get up an hour earlier. Do yoga or morning exercises. Beginning a day on good terms will tone up your effectiveness.
• Start working on tasks claiming attentiveness as early as possible. It’s a right time to research, devise a strategy and make calculations. Leave monotonous work for the second part of the day.
• Around 2-3 pm, you can feel drowsy. Have a coffee or a cup of strong tea without flavorings. Caffeine will hardly affect your night sleep.
• Plan your daily tasks in decreasing order. The job you’re up to in the afternoon will make you struggle at night. Want to buy time and work harder? Read issue-related blogs and insightful literature in the evening.
• Try to avoid negotiations after dinner. Disputable situations will bring you nothing but irritation.
• Don’t overstrain yourself. If a deadline forces you to work longer hours, have a nap in the afternoon.

Ways a night owl can buy time

Persons of this cycles don’t mind working at night and wake up with effort. Night-owls are deficient in energy and slow early hours. They can go without a meal in the morning. The appetite rises in the afternoon together with night owl’s work performance. They tend to procrastination and delays.

According to Jeffrey Larson’s survey, the Night Owls are in the majority worldwide. Such cycles seem favorable for a freelance job. Evening people need more efforts on self-organization.

Are you one of the night-owls? Let’s look at some tricks!

• Avoid sleeping till noon. Find the optimal time you can get up without feeling done in. It may be around 8 am. Have a light lunch and a strong coffee.
• Don’t spend a morning lying in swathed in blankets! Settle down to work slowly. Begin with an interesting part of a task that makes you emotionally involved.
• Try to have your second (and last!) coffee before 2 pm. Your day regimen is a sensible matter! Don’t risk having a sleepless night!
• Solving a tricky problem in the afternoon? Don’t get stuck with it! Go for a short bike ride and get back to the grind.
• Better hold negotiations after midday to be self-collected.
• Plan your daily routine in the increasing order. The most productive hours may appear between 5 and 7 pm or even later.
• Your concentration rises before the deadline? Benefit from your most productive time. Yet try to gear up beforehand.

Determine your personalized schedule

Apart from clear cut early-risers and night-owls, there are so-called intermediates. These people have biased cycles with the domination of one type.

To measure your own biorhythms, make an experiment suggested by Pat Brans. Create a table with the following column headings:

• Hour of the day
• Physical Energy
• Concentration
• Wakefulness
• Attitude

In the first column, write the time you are awake. Record your activity and well-being during the day. Give yourself a score from 1-5 with 1 for the lowest rate and 5 for the highest rate. An example below illustrates what your table may look like.

Re-conduct the experiment for a couple of days. Don’t undergo the test if you are overwrought and nervous! Measure your rates in the normal state of health.

Analyze your records. What are your most productive hours? What time a day do you experience uplift/irritation/discouragement?

Now set up your individual daily schedule:

• Do the most meticulous work times of the day you are attentive and awake
• Get down to a challenging project when your physical energy rises
• In the hours you feel pessimistic, cheer yourself up with an engaging task
• Develop strategies when you are on the bright side

The freelance job allows working any 12 hours a day you prefer. But it’s important to work systematically. Analyze your cycles. Surf them lake the waves!. Keep yourself bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!

Nancy Christinovich is independent writer specializing in social media, freelance and marketing. You can find some of her publications at plagiarismcheck.org.

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