The Freelancers Guide to Setting Deadlines

By Christy Tanner

It’s a struggle as a freelancer to try and gauge your deadline in the best way. Creating a deadline that is possible to keep is harder than just picking a date. Lots of factors go into projects, and figuring how long they might take is quiet difficult. The harder or more difficult a project is makes figuring this deadline that is realistic hard. Have you ever seen a contractor finish the construction of a house on time? It’s rare to find believe me.

No matter how long you have been a freelancer, there is no way to plan for every delay or problem you might come across. Odd and strange things happen when dealing with deadlines. Just like you can not predict the weather, you can not say everything will go smooth and easy when trying to finish a project on time. Believe me problems do happen. But you can still create a deadline that is possible.

To create a perfect deadline you must have the following 3 factors: Complete understanding of the project you are doing, be realistic of the assessment of what skills and tools you will need, and of course proper allotment of your time. Following are some way to assess your project and giving yourself ample time to finish.

Completely Understand the Project

Know the specs of your project inside out.

If you know everything that you need to be done on your project that is an absolutely critical point. Make sure everything that is to be done is agreed to by the client previous to starting work and think about a time frame. Getting this done before starting clears up any confusion that may happen later on.

What Skills and Tools do you Need

Leave no stone unturned this is such an important step, always be sure to do it. If you get to know a client some this will be so helpful in deciding whether or not you want to work with them, but you can also get to know what they prefer. You can create a client worksheet; this will allow you to get that deep understanding of who you will be working with and what they expect. Never feel like there is too much information to gather, that is not possible you want everything.

Give Yourself Plenty of Time

Overshoot your estimates. If you don’t give yourself some extra “wiggle-room” it would be crazy. How often do you get on a project and not run into a hitch? None, if you have your one of the lucky ones. Always there will be something that is unexpected that will go wrong, anything getting sick to your computer messing up on you. Give yourself plenty of extra timing when planning your deadline. You client and you will be glad that you did.

Be pessimistic only when you make your deadlines though. The worst thing for you to do is be optimistic when you are planning a deadline. If you think of something off the wall that may happen, plan for it. Better that you are surprised when it goes ok, instead of not being prepared.

Plan everything even the smallest detail.Don’t miss any detail when you’re planning. If you miss a small detail, it might be the one that is the hitch in your plan.

Continually review what needs to be done.It’s easy at times to miss little steps throughout the duration of your project. But if you’ve planned everything to the smallest detail, it’s harder to miss the small items. It will also ensure that everything gets done in order.

Make smaller deadline for yourself

By doing so you create project milestone, this will ensure that you get the work done without much procrastination. Otherwise you might drag your feet just enough to make the project deadline impossible to reach.

Following these steps will surely help you to create a good deadline that is easy to reach. Creating less stress for you during the project.

[tags]set deadlines, setting deadlines, deadlines, make deadlines, freelance deadlines, time management, freelance time management[/tags]