While having a freelance animation business may be something you have always dreamed of — planning your own working hours, being flexible, living wherever you want in the world, the list goes on — it is, nonetheless, a difficult undertaking.

Here are five ways to make more time for your business and increase your productivity:

1. Use block scheduling

Using block scheduling can help you avoid getting distracted every few minutes by a new email coming in. Block a few hours at a time (one and a half to two hours is usually a good amount) and stay focused on this specific task throughout the entirety of the countdown. This will save you time that you usually spend being distracted!

2. Planning, Planning, Planning

You need to plan more! With specific targets, milestones or goals to achieve, you are able to break down the parts of your work that take the most time, and hence, you can figure out what needs to be rearranged.

3. Simplify and streamline your marketing

One of the main activities that can take a lot of your time is marketing. If it is done step-by-step or post-by-post, you may feel like you are spending hours on social media every day trying to market your business. Instead, free up some of your time by creating a content character and batching your content.

4. Outsource time-consuming tasks

Doing it all on your own takes a lot of time away from you that could be spent on scaling and growing. Outsource the most time-consuming tasks you have, such as hiring an accountant or finding talent on websites such as Fivver.com and Upwork.com.

5. Take time to rest

Finally, and yes, this may be a bit cliche, you need to schedule some time to rest. While solopreneurs, founders, and entrepreneurs love to work, we also struggle to stop ourselves from overworking ourselves quite often. The result? We end up burned out and can't stay focused on a project- and that's if we can even get ourselves started on it in the first place. With this in mind, you need to take the time to reboot yourself once in a while.

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