Need help with discipline and time management

[IMUnaware]

Ok, here's the deal:

I'm a self-employed attorney, which is great. I work for myself now, no boss! but ... OH NO, NO BOSS!! I can goof off in my office any time I want. Yikes!

I'm a procrastinator by nature. I always got good grades but I didn't have to work too hard... just study at the last minute and bazing! This habit traveled to my professional life (uh oh, deadline coming, pull an all nighter). It's not good, it's not professional, and really, now that I'm working for clients, it's not good for me financially either. It's not like a job where I get paid if I get my work done and show up on time. If I'm goofing off, I can't charge my clients for that! So if I do all the work in half the time guess what: I get half the money! Slow steady measured progress is what I need to make.

So, anyone else out there a freelancer or otherwise self employed that has tips for helping stay motivated/focused??

One of my challenge goals is 7hrs/day of actual work (not getting coffee or checking email, billable work or work on marketing/promotion of the practice). I think that's a good goal but might be too broad (not small enough or specific enough). Any advice fellow nerds?

[scott82962]

I was going to write a response right away but got distracted. (Yes, this is how funny I always am.)

I'm a recovering chronic procrastinator. Here are some things I do:

1) Eliminate clutter. Put everything away and only have necessary tools and minimal "artifice" on your work surface. But since we all know your work surface will eventually end up buried...

2) Once a week when you come into the office in the morning don't sit down. Roll your desk chair out of the way and tackle the clutter. File, process or toss everything. Not sitting down will give you a different visual perspective and will help control the urge to engage in nonproductive activities.

3) Give yourself 10 minutes of play time every hour. That will seem excessive to many, but I work 10 - 11 hour days, and when I'm working I'm productive and "play time" includes eating and bathroom breaks. Play time also include reading journals and taking care of personal email.

4) Make a "to do" list. But only put one thing on the list.

[Rush]

All great tips from Scott. I also suggest reading '4-Hour Workweek' by Tim Ferriss. Not to get your week down to 4 hours of work (like you said, you can't do that for financial reasons), but to learn how to be more efficient.

[somanaut]

One thing that has been great for me is to start big projects early and work on them 15 mins a day, starting way before the deadline, so they can kind of work in "background processing." sometimes, they finish themselves in my mind, and if they don't, I still have chipped away at it plenty so there's less of a mountain to climb when the deadline rolls around.

That's the only "somanaut original" tip i have, but check out productivity sites like Lifehacker. They're pretty much made for freelancers. Just don't get too sucked in, or you'll find that your seven hour work day has been spent dreaming up elaborate productivity systems rather than being productive. But you may want to look into the Pomodoro technique, or a technique of only giving yourself three important tasks to take care of per day.