Multitasking is an often frowned upon phrase among business owners and freelancers. It paints a picture of a professional trying to juggle multiple tasks at the same time but inevitably failing to achieve any of them satisfactorily.
The fact is, multitasking can be a big problem. It can hamper productivity, cause confusion, and quickly lead to burnout. Trying to manage multiple tasks at once is not ideal, if, you don’t use the right systems and procedures.
When it comes to running a successful freelancing business, multitasking is in fact inescapable and essential. Just not in the way most business owners go about it.
As a freelancer, your time is sacred. Your ability to manage many different tasks as quickly as possible is key to enjoying a high income and plenty of time to rest and enjoy life. It’s for this reason, you need to know the best ways to multitask effectively.
So how can you manage multiple tasks at once without falling flat on your face?
Use the right apps and tools
Part of working faster and more intelligently is making use of the latest apps and tools most applicable to your work tasks. Nowadays there are literally thousands of apps for multiple different tasks and procedures. Tasks that might have once taken an hour to complete, can now be done in a matter of minutes using specialist software.
Cloud-based invoicing for example. Our apps and tools at Invoice Ninja allow you to create and send multiple attractive invoices to your clients in just a few minutes, as well as doing away with the need to manually record the data in spreadsheets.
There are apps for everything. You can find apps online for time tracking, project management, emails, marketing, appointment scheduling, social media, collaborations, to-do lists, WordPress, ecommerce, client support, databases, electronic signatures, forms, and so much more.
Integrate these apps
All these apps and tools work wonderfully by themselves. Alone they will benefit your freelancing business. But when you integrate these apps together, that’s when the real magic happens. App integration systems allow you to transfer data from one app to another, in real-time, and with perfect accuracy, across multiple different platforms.
This means you can work on a number of different tasks at the same time and the data will be updated in all the relevant apps. In this sense, you take the ‘multi’ out of multitasking because one task then becomes a singular task but which still influences other tasks and updates across multiple platforms.
When invoicing, for example, you can integrate your Invoice Ninja account with apps like Google Sheets, Google Contacts, Dropbox, WooCommerce, and numerous more, as well as our very own time-tracking and Kanban Board tools.
Automate your processes
With integration comes automation. Automating tasks and procedures is a fantastic way to really boost your time and project management effectiveness. When you can let technology handle a lot of mundane and everyday tasks, then you free up more time to fill with billable work and leisure activities.
Automation also allows you to, indirectly, complete multiple different tasks at the same time, all without lifting a finger. In fact, these tasks will be completed even when you’re sleeping soundly in bed at night.
With platforms like Integromat and PieSync, for example, which we’ve integrated with Invoice Ninja, you can create a two-way data transfer synchronization. This means when you send an invoice, then all the related client and financial data will be sent to other apps of your choosing, and vice-versa.
You can also automate late payment reminder emails, reoccurring invoices, and automatic credit card gateway fees.
Track your time
With so many clever tools, apps, integration solutions, and automation systems, you might wonder just how much faster you can work. When it comes to running your own business as a freelancer or solopreneur, then there’s always faster, especially when dealing with multiple client projects and tasks.
To improve your productivity and also gain accurate data regarding your billable hours, it’s wise to track every second you spend working each day. The resulting data will allow you to spot where you can speed up and also where you can make better use of tools and apps to help you.
Prioritize tasks and plan ahead
You can use all the apps and tools in the world but if you’re not planning ahead and prioritizing tasks, then it’s unlikely you’ll meet with your goals. It’s important to assess what tasks are the most important at any given time and how they impact on the rest of your schedule and project status. Effective planning and multitasking requires you to have a clear overview of what needs to be done and when.
Kanban Boards are a great way to get a bird’s eye view of your projects and schedules. You can arrange tasks according to time, subject, client, and importance, which gives you a better idea of what to prioritize. The task cards can easily be rearranged to fit ever-changing realities.
You can integrate your Kanban Boards with other apps related to things like invoicing, appointment scheduling, time-tracking, collaborations, and email.
Managing multiple tasks at once has never been easier
Managing multiple tasks at once is easy when you allow technology to take a leading role in your freelancing business. When you make use of the best apps and tools appropriate to your freelance client work and business management, you can quickly develop systems where multiple tasks can be completed simultaneously.
With Invoice Ninja’s invoice software, you can manage all your invoicing requirements in one place and also integrate just about any other app you use with our platform. We also have inbuilt time-tracking and project management tools, which means you can effectively run nearly every facet of your financial and business management processes from your Invoice Ninja dashboard.
Managing multiple tasks at once has never been easier, especially with our integrations with specialist automation and app data transfer platforms.
