Eat the Frog: What Successful Freelancers Do Before Lunchtime

The freelancer’s life is full of options – what time to wake up, which projects to tackle, and whether to put on pants (hint: yes). Well, as Mark Twain said, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

For the freelancer, this means prioritizing one’s tasks and handling the toughest stuff first. After all, “You’re less likely to be interrupted [in the morning] than you are later in the day,” says What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast author Laura Vanderkam.

So whether their pain point is staying on task, organizing their work, or getting out of bed at all, writers share the many ways that they eat the frog early in the day.

Leave the house

Playwright Tony Kushner told The Paris Review, “Your work ethic is formed deep within, and it’s comprised by all sorts of impulses. Why do any of us bother to put on clothes in the first place?”

Indeed, writers who work from home may slide into bad habits — habits like not leaving the apartment or not dressing. To combat working-from-home syndrome, behave as if you have a full-time job: wake up early and leave the house.

Loosecubes headquarters

Jess Adamiak, a content strategist who has written for TravelandLeisure.com, maximizes her day by getting out of bed by 7 a.m. and getting out the door by 8 a.m. “I’ll book [a temporary] office through Loosecubes or go to the Brooklyn Public Library,” she says.

Create your “cubicle” at a place that inspires you to start your day, such as a cafe or a co-working space or a park. Don’t just sit at home — Go forth and do the work.

Rid yourself of distractions

Author Margaret Atwood gave this writing tip to The Guardian: “Hold the reader’s attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.)”

Social media, for instance, can be a pastime … or a time suck. Adamiak uses online tools to limit her social media usage: “I use controlled multi-tab browsing, where you can limit how many tabs you’re using. The big one I use is StayFocused, [to] block Facebook, all that stuff.”

Zadie Smith goes one step further. She shared this productivity tip with The Guardian: “Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­Internet.”

Have a plan of attack

You’ve left the apartment. You’ve avoided Twitter #highfive. Now how do you get organized?

Freelance writer and content strategist Laura Grasso says, “I use Workflowy. I have pages for each client and subpages for each part of the project.”

Writer Ann Friedman recommends Evernote. With the scope of your work clearly plotted, you can more easily execute your drafts; Grasso recommends tackling them first thing in the morning.

For the less tech-inclined, organization need not require apps. Artist and writer Frank J. Miles says of his filing system: “I have various folders in my computer and in my email. I don’t use too many of those [online] tools.”

Similarly, Slate senior editor Dan Kois says he’s taken “physical notes in an old-timey reporter’s notebook (David Carr approved) when interviewing people in person.” For Kois’s “Free to Be” series on Slate, he says, “I used a single Google doc as my repository for basically everything. Every transcript of an interview, every URL, every note I took on a book, etc.”

Reward yourself

For writers who need an extra push to get an early start, The Power of Habit author and New York Times writer Charles Duhigg suggests that you treat yourself.

He told NPR that creating a good habit means crafting a new pattern of cues, routines, and rewards. Therefore, the cue is the sound of your alarm clock. The routine is waking up, putting on pants, heading out the door, eschewing Facebook, getting organized, and writing. And the reward?

For Adamiak, the reward is an online game: “If I send this pitch, write this post, edit this slideshow, I can play a turn in Words with Friends.” For Berlin-based freelance writer Abby Carney, her treat is chatting via Skype with her parents who are in the U.S.

A writer’s perk can be as simple as going for a walk, as indulgent as shopping online, or as obvious as ordering an extra cup of coffee.

Start your day early, handle the hardest tasks first, and plan your projects. You’ll jump-start your productivity in no time.