How to meet deadlines as a creative freelancer

As a creative professional, your whole professional life is marked by deadlines. Both hard deadlines when you need to deliver client or project work. And smaller, softer deadlines that you’ve set for yourself to meet those hard deadlines.

If you are new to being a freelancer or creative professional, getting used to and securely meeting deadlines can be a challenge.

Begin now

Start as soon as physically possible. Even if you don’t have all the information, client approval (get the deposit or payment first though!) or clear idea of ending. Just start by taking some small steps. These steps can include:

· making notes

· doing research

· looking at competitors

· scouting locations

· taking photos

· jotting down ideas (no matter how outlandish)

No last minutes

An important reality is that we cannot plan for all things. That silly saying, ‘make a plan and hear God laugh..’ might have some truth, no matter your spiritual inclinations. It’s Sod’s Law that if you plan to get something done in a certain amount of time, something unexpected will pop up and delay even the finest laid plans. That’s…