After our last post on ways freelancers can get organised, we wanted to share even more tips and ideas for how the average freelancer can stay on top of their business tasks.

While this may not be the most exciting part about being a freelancer, it is certainly one of the most important.

You can book as many jobs with as many clients as you can, but if you are not organised you will find yourself strapped for cash, missing important deadlines and damaging your relationship with clients.

So here are some more tips to help you get your business organised and on track.

1. Organise your contacts

While some of us still fondly remember the days of a paper address book, today’s online world simply demands more.

An online contact system will allow you to search easily across multiple categories, and organise your contacts into useful groupings.

It’s definitely worth keeping notes on each contact, about their needs and past projects you worked on.

This gives you a list of people you could contact again for new work and also helps if they contact you. The notes will be a good way to remind yourself of previous projects.

2. Set up Google alerts for your area of expertise

Staying abreast of the relevant news in your industry is non-negotiable. If you want to stay on the top of your game and learn about new industry developments, trends and breakthroughs, it pays to read the industry news.

Rather than scrolling through your social media accounts to find these articles or navigating to specific websites or blogs, simply set up a Google alert. This will deliver relevant news stories directly to your inbox based on the keywords that you choose.

If you have a blog or social media accounts (if not then you probably should) you can use these news stories to share with people in your network. This helps to give you more authority and also becomes a reason for people to interact with you through these channels.

3. Make sure you take time off!

This one may not sound like much of a ‘hack’ or a tip, but you would be surprised at how many freelancers neglect to take a reasonable amount of time off.

While they might feel like they are ‘buckling down’ and displaying a solid work ethic, they are actually in the process of burning themselves out. If you do not take a reasonable amount of time off per week to focus on yourself, your friends and family, your work will ultimately suffer.

How do you stay organised? Do you take enough time off for yourself? Please share your thoughts in the comments.