In terms of flexibility, there’s nothing that can beat freelancing: you can choose the hours you’ll be working and almost any location is good for it. Yet, while this freedom is great, you have to be responsible for it when working without the regular office structure. Social media, entertainment websites, and even the news can be such a distraction and eat up a lot of valuable work time, leaving freelancers quickly scrambling to meet deadlines. Since this is the environment, tools like site blockers can become useful in keeping productivity and focus.
What is a Site Blocker?
A site blocker is a tool you can use to prevent access to a website or app that’s distracting or time consuming. With these tools, users can block access to websites or limit their usage, ensuring that they are not distracted from their responsibilities and focused on work during the day. Site blockers can be applied to laptops, desktops and mobile devices and are normally adaptable, enabling the user to select which sites to block and when to block certain sites. If you’d like to delve deeper into site blockers, BlockSite provides the perfect site blocker tool to help you manage your time and meet deadlines in the most effective manner.
Why It’s Hard for Freelancers to Manage Their Time
Time management can be a significant challenge for freelancers for several reasons:
Lack of Structure: One of the issues that can plague freelancers is the lack of constraints of a regular 9 to 5 schedule, meaning it’s sometimes easy to not have a consistent work routine at all.
Multiple Distractions: Freelancers working from home, or in public spaces, are constantly surrounded by potential distractions like social media, streaming platforms or even the laundry.
Client Deadlines: As freelancers, we juggle many clients and projects at the same time and you really need to be super organized and super disciplined in terms of management in order to make sure all your deadlines are met.
When you combine all of these factors, it can make it unbelievably easy to lose focus and push deadlines closer and closer while your stress level rises. Though, site blockers can be a structured way to get rid of distractions and also manage time.
How Productivity is Increased by Site Blockers
Minimizing Digital Distractions: It’s the endless array of things to do on the internet – scrolling through Instagram, watching one more YouTube video, etc. Freelancers can rely on site blockers to block certain websites while working. Freelancers can steer clear of dreaded social media or other pointless sites and get more done in less time by minimizing the temptation to check them.
Customizable Blocking Schedules: Fortunately, most site blockers provide the ability to set custom schedules for when sites are blocked. This provides freelancers the chance to set up ‘focus periods’ where all non work related sites are off limits. As an example, a freelancer can block social media and streaming sites from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., therefore providing you with three straight hours of undivided work.
Focus Mode for Deep Work: For example, most site blockers have features to support deep work, a state of high concentration that’s required to do creative or complex work. These might include the ability to restrict access to all but absolutely essential work websites so that the freelancer has no choice but to work on its current project. This can be particularly helpful when working on large or difficult tasks which necessitate sustained attention.
Time-Limited Breaks: It’s not just a matter of blocking distractions (though that is what site blockers are for) — they can also be used to make you take regular breaks. Some blockers enable you to list particular times that websites are available once more, so you can make use of a structured break without slipping into the screenless scrolling abyss. For example, a freelancer could work for 50 minutes and then take a 10 minute social media break, then work for 50 more minutes and then take another 10 minute break.
Boosting Accountability: Accountability is usually an internal battle for freelancers. Site blockers can help by serving as a constant reminder of what’s at stake: your productivity. It also adds a sense of responsibility, because you know that you didn’t randomly stumble upon this, you actively chose to block distractions and now you have that added layer of responsibility to stay committed to your goals.
How Site Blockers Can Help You Meet Deadlines
Working as a freelancer comes with tight deadlines and missing a deadline can have an adverse effect on client relationships and future opportunities. A freelancer’s ability to meet deadlines gets a big boost from site blockers which keep them on task and ensure they aren’t wasting time on distractions that they simply don’t need.
Preventing Procrastination: Procrastination is one of the reasons why freelancers miss deadlines. We’re all guilty of taking a quick break to check Twitter, or Facebook, or another form of entertainment, but those short breaks tend to linger into longer periods of unproductive time. Blocking social media or other distracting sites helps freelancers to cut down procrastination and focus on meeting deadlines.
Improved Time Tracking: Freelancers will find that some site blockers come with built-in time tracking features, helping them understand where their time is going. Freelancers can use this information to help them make choices on what and when to block websites or apps that are using up their time and overall help manage time better.
Prioritizing Work Over Distractions: For freelancers who have to juggle priorities in order to meet deadlines, site blockers can be a boon by blocking access to low priority websites. When all they have are the bare minimum of work tools, freelancers can focus on what’s really important — like finishing a design project, writing an article, or coding a website.
Conclusion
When it comes to freelancers’ success, time management is very important. With no structure of a traditional office environment, it’s hard to avoid the many distractions of the internet. Freelancers can achieve this through minimizing distractions, staying focused and being more productive using site blockers. Maybe it’s blocking social media, entertainment sites, or any distraction, site blockers can be very valuable if you want to manage your time effectively and meet your deadlines quickly.
Tools like site blockers help freelancers take the reigns over their work day and not allow distractions to prevent them from delivering quality work on time.
