Five freelance time-thieves and how to avoid them
As a freelancer, time is one of my most precious resources. Often, activities that seem like they might be great for networking or offering creative insights actually end up being massive time thieves. I’m not alone in finding that the very things that promise to help—instant messaging, social media, meetings and calls, random distractions, or even platforms like Substack—more often than not, derail my focus, disrupt real work, and relentlessly chip away at the limited hours I have for billable projects.
Let's look at why each of these seemingly innocuous activities is a horrible time thief, and how we can be mindful of the negative impact they can have.
Instant messaging: a double-edged sword of collaboration and communication
Instant messaging tools are designed for rapid communication, but for us freelancers, they can instantaneously rob you of your concentration. Each ping and quick message creates a moment of interruption—a break in the deep focus that’s essential for high-quality creative and analytical work. Every time you switch your attention from a complex project to respond to a quick message, your brain pays a penalty in the switch of context. This repeated disruption fragments your work time and hampers your ability to enter and sustain a state of deep, productive work.
The expectation we all have of immediate response introduces unwanted pressure. Freelancers, who cherish those periods of uninterrupted time, may find ourselves spending more time answering messages than progressing on the real paying tasks. The result is a cycle of interruption where the benefits of rapid communication can easily be outweighed by the loss of productivity and resulting mental fatigue.
Social media (FFS)
Social media platforms are engineered to capture and hold your attention—we know that from the doom-scrolling trances we find ourselves in when we just picked up our phones to check a notification fifteen minutes ago. While they can be superb for networking and keeping up with industry trends, the algorithms behind these vicious time-thieves are relentlessly persuasive. Designed to maximize engagement, they serve an endless stream of updates, likes, shares, and crapulent whining that often lead us into a digital vortex. I prefer to regard it as a death spiral—a Top Gun flat spin if you’re of a certain age.
What starts as a quick check-in can often spiral into prolonged scrolling, consuming valuable billable hours that might otherwise be spent on client work or even just skill development.
In a freelance context, the attraction of social or peer validation and the temptation to compare your own progress with that of peers can lead to emotional dissonance and lowered self-esteem. Over time, excessive time on social media erodes concentration, encourages procrastination, and interrupts work cycles—not to mention making you horribly depressed for no fathomable reason. Reducing its hold, setting strict time limits and designating specific social media windows in your day, can make a significant difference in reclaiming productive hours and still give you some of the positive aspects you went there for in the first place.
Meetings and calls
While direct communication with clients and collaborators is vital—and it is—not every meeting or call is frankly worth your time. In the freelance world, time is money, and every minute spent on a call has an opportunity cost. Meetings can veer off-topic or become repetitive sessions that fail to resolve key issues, leaving you with less time to work on creative projects or deliverables.
In-person or real-time virtual meetings also tend to dismantle your carefully allocated blocks of time for deep work. You might schedule a crucial working session, only to have it interrupted by a scheduled call that wasn’t strictly necessary, or by an unplanned meeting with a client who could have conveyed the information in a brief email.
This constant toggling between thought-intensive tasks and interactive demands demolishes your ability to build momentum and ultimately knackers your productivity. Establishing clear communication protocols and limiting meetings to critical discussions only will help preserve your much-needed uninterrupted work periods. Good luck with that.
Distractions and procrastination
Procrastination is not about laziness—it’s often the outcome of an environment rich in distractions. For freelancers, the freedom of setting your own schedule is yet another double-edged sword (these fuckers are everywhere). With no one watching the clock, everyday distractions like household chores, web browsing, or the lure of a really great podcast, can easily derail your progress.
These distractions compound over time. What might start as a five-minute break becomes a lengthy period of unstructured time. Even a short distraction will break your focus so that returning to the task at hand requires significant mental effort. Coupled with the phenomenon of procrastination, this scattered approach to work often means projects extend past deadlines or require rushed, lower-quality revisions. Recognizing this battle with focus is the first step in overcoming it, using techniques like time blocking, the Pomodoro method, or setting up a distraction-free workspace, you have a better chance of fighting off the time-thief of procrastination.
Substack (hell, yeah)
I really like Substack—please don’t misunderstand me—but I can’t be alone in realising just how much of my time can be spent here, with little or no payback. While Substack offers us freelancers and solopreneurs a way to showcase our expertise and build an audience, it also presents its own set of unique challenges. Writing and curating content for a Substack publication can be really rewarding, but it has the potential to become an extensive time thief if not controlled.
For freelancers, the pursuit of building a personal brand or engaging with their community through Substack can inadvertently shift their focus away from client work. The process of brainstorming topics, conducting research, drafting, and refining content, can eat into precious working hours if it takes priority over immediate income-generating tasks. When reading other newsletters is also part of your daily routine, the flood of ideas and opinions can overwhelm your own creative process, accelerating procrastination and diluting your focus even more.