i understand what you're going through. I'm a freelancer too, and it takes a lot of self discipline. As much as we like to make our own schedules, we are also slave to the deliverables we promise.

I wonder if your procrastination comes from anxiety about the outcome? I was stuck in place because I was so anxious about actually doing the work well that I wouldn't get started on it at all.

You have to get comfortable with the idea that when you start the work, it's going to be bad. For example, I'm a writer...so my first draft, I know will be bad. It's just me getting words on the page for the client.

When I'm stuck or looking at information but can't get started, I have found it really helps to call someone and just talk it out so I can get started. Just find someone to be a sounding board. It sounds simple but it really helps. Sometimes I can do this with the client. Like I'll call them and put them on speaker and just have them talk and I'll type everything they say (and I type very fast so this works really well for me). If it's an article, etc., I have them talk me through the outline or the ideas that they want presented. Then after I get off the phone with them, I make a task list to complete it and just force myself to sit there until I finish each task for the article.

So the first task could be I have to take the outline and turn it into real sentences. Then the second sentence is pulling in the research to support different statements in the article. Third could be finding the right visuals. Then lastly I'll proofread and edit.

As one writer to another, the only way to get through the procrastination is to just force yourself to write. No matter how bad it is. The first draft will always suck. If you can allow yourself to let the first draft be just words on page, no self-editing, no analyzing, just the words and ideas on the page so you can then craft them to be polished and word-smithed, then you will find things a lot easier.

I think you probably avoid, and therefore procrastinate, because of anxiety. It sounds like your clients are pretty happy with you though, so your anxiety is unfounded and irrational. If you can remind yourself of that throughout the day, and try and push through, you will find things get easier.

I was just like you a few months ago. But I have worked to confront that anxiety and now when I feel that procrastination coming on, and that anxiety that paralyzes me, I write down small, simple things to get myself moving forward, and eventually I find myself plowing through the work like it's nothing.

You can overcome this.

Seesaw