This is my 130th post on this blog site, and now I want to talk about "Self-Discipline".
Working as a freelancer for 6 years, I found that Self-Discipline is a learnable skill for everyone and all people should learn it.
Let's take a look at how you can be a Self-Discipline person.
How to be Self-Discipline
Based on my experience, there are three things to pay attention to be a Self-Disciplined person.
- Goal Oriented Mindset
- A Skill to divide tasks
- Time Management Skill
These are the three things I have realised by spending a lot of time being a freelancer, so these are just my opinions, and if you google, other people may say different things so you also want to take their advice as well as my advice.
Goal Oriented Mindset
This is a very important mindset when it comes to being an independent freelancer since no one tells you what to do and when to do it if you work by yourself.
The way how I have learned a goal-oriented mindset was to set a deadline for each task.
For example, when I was working at a company in Tokyo, I always had this white paper to write down my tasks and I always wrote the deadline for each task to motivate myself to finish before the deadline.
A Skill to divide tasks
The skill to divide tasks into smaller tasks is very important.
Let's take my professional work as an example.
When I spend time on this blog website, the tasks will be divided into as below.
- Think about the topic to write
- Think about that paragraph structure
- Start writing & editing
- Final grammar mistakes check & image selection
- Publish & send index requests to Google Search Console
- Take some time on Google Search Console for the keyword improvement
- Go check the revenue and access data at Ezoic Dashboard
- Update daily revenue & access date in my Google Spreadsheet
When I say "I'm writing a blog post today.", then it means I always follow this routine.
I think the reason why people think they are not Self-Discipline is that they just simply do not have the skill to divide a task into several small tasks.
If you can divide a task into smaller tasks like I do, then it is much easier to start working on what you have to do.
Time Management Skill
Last but not least, time management skill is very important for being Self-Discipline.
The moment that you feel you are a Self-Discipline person is the moment that you achieve something.
To achieve something, you would like to know how long it will take to finish each task; Time Management Skill.
For me the expected time that I need for my daily blogging routine is...
- Think about the topic to write 5min
- Think about that paragraph structure 3min
- Start writing & editing 45min
- Final grammar mistakes check & image selection 10min
- Publish & send index requests to Google Search Console 15min
- Take some time on Google Search Console for the keyword improvement 15min
- Go check the revenue and access data at Ezoic Dashboard 15min
- Update daily revenue & access date in my Google Spreadsheet 15min
By this time management method, if I want to publish a blog post today but I'm super busy today for instance, I can spend intensive one hour focusing on just publishing, and forget about the data analysis because, at the end of the day, I don't have to do the data analysis every day; it's just better to finish all of this list as a flow.
In addition to this, the benefit of knowing the time that you need for a specific task is that if you are a digital nomad like me, you will have this moment that "I have fast wifi and 3 hours at the airport now. WHICH TASK SHALL I DO NOW?
If I have 3 hours at the airport, I will publish one blog post, and eat lunch before getting on the aircraft.
Self-Discipline is a minimalist skill
Self-Discipline skills can help you focus on things because you constantly tell yourself, "I am going to finish this task before my breakfast, " and you actually manage to do it.
Focusing is minimalism and minimalism is focusing.
Focusing helps you to improve the quality of your task in terms of your profession, so being able to focus on something ideally for a long period is very important and useful.
In the earlier post, I talked about how to avoid that decision fatigue.
Also Read: How can I avoid decision fatigue? Extreme minimalist blogger teaches you the ultimate method.
The reason why I talk about decision fatigue in this paragraph is that if you know how to avoid decision fatigue, then you know how to focus on your tasks.
This is why I write a blog post right after I wake up these days.
If you go back and read my past blog posts related to Digital Detox, I do remember I have written that starting using digital devices right after you wake up is not good.
Now, I am experimenting with a new lifestyle which is to start writing a blog post immediately after I wake up so that I can avoid the decision fatigue which prevents me to think clearly.
This is how it looks when I write a blog post: I never open a tab that is not related to writing a blog post because if I start opening a different tab, my focus will be distracted.
Then after I publish a blog post, I go back to morning digital detox, so practically I use my laptop only for writing a blog post in the morning.
Also read: The relationship between digital detox and decision fatigue
Summary: Self-Discipline is essential for a Digital Nomad
To summarise this blog post, I want to highlight that Self-Discipline is a learnable skill and essential skill for especially an independent freelancer / digital nomad.
The tip that you can utilise the knowledge that you have learned from this post is to set a daily routine so that you don't miss a goal-oriented attitude by following the deadline with a Skill to divide tasks and time management skills.
Also, Read:
How to Become a Blogger and make money in 3 Steps in 2023
How to build your own blog from scratch? Writing ideas with SEO tips
How to write blog articles fast and accurately: Use voice input and Grammarly
Thanks for reading.