Like me, I'm sure you want your work to be good.

But (also like me!) you don't want to end up spending 6 hours on something that was absolutely good enough after 3 hours. If you're paid per word or per piece, which most freelance writers are, every extra hour you spend is dramatically reducing your effective hourly rate.

So how do you find a middle ground? How do you feel confident that your work is "good enough" ... without spending hours trying to get it perfect?

Here's my checklist for knowing if your work is good enough:

• Is your piece well structured? That normally means an introduction, a structured main body (with subheadings if appropriate, and paragraphs in a sensible order), plus a conclusion at the end.
• Have you included everything the client asked for? With many of my freelance pieces, I do a quick check at the end to make sure I've included the keywords the client wanted, and that I've put in any links they asked for.
• Are you reasonably confident that your piece is factually correct? (You don't have to point to a source for every sentence, but you should avoid making sweeping assertions without double-checking that they're accurate.) Have you flagged up any information that you want your client to confirm?
• Have you run your piece through some kind of spelling and grammar check? My software of choice here is Grammarly, which does a great job of spotting things like my native UK spellings creeping into my US clients' pieces!
• Have you proofread your piece, once? (Your client really should be running your work through some kind of editorial process, so I don't think you need to go crazy with the proofreading.)
• Did you deliver the piece by your client's deadline ... or renegotiate ahead of time if you needed longer?

If you can say "yes" to all of those, then it's a pretty safe bet that your work is good enough!

There are a couple of situations, though, where you might want to take a little extra time, perhaps doing more editing or even asking a freelancing friend to cast an eye over your draft:

• You hope this piece will build your reputation. If it's a piece that uses your byline, and it's going out in a prestigious magazine or on a well-known website, it's worth making sure it's your very best work.
• You've had feedback from the client suggesting your work isn't up to the standard they're hoping for. This is a good opportunity to ask for specific examples of what they'd like done differently, so you can take a bit of time to carefully address those in future pieces.

Ultimately, if you're worrying whether your freelance work is good enough ... it probably is! Unless you're getting a response that suggests otherwise (e.g. clients only work with you once; clients heavily edit your work before publishing it), then be confident in your writing skills.

Happy writing,

Ali

P.S. If you missed this week's blog post, you can find it here:

How to Stay Focused When You’re Writing Something Uninteresting