Finding work-life balance as a freelancer
By Carrie M. King →Finding work-life balance as a freelancer can be especially hard. However, if you’re smart about your schedule and strict about your boundaries, you really can transform the way you work and reclaim your downtime.
Full-time jobs come with schedules built in. You know when you have to be at the office or online and you know when you can clock off. That’s not to say that employees don’t work more hours than they should or are always perfectly productive, but there is at least a set organisational structure around which they can navigate.
As a freelancer, all bets are off. You can work all the time or not at all. Nobody is going to pull you in for a performance review or reward your hard work. The structure of your days has to be self-imposed and you are required to marshal your own time, projects, and schedule. Your workload, your time management, and your ability to deliver work are all on you.
If anything, it’s tempting for freelancers to take on too much work rather than not enough. I can’t tell you the number of people I know who stretch themselves far too thin in order to meet every demand on their time. So if you’re struggling to find work-life balance as a freelancer, let’s take a look at some simple ways you can get back on track.
1. Schedule your work—and everything else
It’s time to get friendly with your calendar. Making an advance plan allows you to get a comprehensive overview of the demands on your time, facilitates better task prioritisation and time management, and helps you avoid forgetting anything important. So play a bit of calendar Tetris and make sure you leave enough time for yourself, your friends and family, and for having a little fun. Be realistic about how long tasks take and factor in travel time, task switching, admin, exercise, appointments, lunch breaks, and leave a little wiggle room for unexpected hiccups.
2. Take holidays and weekends
Make sure you take time off. Nobody will thank you for working all the time and being available at the drop of a hat just teaches your clients that your time is less valuable than theirs. So once your week is done, stop working and give yourself time away from your projects. Yes, you can work all the time but that doesn’t mean you should. Plan your vacations, don’t work while you’re away, and make frequent use of your email client’s out-of-office auto-response function.
3. Set strong boundaries
Establish clear boundaries around your time, availability, expectations, and communication cadences. Be straightforward from the start and let people know when you’re available so nobody gets stressed out if you don’t respond immediately. If you work with an instant messaging tool like Slack or Teams, set a status that lets your colleagues know when you check your messages. There will, of course, be periods when you’ll need to be more available, but make them the exception, not the rule.
4. Have a dedicated work space
Whether it’s a coworking desk, your favourite laptop-friendly café, or a specific corner of your kitchen table, it really helps to have a dedicated workstation. Going to the same place to work every day allows you to establish a mental boundary between your work time and your personal time. Even if both work and play happen on your laptop, simply moving to a different location can help you switch into, or out of, work mode.
5. Know when to quit
Sometimes, projects don’t work out. Sometimes, clients ignore your invoices or disrespect your boundaries. (Psst! Goose is cooking up plans to ensure you get paid on time for every job.) Sometimes, you simply don’t have capacity to continue with a project or need to prioritise something else. When this happens, know when to quit. Do it clearly and respectfully and try to give clients as much time to adjust to the news as possible.
6. Take time away from tech
While tech has given us a lot, it has also blurred the lines between work and play and means that, unless you get your tech use under control, you’re never really off the clock. Managing your technology and knowing when to turn off your phone or close the laptop will enable you to think more clearly and to work more effectively. Use the do-not-disturb function on your devices and turn off your laptop when you’re done for the day.
7. Get out of the house
This probably doesn’t need to be reiterated after a pandemic spent stuck indoors but: go outside. If you work from home, it’s far too easy to just open the laptop without even getting out of bed. But spending time outside and moving your body will do wonders for mental health. And best of all: it’s simple, free, and good for problem-solving.
8. Raise your rates
If you work a lot and still struggle to make ends meet, you need to raise your rates. I promise you, no one will bat an eyelid. And if a client does baulk at a higher fee, then maybe you should look for a different client. Set rates that enable you to live comfortably. A lot of the reason some freelancers work all the time is that they don’t charge enough for their time, expertise, and value. So value yourself. It’ll change your life.
If you feel you can’t set strong boundaries or say no to projects, remind yourself that productivity and work-life balance are intimately interlinked. Being a freelancer underlines that reality. It can be tempting to say yes to every project you get offered when you’re a freelancer but if you do that, you may end up burning yourself out. Cultivating a strong work-life balance will keep you healthy and make your work better, too. Sounds like a win:win to me.
