Lifestyle: how not to be sad while freelancing

When I left the office, I lost a number of circumstances that had an impact on my life. I didn’t discover this right away: I noticed the lack of some only a few years later. I compensated for some of them automatically, without even noticing, but I had to work on the rest. So, what are these nuances?

Routine. During my office work, I performed certain repetitive actions day after day. Rise at nine in the morning, shower, exercise, breakfast, an hour's journey by public transport to the office; beginning of the working day, lunch in the canteen, end of the working day; the road home. This set of actions made each of my working days measured and predictable. As it turned out later, I needed this predictability for an even distribution of strength and good health.

When freelancing, routine disappeared for a while. Wake up at whatever time you want - you don’t have to go anywhere. You can jump straight from bed to the computer and do work or anything else if there are no tasks. You can shower later. Why pay attention to your appearance if no meetings are scheduled? You can safely skip lunch and make up for it at dinner or any time you get hungry. I wanted to take a nap - please! You can work at any time of the day. Relax too. Beauty, and that's all!

However, this lifestyle led to the fact that it became more difficult for me to sit down to tasks. When I went to the office, I knew that I would work from ten to eighteen and relax in the evening, and every element of the daily routine reinforced this habit in me. My body already knew that after breakfast there would be a journey to the office, and after the first cup of coffee I would turn on the computer, sort out my mail and work on technical documentation. And this knowledge helped me get to work without resistance. When the routine disappeared, the habit of doing useful things at the appointed time also disappeared.

Therefore, we had to return the routine back. When I got out of bed, I started the day again with a shower, and then I did exercises, regardless of whether anyone appreciated it or not. I found out that my productive state occurs an hour after getting up, so after exercising I sat down to the most difficult tasks and worked on them for two hours. Then I had breakfast, rested and began negotiations and correspondence, since this required a little less energy from me. This time included sales, demonstrations of intermediate work results, and discussions. Afterwards I went about my business: walking, talking with family and friends. And at the end of the day, he assigned himself work that did not require a lot of “brain” (for example, filling out some documents or making small changes to projects), as well as entertainment.

Before I had a family, my day lasted on average not twenty-four, but twenty-five hours, so routine activities were not tied to the time of day, and the schedule was constantly moving forward little by little. With the arrival of a child and the need to be available at predictable times, I had to abandon this routine and wake up and go to bed at the same time.

Physical activity. A couple of hours spent traveling to the office and back every day is, of course, sad, but useful. Especially if by public transport (driving your own car or taxi does not count). A total of forty minutes of walking and more than an hour of pushing in a crowd of people during rush hour gave the body a good workout, which is necessary for its normal functioning. And it’s also convenient to while away part of this time by reading. I read much less today than I did in my early twenties, and that’s because my current routine doesn’t have a natural time for books, and I have to turn to them at random.

When going freelance, there is a temptation to devote the time freed up from the road to sedentary work, sedentary rest and sedentary household chores. On the one hand, movement is vital for the normal functioning of the body, and, on the other hand, the same body strives for calmness and energy saving, especially with age, so a freelancer faces a difficult choice.

In my case, walking and physical activity became part of my daily routine naturally. By default, I like to walk, especially in parks and forests, so I didn’t have to invent anything here. However, many of my friends who went freelance went home and began to grow bellies.

Friends and colleagues. In the office you can get the first ones, and you certainly can’t escape the second ones. And that's great! Social life is very important for mental health. Smoke breaks and gossip at the water cooler, joint trips to canteens and restaurants, corporate parties and holiday greetings. You lose all this by freelancing.

I especially missed communicating with colleagues. I partially compensated for it by communicating with clients, as well as teaching, but this was not enough. Forays into professional events in my industry helped a lot, but they were also few.

Meetings with friends and like-minded people saved me. The period from my twenty-two to twenty-seven years was especially rich in such meetings. And then many started families, some couldn’t cope with freelance life and returned to the office for “stability,” and it became more difficult for them to get out.

It all came down to the fact that social activity in my life turned into one of my work tasks. Build into my calendar to meet specific friends at specific times, remind them of this, and make sure there are no long periods when I don’t see anyone other than my family. By the way, communication with family in itself partially compensates for the thinning ranks of friends available for meetings, but these are still different types of social interactions.

Weekends and holidays. Rest is a vital necessity for any person. Employers would probably be happy if their employees worked seven days a week, but this is simply not possible. People would burn out at work. Therefore, in order for the employee to recover and gain strength, he is usually sent out to relax on average for a couple of days a week and a month throughout the year.

Nobody forces you to take a break while freelancing, and this can become a problem. Sometimes I found myself going too long without taking a break from work. Then I would drop everything and relax for several days, regaining my strength. But when such recovery began to require more and more time, I decided to introduce rest into my monthly routine. Because preventative rest is much more effective than restorative rest, when the body is already beginning to malfunction.

Taking a day off while freelancing is a skill of its own. Because you can take every day as a day off anyway. Especially when you are doing what you love. The most internal problems for me were the periods when there were no tasks for one or two weeks, and I was actively looking for new clients. During these searches, I did not consider that I was doing work, and therefore did not allow myself to rest. After some time, this led to moral exhaustion. As a result, I began to treat the search for orders as a full-time job and got into the habit of sometimes taking a break from it.

By the way, about vacations. The employer pays for his employee’s “vacation” plus makes sure that the company’s clients do not suffer when someone is on vacation. A freelancer is his own employer, so he is forced, firstly, to be financially literate enough so that money for vacation is included in the cost of work, and, secondly, to be able to manage his calendar and clients’ expectations so that they do not suffer during his absence.

Goals, planning and praise from superiors. In hired work, someone is almost always responsible for the employee. The boss will cover in case of an unforeseen situation, make sure that the employee always has something to do, praise him for good work and reprimand him for bad work. In such conditions, the employee acts within the framework of someone else's vision and helps achieve someone else's goals. This emanates a certain lack of freedom, but in such conditions it is much more comfortable than when you are responsible for everything yourself.

When I started my freelancing journey, I didn't have a strategic plan or financial goals. I’m happy with how much I earned. I earned a little more than last month, which makes me even more happy. You do the same thing from project to project - and here it is, stability! However, over time, I began to feel that this was not stability, but stagnation.

To start making normal money, I had to define what “normal” is. Voice a certain amount out loud. And in order to name this or that amount, you need to be very aware of why it is needed and what to spend it on. When you are in eternal debt and live from payment to payment, it seems that the main goal is to break even. And here again there is a trap. It will be much easier to break even if this is only the first step towards a more pleasant and alluring goal.

And in my life the following scheme began to work:

1. Understand what exactly you want from those things that money can buy. For example, renting or purchasing a home, a car, the opportunity to travel, the opportunity to share money with relatives, and so on. Everyone will have their own list.
2. Calculate how much money these wishes require.
3. Make a plan to achieve the desired level of income.
4. Follow this plan and periodically (in my case once a year) adjust it in accordance with the new experience gained.

Along the way, it is important to reward yourself for intermediate results that bring you closer to the final goal. After all, a freelancer does not have a boss behind him who will praise him for good work. And this praise is important.

If there are no goals, then there will be no plan. And if there is no plan, then the work will only be done out of necessity to stay afloat. And staying afloat is not such a difficult task. And it would be nice not to get stuck in the state of “there is enough to live on, there are almost no debts left, and everything is fine!” On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with this state. On the other hand, any unforeseen situation that requires additional financial resources can temporarily overwhelm a person with a similar position in life.