Don’t Make Your Freelance Writing Career Just About Work

I have discussed the importance of persistence and focus as part of your freelance writing career. Freelance writing means running your own business, and that means working hard. That doesn’t mean you should make yourself miserable though. The last thing you want to do is feel like you are tethered to your computer ten or more hours a day and that you should never take time for yourself. If you want to be miserable and overworked, you might as well get a regular job.

One of the advantages of a freelance writing career is that you don’t have to answer to some other person’s schedule. You make your own days. There will be times when you have to go all out in order to meet a deadline. Unlike a regular job though, you do have a certain amount of flexibility as a freelance writer and you need to take advantage of that on occasion. Here are a few of the things I do to take advantage of my freelance status.

Go for a walk

My personal goal for 2010 is to walk 1000 miles. That means I need to walk an average of three miles a day. I live in a small community that is surrounded by open desert. A three mile walk takes me about an hour, so I head off into the desert and take a look around me. I never know what I am going to find. I run across animals and plants that I have never seen, and the occasional rusted remains of someone’s car, camp, or desert party. I listen to music or audiobooks and I enjoy the fact that I am free to do this whenever I want to.

Go to lunch

For me, the closest real restaurant is twenty miles away, so when I go out to lunch it isn’t for a quick bite. There is an Asian buffet I like to go to. I take a notebook with me and I write down ideas as they come to me. I don’t take my computer because I don’t want it to feel like work. It is simply time for me to relax and think about what I want to do. I don’t do this every day. There are times when I am so focused on work that I eat a Clif bar and just keep writing. About once a week though, I take my two to three hour lunch and enjoy it.

Take a nap or meditate

Employers frown on people taking naps at a regular job, at least in the USA. That is unfortunate because after about four hours of work, a lot of people get a little sleepy. If I start to feel like that, I generally go sit in my recliner, put my feet up, and listen to one of the many meditation podcasts I get for free from Zen Worlds. I try to meditate, but half the time I just nod off. The advantage of doing this in the recliner though is that I’m bound to get up again in about twenty minutes. By then I am refreshed and ready to work.

Write from somewhere new

There are times when you need to get work done, but you want to escape your usual surroundings. My wife and I have taken several small trips while I have been freelancing, and attended a couple of conferences. Because I freelance, I never had to ask permission to travel. It didn’t matter where I was working from, as long as I completed my assignments. This is the sort of freedom you have as a freelancer, and you should take advantage of it.

Do what works for you

These are examples of how I take advantage of my freelance lifestyle. Freelancing eliminated over three hours a day of commute time for me, which means I have more time to spend with my wife and my friends while still working the same amount of hours as I did before. Find your own ways to take advantage your status as a freelancer. Spend time with your children. Write from the beach. Take an hour for yourself in the middle of the day. Do what feels right, just don’t get carried away. You are still running a business, it just happens to be one you are in control of.