Hopefully you love what you do for a living. Most freelancers do. Loving your job,…
10 Ways to Totally Enjoy Your Freelance Life
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(UPDATED 9/16/21)
Freelancing is an awesome way to earn a full-time income or earn income on the side. It’s not all about the money, though. The freelance life itself is one really big benefit to freelancing.
Some freelancers take full advantage of the lifestyle that freelancing can give them, while others don’t place enough importance on it.
I think it’s really important to have as good a life as possible. For me, freelancing has been a big part of being able to lead an enjoyable life. I want to help you live the best possible life too. Keep reading and learn 10 things that will help you totally enjoy your freelance life.
10 Ways to Totally Enjoy Your Freelance Life
1. Schedule work around life
Let your life dictate your work, not the other way around.
Be mindful of how you spend all of your time. Arrange your work schedule so you won’t miss important events, like your kids’ school plays, anniversaries with your significant other and holidays. When you need to run errands and go places, save time by going during hours when traffic and crowds are low.
Put an emphasis on life as a whole rather than making work the center point of your life. If you have freelance clients that aren’t a good fit for you, focus on finding new clients that you will enjoy working with. You don’t have to just get through the work day like you may have when you were an employee. Do what you need to do to enjoy each day as much as possible.
2. Turn your Mondays into Sundays
So many people dread Mondays. As a freelancer, there is no reason you have to feel this way anymore.
If you can, take Mondays off and enjoy yourself while others are working away. You can catch up later in the week when you feel more like working.
If that just won’t work for you, then instead of jumping from your weekend into your workweek first thing Monday morning, ease into it instead. Begin working a little later in the day on Monday than you usually do. Work on easier, more enjoyable tasks, then wind up slowly to the more important things you need to accomplish.
3. Work where you want
One of the many great things about freelancing is the ability to work anywhere you want.
Most freelancers work out of their home offices. Home can be a wonderful place, but as a freelancer you can work anywhere you want.
If you want to get out of the house from time to time, you don’t have to wait until you’re finished with your work. You can take it to a library, coffee shop, or even a park or a beach. Or you can go even further than your neighborhood by boarding a plane and traveling somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit.
When you’re freelancing, you not only don’t have to stay in your home office, you don’t even need to stay in your home country. And unlike most people, you’ll not just be spending money while you’re traveling, you’ll be earning money too.
4. Listen to your body clock
Setting an early morning alarm to get started with our work days is normal, but that doesn’t mean that it is good or healthy. Interrupting our body’s natural sleep rhythm is actually pretty unhealthy.
One way to ensure that you enjoy your freelance life as much as possible is by allowing your body to function on its natural sleep/wake cycle.
Stop setting a morning alarm. Schedule meetings and appointments a little later in the day so you can wake up naturally and still get all of your work done. You’ll be able to function better, you’ll feel better and overall be healthier.
5. Believe in yourself
Believe in yourself and your work. Believing in yourself and having confidence in what you do can make all the difference in the world in how much you enjoy your freelance life.
When you freelance, you don’t have a boss or coworkers to give you professional feedback. You may feel like you’re working in a vacuum. You may not be sure that you’re even that good at what you do.
Hopefully even before you start freelancing, you already have good self-confidence and you believe in yourself. A lot of freelancers struggle with this, though.
These tips for believing in yourself and these confidence-building tips should help you feel as good as possible about your freelance work so you can enjoy your freelance life.
6. Think positive
Successes and struggles can go hand in hand. Working for yourself is pretty awesome, but it also can be stressful and difficult. This is especially true when you’re just starting out and you need to really work on building your small business in order to get the money coming in.
The way we think is extremely important. So stay positive. Positive thinking isn’t just something that can make you feel good. Thoughts often become realities. Be positive about your work and yourself.
7. Take care of your health
You have all the opportunity in the world to take care of your health when you work for yourself.
Eat right, sleep enough, exercise. While most people say they don’t have time to exercise, because you’re a freelancer and can set your own schedule, you do have time. Even half an hour a day of exercise just a few days a week is way better than nothing at all. Watch your stress level too. Stress can be very detrimental to our health.
Be conscious of how your body feels and what it’s telling you. The better care you take of your body, the better and easier your life will be.
8. Set up multiple income streams
The more money you have, the easier it is to enjoy your freelance lifestyle. Freelancing is the perfect way to set up more than one income stream.
Multiple streams of income will give you financial security you can’t get any other way. Make one of these streams a passive income stream, and you’ll be able to earn money even while you’re not working.
9. Take good care of your finances
No matter how much money you’re making, you don’t want it to slip away. Keep careful track of your money.
It’s hard to enjoy your life if you’re struggling for money. When you’re a freelancer, the better you handle your money the greater the chance you’ll be able to succeed with your business and have a good life.
You can read several freelancing money tips here.
10. Don’t stress over your taxes
One of the downsides to freelancing is taxes.
When you’re freelancing there is no employer to deduct money from your pay to go into your taxes, so you have to do this yourself. You’ll also have to keep track of your business expenses. This can cause a lot of stress at tax time. Don’t let it.
Hire a good accountant to do your taxes for you. It will be money well spent. Just give your accountant your income and expenses at the end of each year and let them do the hard work.
The easier you make handling your taxes, the more time and energy you’ll have to work on your freelance business and enjoy your freelance lifestyle.
Now you’ve got 10 tips you can use to totally enjoy your freelance life. Ready to start a totally new freelance life for yourself? Download my free ebook How to Shift Your Mindset from 9-5 to Freelancing here.
Images by: Tanner van Dera and
Sabina Lohr is a lifelong freelancer turned entrepreneur who created World of Freelancers to help others discover how to work for themselves online and live the freelance lifestyle. She’s always really enjoyed the freedom that freelancing brings, including several years on and off of working online while traveling and living abroad.
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Having in control of your own time is what I find best about being a self-employed. Making your hobby as your source of income is the best fulfillment in working life. Making yourself as a boss is really a good feeling. But the trade-off with this is that you have a firm self-discipline of yourself or else you will not succeed in your work or you will loss a lot of clients.
Everything you say is correct. There are trade-offs. But the benefits are amazing if you can make it work out which, if you really want to, you can.