No matter how fascinating the freelancing career looks, there are a lot of times when it becomes really hard to manage it all. Things become difficult when you are your own boss. You have to manage your time and work on your own. You need to learn to create a balance between your personal and professional life and at times all of this together results in a lot of stress.
When a person is new in this field, he doesn’t know how to motivate himself. He gets stressed about finishing his work within the assigned time without getting distracted, so here are some tips for those freelancers who are facing this constant stress and don’t know how to deal with it.
Only Say Yes to the Task You Can Do
Sometimes a freelancer finds himself in situations where it becomes hard for him to say no. This results in people giving him loads of work and before he realizes it, there is more work than he can manage. That is why it is advisable that you always take projects that you think you can do easily. Keep in mind that you also need some time for your own self so don’t overburden yourself. If someone wants to hire you for another project that you think would be too much work for you, just politely tell them that you are booked at the moment and can’t accept their offer.
Take Short Breaks
According to research, it is shown that people who take shirts breaks during their work tend to get more work done in lesser duration. It is really important for a freelancer to take regular short breaks. You can decide a time e.g. after every 50 minutes of continuous work, you take 10 minutes of break. This way you won’t get stressed, your mind will be relaxed, and you won’t get tired. Taking a break, no matter how short it is, will help you feel refreshed.
Concentrate Only on Your Current Project
There are times when the freelancer is assigned more than one project from his clients. During those moments there is stress in his mind about being able to finish all of those projects within deadlines. Even when he is working on one project at a time, his mind wanders off to all the other task that is pending. This not only results in slowing down your work but also causes you a lot of stress. Due to this, you lose focus on your current task and it makes more time to complete it.
So it is best that you focus on only the task that you are doing at that time. If you have a lot of pending work, create a timetable and assign specified hours to each project. This way you will stay calm knowing you have enough time for all of your remaining work and there is no need to stress.
Take Out Time for Yourself
Mostly, a person who is working as a freelancer only gets stressed when he is spending all his time working without taking breaks. So in order to avoid this stress, try to manage your routine in a way that every day you get at least a few hours to yourself. During that free time, you can either watch a movie, hang out with your friends or family or do anything else that you like. By doing this, you won’t be constantly thinking about your work and once you go back to work after a break, you will feel more productive.
Take a Nap
There are certain moments when a freelancer gets stuck. No matter what your project is and how good you are, times like these are inevitable. You would feel stressed out and stuck at a single point without knowing how to proceed with your work. Now, instead of sitting in front of your laptop and continuing browsing and thinking about what to do, just close everything and take a quick nap. It may sound like something that won’t work but trust me, it works 90% of the time. A short nap is like an energy booster for our brain. After the nap, your thought process will be faster and you will feel on a different level hopefully, you will get out of the loop in which were stuck for so long.
Create a Relaxing Environment
Even if you are working from home, it doesn’t need to feel like it. You don’t have to be on your bed juggling between eating, sleeping, and working. This way you are bound to feel stressed as this kind of environment is not very work-friendly. If you are privileged enough to be working from the comfort of your own home, it means you can create your office just the way you want.
Buy a good workstation, it doesn’t have to be big but a small desk with a good chair would do. Working on a desk will help you stay active. It is better than working on a bed, sofa, or anything that you can use for other purposes as well. If you are the kind of person who enjoys soft things, you can light a fragrant candle in your room, play calming music and then proceed to your work. All of these things will help you in staying calm and composed even if you have loads of work to do.
Just Breathe
If none of the above-mentioned methods help you in relieving your stress, just try taking long and deep breaths and thinking about happy and peaceful thoughts to calm your mind. Give yourself a small pep talk about how it’s nothing big and you have everything under control. Tell yourself you got this, your mind just needs a break. Drink some water, go to talk to someone from your family or friends, divert your mind from work, and come back after a while to start again.