You most likely embarked on your freelancer journey to have more freedom, escape from the 9 to 5 treadmill, be your own boss and do the work you love.
But you probably didn’t take into account the extra hours you’d be working, how to plan for a vacation or take time off for the holidays.
If this sounds like you, here are 6 things to consider to avoid freelancer burnout and enjoy some excellent work-free quality time.
Plan ahead
Whether you are going on a long vacation or just taking a short break away to recharge your batteries, it makes sense to plan ahead.
What you don’t want to be doing is rushing around in a mad panic, trying to meet deadlines on your last working day before your time off – as this will inevitably increase your stress levels and most likely lead to mistakes and oversights.
Give yourself a few days buffer both before you go away and when you return. You can do this by breaking down larger tasks and getting them done in advance.
This will, of course, require a few tweaks to your daily workflow, but if you plan for it, the few extra hours you spend getting stuff done spread out over the weeks and days will be worth it.
Let clients know in advance
Let all your clients know ahead of time that you will be taking time off. It would also be sensible to remind them a week before and then again a day before you plan on taking time off. People have busy schedules and can easily forget.
If you have a shared calendar or use a tool such as Slack, make sure you note that you are away. You could even include the dates you are away in your email signature.
Likewise, leave an out-of-office message on your emails so that people will know you are on leave and will get back to them on your return. Alternatively, if you have a team or VA, you can ask people to refer queries to them. The key is to ensure emails are responded to, even if it is telling them you are unavailable and won’t be reading your emails until you return.
If you are planning an extended break, you could consider finding cover for your regular clients – perhaps another freelancer in your network could help with the workload, or you could consider sub-contracting if this is acceptable according to your contract.
Automate your invoices
Just because you are on vacation doesn’t mean you can’t send out your invoices and get paid.
Invoice Ninja, a leading free invoice software specifically developed for freelancers and small businesses like you, offers a user-friendly interface for creating and sending professional-looking and custom-branded invoices.
You can save time by automatically billing long-term clients with recurring invoices (so you don’t need to do a thing). You can also make good use of our Bulk Email Invoices & Quotations feature by quickly selecting multiple invoices and emailing them out together before you go on vacation. You could even add a message to your invoice letting clients know when you are away.
If you are waiting on a client deposit, Invoice Ninja has a partial payment feature that can convert a deposit invoice into a regular one once the client has paid it.
You can focus on relaxing – we’ll help with the invoicing!
Try it for free here.
Social media marketing
If you use social media for marketing your business, you can bulk-create content and schedule posts in advance.
You can do this via the social media platform itself (if it allows) or use a social media scheduler. Some social media schedulers allow you to create and view all the content for different platforms within the app, so you don’t need to switch between platforms.
If you have an email newsletter, you can also create it and schedule it to go out in advance.
So, as far as potential clients, email subscribers and social media followers know, you are still ‘active’ and therefore staying ‘top of mind’.
Plan finances ahead
A significant factor for freelancers taking time off is that, unless you have passive income streams, you don’t get paid for time away.
This makes planning in advance even more crucial for freelancers. Ideally, you should incorporate time off for vacations/holiday periods in your freelance rates. So, when setting your rates, don’t assume you’ll work 52 weeks per year (or all your hours are billable).
There may also be slow periods in your freelance work that are specific to the industry you work in (or the nature of the work you undertake) that need to be taken into account. In any event, you should add some buffer for any potential freelance feast and famine cycles.
You could also consider creating passive income streams to act as an additional buffer. These can be anything from affiliate income, info products, courses or even subscriptions. Budgeting in advance for your vacation might also be a good idea, so you save a bit each month.
Set boundaries
Setting appropriate boundaries is not just for your clients (so they don’t contact you when you are on vacation) but for yourself. It can be tempting to whip open your laptop while vacationing just out of curiosity or feel like you are ‘missing out’ or that there might be an important message you just have to read.
However, once you start doing this, it can quickly become a slippery slope, and you could find yourself working over the holidays instead of enjoying quality time with loved ones.
If you’ve properly planned ahead – there’s no reason for you to be working on vacation.
However, if an emergency work situation does arise and you have to work – limit your time as much as possible, and don’t beat yourself up about it.
~
We hope these tips were helpful.
Wishing you an enjoyable well-deserved vacation and Happy Holidays!
