Stress Busting Techniques for Freelancers
There are many advantages to working at home. You can organise your own day, you aren’t distracted by your colleagues and you don’t have to go to endless meetings. However, working at home doesn’t necessarily mean that you can avoid stress. In fact, if you don’t have colleagues around to listen to you when you are under pressure, you could be more susceptible to it. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to cope with stress when you work from home.
Minimise distractions from family and friends
Working at home means that you can avoid being distracted by colleagues, at least in person, but you still run the risk of family members and friends calling round when you are trying to get things done. If there are other people in the house when you are working, then make sure you set boundaries. Ideally, have a room in which you can work and shut the door on everyone else. Make sure that everyone knows when you are working and that you don’t want to be disturbed unless there is an emergency. Once you have made this clear, distractions should be at a minimum.
Manage your time properly
You may be able to avoid working set office hours, but you still need to manage your time carefully, otherwise you may find that you get up late and then procrastinate instead of getting on with your tasks. If you have children, then set your working hours around the time that they are at school. Draw up a schedule of deadlines so that you know exactly what you need to do and by when. That way, you should be able to avoid leaving tasks until the last minute, therefore risking submitting sub-standard work or missing the deadline completely.
Know your limits
If you are a freelancer, you may be tempted to take on every piece of work that you are offered, simply because you feel you need to take it while you can. However, if you take on too much work, there is the possibility of you not being able to complete it all, or handing in sloppy work because you were too stressed to do it justice. By all means take on all the work you can, but be sensible and know when you can’t take on any more work. You are far more likely to get repeat work if you have allowed yourself enough time to do it justice.
Take care of your health
When you have a heavy workload, you may find yourself missing meals, eating poorly and not getting any exercise. If this only lasts for a day or two, it probably won’t do you any harm, but over a long period of time, your health could suffer badly. Make sure you stick to meal-times and cook proper meals. You can always cook in bulk and then freeze the extra so that you don’t have to cook every day. With regard to exercise, a brisk walk at some point during the day, or at the very least, some stretching, will work out the kinks in your back and shoulders.
Have someone to whom you can talk
It is important to find someone to whom you can discuss your work and all the stress it brings, simply because you will need to get it off your chest. You may find that your family aren’t particularly interested, particularly if they have just got home from a heavy day at work or school. Ideally, you should find someone who is in a similar position to you and with whom you can physically meet on a regular basis so that you can get out of the house. If that is not possible, then contacts online could fill a void. As the saying goes, a problem shared is a problem halved.
Keep on top of your finances
If you’re working at home as a freelancer and don’t have a regular income coming in, you may find yourself constantly worrying about how you are going to feed yourself and your family and pay the bills. Don’t ignore your financial situation until you are down to your last few pennies. Have a budget and try to ensure that you stick to it. Otherwise, you may find yourself tempted to go crazy when you have a good month, only to realise too late that you are going to need to stretch that money for another month or two.
Working at home requires just as much planning as working in an office if you want to cope with stress in a healthy way; it is just a matter of adapting your approach.
