As freelance writers, we have to be creative on demand: where most jobs offer at least a few hours every day where the work is routine, we craft word after word for our clients.
If we’re doing things right, the only break we get is sending out invoices for completed projects. Even the marketing methods that work well for many freelance writers require constant creativity, even if we’re just writing copy for our own websites.
The Risk of Creative Burnout
Freelance writers face a high risk of creative burnout, especially when we’re particularly productive. Most of the successful freelancers I know take on “day jobs” every once in a while — the official reason usually has something to do with a stable paycheck, but I think that if you dig deeper, it’s often a matter that anything with a little down time starts looking appealing when you’ve written tens of thousands of words in the last couple of months.
I’ve known plenty of writers who keep on writing even after it’s obviously become painful to them. These writers haven’t given themselves a chance to recover from their creative burnout and instead keep pushing. Depending on the writer, you can see a big difference in their writing when they start running into the wall. For other writers, it’s more in the way that they handle their work — every word becomes difficult to get down on paper.
Avoiding the Pain of Burnout
Each of us has to find our own balance between writing enough to earn an income and not overwhelming ourselves as writers. Building in time in our schedules to recharge our creative batteries isn’t a matter of wasting time — although it’s too easy to persuade ourselves otherwise when that next job is standing between us and paying the mortgage. It’s a necessity, though: if you’ve got that balance in your life, you can be a more productive freelancer in the long run.
Finding the time to allow yourself to step away from the computer is often the toughest part of managing a freelancer’s schedule. I’ve been helping a friend of mine through the process of finding more (and better) work lately. She felt that she couldn’t afford to take time off. She needed to work every hour she could in order to pay her bills.
There was a surprisingly simple answer to the problem, though: my fellow freelancer gave herself a raise. By upping her rates by $10 per hour, she found that she could afford to step away from her work for a couple of hours every week to do refresh herself.
The Question of Productivity
It seems like every freelancer I know spends a lot of time reading productivity advice. That’s all well and good, but it’s worth remembering that not every piece of productivity advice will also help you be more creative. You may be able to squeeze every last productive moment out of your day, but that’s doesn’t necessarily make for the most creative writing in the long run. It’s important to find balance between the amount of time you spend working and the amount of time you spend away from your desk.
Thursday Bram is a full-time freelance writer. Her newest project is an exploration into perspectives on productivity.
I agree, it’s dangerous to overload our schedules, as quality of work will suffer. You just can’t sit at your desk for 10 hours non-stop and churn out work like some word-crunching machine.
When I’m working flat out, it’s amazing how a 20 minute walk will do wonders for recharging the brain. So my advice is: take regular, short breaks.
.-= Freelance FactFile´s last blog ..Distractions: 8 strategies for avoiding them =-.
@Carole – You’re right, a short break AWAY from the computer can have amazing results! It gets hard to pull ourselves away, thought, once the momentum is going… or when we’re “hungry” and trying to make as much money as possible. But as you said, in the long run, we become more productive and profitable when we take care of ourselves, both body and mind.
@Cynthia – I love your suggestion! What an ingenious way to get a break and keep earning at the same time. Thank you very much for sharing. I’m sure our readers will find it helpful.
I’ve also found that it helps to find clients in diverse industries. For a while last year I was working almost strictly on tech material and hitting myself with a 2×4 started to look like a valid alternative to taking on a project from yet another software company. I made a concerted effort to seek out a few catalog copy projects to give myself a break.
Another method I use is to take on copyediting projects periodically for non-profits and NGOs. These rarely require much creativity but keep the billable hours up.