Self-care for Freelancers and Small Business Owners
Why it's important to take time to reset, create boundaries, learn something new & set routines
When you run your own business or side hustle, there’s this feeling that you should always be working. Always checking Instagram, always responding to emails as soon as they come in, always online! But it’s not true. You have the power to set healthy boundaries and it doesn’t mean that you don’t love or appreciate your business. Promise!
It’s been a huge learning curve for me so here are some tips to ensure you take care of yourself while taking care of your clients and customers.
Set boundaries around the times and days you work
I love my business but I also love taking time away from my business. It’s really tricky to find this balance especially as a business that is less than a year old. You want to be there for your clients and respond to them immediately to show them how much you care and appreciate them - but ultimately you aren’t going to be as sharp if you don’t get to rest. So as a rule, I never work weekends (unless there is a huge amount of value in doing so) and I finish up somewhere between 5-6pm. I spent the evenings cooking, spening time with my partner and cat, and playing video games.
One of the perks of running your small business is that you can choose when and where you work. If you are a night owl and want to work from 1-9pm every day, that’s fine. You might want to work for 8 hours for 3 days and take every Friday and Monday off and that’s completely fine too.
Fun fact: that’s what Michelle Obama did when she was on the campaign trail and in the White House. In her podcast, she talks about fitting in her busy schedule into 3 days every week so she could spend the rest of the time with her family. So it depends on your preferences and there are no wrong answers. Highly recommend that episode, she talks so openly about her boundaries and the way she manages her time.
There was a short period of time where I worked on Begin while working full-time at an agency — so if you run a side-hustle alongside your full-time job consider scheduling out your time so you aren’t working all day and all night. Set a firm boundary. So for example, if you work your full-time job 9-5, then jump into side-hustle mode from 5:30-7:30 and allow yourself a few hours off before you go to bed. It’s crucial so you feel rested. But also if your boundaries slip or you work late, then don’t be too hard on yourself.
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself - allow yourself to have slow days!
There’s also a lot of pressure to be going at 110% every single moment that you are working. But this isn’t how creativity and productivity works. If you get distracted or need to take a break to take a walk - go for it. When you need to step up and work that little bit harder to get a project finalised then you will show up and do your best — and you can do that even better if you are not stressed.
When I have slow days in my business, I used to be very critical of myself and judge myself for not working hard. But slow days are a part of it, you need those slower days to allow your brain to decompress a little. When I can tell I’m having a slow day (or sometimes a full week if my hormone cycle is around 19-23 days), I now lean into it. I make sure that I’m slowing down, adding some extra time to my projects to give myself some grace and schedule in marketing so I can work on personal work without the pressure of deadlines.
Learning Hour - actively learn something new every week
This is not something I widely advertise (maybe I should) but every week I dedicate at least an hour to learning something new. ‘Learning Hour’ is a habit that I picked up from my previous job before going freelance. This is usually in the form of courses from other designers and business groups but I sometimes watch seminars or if I need to take a break from the computer I go on a walk with an educational podcast. Here are a few of my favourite resources:
By Rosanna - A fellow branding and website designer, Anna has amazing courses, a great podcast and she is also a wonderfully nice human. She was a business coach for me for a few months this year and I recently completed her Grow with Pinterest Course which was so insightful and gave me the tools I need to grow my audience over on Pinterest.
Digital Women - I’m a paying member of the Digital Women group. Lucy runs such a lovely community and their blog is so interesting and comes from amazing UK women-run businesses. I also love the fact they offer free CPD courses to their members and they host networking events. So much value!
SolStudio’s The Shine Online Podcast - Natasha’s podcast is so fun and relatable. She talks with amazing women about a huge range of business problems in such an honest and authentic way.
Google - An old reliable! If there’s something that’s come up in my client work that I don’t know how to do, I google it and spend some time reading up on it and educating myself so that I can do it.
Take vacation days!
I’m very aware that as a business owner I could have 60 vacation days a year - but I choose not to. It doesn’t align with the goals I set every quarter and where I need to be financially. So when choosing my vacation days, I looked at my partner’s vacation time and then add 5 - just for fun. So this is what works for me, but what works for you? It’s so important to take time off to connect with your personal life, celebrate holidays, go on vacation. Whatever you decide, set this time aside intentionally and make sure you are prepared to turn off that laptop!
Routines that I follow to keep my space and headspace clear
I have morning, mid-afternoon, and evening routines that I try to do every day to ensure that my space is clean and I feel in control. I have a lot of goals to make these better and I’m sure my process will continue to change as I grow my business.
Morning: First thing in the morning, I do a yoga routine or not if I’m having a slower day. Make myself breakfast and then when I get to my desk I write a list of everything that I really want to get done that day. I try to structure the list to be what needs to be done to meet client deadlines but also how much value this work adds to my business. Will it help me meet one of my goals?
Mid-afternoon: In the afternoon, I make time for a tea-break and step away from my desk. I always forget to take a break from my desk in the morning so it’s a goal of mine to do this more often. Here I usually get food, tea and try to spend some time in the living room. When I get back I look at my list again and re-shuffle it if my values or goals have changed.
End of Day: At the end of the day, I check my list again. Write down anything that I need to get to tomorrow. Organise my Trello boards to reflect what I did that day, then tidy my desk so the next day I don’t come back to loads of notes and coffee cups everywhere. Anything I can do to make life easier for future Amy.
I’ve recently started trying to batch-work my business and organise the time around client work into different categories. For example, only doing accounting and invoicing on Tuesdays or writing blog posts on Wednesdays. The idea is that we spend so much time going from one program to another so if you sit down and intentionally work on one thing you can do more. So far so good! If this process continues to work for me I’ll post an update and share some details of how I’ve adapted this project for my business.
Last thoughts:
The last part of my self-care as a designer and creator is reminding myself that everything I do doesn’t have to be perfect. I can take a class to learn how to do that new tech thing, I can turn work down if it doesn’t reflect what I do. I remind myself that I’m constantly improving my processes and it’s more of a journey than a destination. Super cheesy but it really helps.
What are your self-care rituals and routines? Comment below!
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