Taking Time Off Without Going on Vacation
Posted April 7, 2011 in Lifestyle
Because you are self-employed and your office is located in your own humble abode, you’re already all too familiar with the tired misconceptions friends and family have about your career. The believe that you don’t have a real job, you are immune to deadlines, and you are free to help them out in any way necessary when called upon since everyone else is busy working.
Without clear boundaries, the freelance life can quickly deteriorate into the most demanding lifestyle imaginable. If you are successful, you have probably already established these boundaries and taken a little heat for it. But friends and relatives with their “honey-do” lists are only part of the discrimination you face on a daily basis.
In this post, we’ll help you avoid the problem of having too much to do and show you how you can take time off without going on vacation.
Why Breaks Are Important
If you believe, as many freelancers do, that your world is going to implode the moment you avert your attention from your work, your biggest misconception may be your own.
Everyone needs a little time away from it all–even you. Especially you, since you are critical to your own performance and success as a freelancer.
When you rely on yourself as you do, you have to begin to see you as the greatest investment you can make. You are the most valuable asset in your business, and you need to take care of yourself. Part of this involves getting a much needed and well-deserved break, or even a full-blown vacation.
Sure, a vacation isn’t always practical. There may even be legitimate reasons it is impossible. But there are ways to take time off while you are working from home, and many of them can be found during a typical workday, without having to completely stop production.
Easy Tips for Taking Time Off
Here are some quick and refreshing ways to reinvigorate yourself without leaving the office:
- Put you on the schedule, and stick to it. Just think about it: if you were one of your clients or contacts, and you had a meeting, phone call, or video conference scheduled, you wouldn’t miss it for the world, would you? Well, treat yourself like any client! Pencil yourself in and set an alarm to remind you, and when it goes off–it’s You Time. Take a little break to walk away from your desk. Go outside and smell some flowers. Play with the dog. Take a quick bike ride around the block. Whatever you choose to do, make this a habit and stick to it every day. You’ll come back refreshed and able to do a better job for the rest of the day.
- Plug in. Listening to music on your headphones while you work will help you “get into your zone” and might make it easier for you to focus on the task at hand, while providing a relaxing and enjoyable experience at the same time. Listening to favorite songs on your iPod will make you feel like you’re on vacation while you are working.
- Stretch. Every forty-five minutes to an hour, get out of your chair, stand up, and stretch. Don’t just reach for the sky and slump back down into your seat; really go for it, like a cat would. Stretch every limb, rotate all your cuffs, flex those tendons and make sure you are feeling it. This small thing will have you feeling restored in moments, and once you start it, you will soon make it part of every day.
- Breathe deeply. When you’re gritting your teeth trying to grind out that story before your five o’clock deadline, you might not be paying attention to your breathing–so much so that you might actually cease to breathe without realizing it! Have you ever caught yourself feeling slightly light-headed after several moments of deep concentration, and then realized you had not really been breathing? You’d be surprised how often this happens. If you get too focused on something you are working on, stop yourself and take a few deep breaths. Your brain needs the oxygen. This alone will make you feel like you’re at the spa.
- Leave work at work. This is much harder for freelancers who work at home, than it is for people who work in an office building, but you have to establish the same boundaries, or you’ll never feel you’ve left work. You have to make your time off sacred, and honor it routinely. Imagine your friends who do work nine to five in offices, who have the luxury of leaving their work behind each day when they come home. You deserve the same thing, but only you can make it happen.
Give yourself these important breaks. They are unobtrusive, simple, and effective–and they will likely improve your work if you practice them every day. These tips are by no means designed to encourage anyone to neglect taking an actual vacation, but they can get you by while you are planning yours.
Enjoy your breaks.
Your Turn
How do you make sure that you get the breaks you need? Share your answer in the comments.
Image by Enkhtuvshin’s 40D
Related posts:
- Feeling Guilty About Taking Time Off
- How To Get The Vacation Time That You Sorely Need And Desperately Want
- How to Plan for a Long Vacation from Your Freelancing Business
- The Most Critical Factor To Freelance Success: Taking Action
- 15 Tips to Keep Your Freelance Business Going While on Vacation
About the author: Melonie enjoys blogging about freelancing, technology, and health. She writes for www.directsattv.com.
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25 Comments
TheAL
April 7th, 2011 at 9:16 am“Because you are self-employed and your office is located in your own humble abode, you’re already all too familiar with the tired misconceptions friends and family have about your career.” – All too well. ;-)
I’ve been doing #5 from the get-go. I’ve been very honest and upfront to all clients about my work schedule. I have a set number of hours, I try not to work too far into the night, and I take weekends off. I’ll gladly work during personal hours for a modified fee, but I try my best to keep my time for me. Freelancers need to self-educate, pause for inspiration, work on personal projects, etc. It’s hard to read a ton of programming books, garden, run a site, do errands, clean the litter box, end world hunger, and be a call of duty master if I work 24/7. Like you said, most people with traditional jobs don’t have to. And we became freelancers for freedom, among other things.
Julia
April 7th, 2011 at 9:17 amThis is SUCH an important post. Thank you for writing it. Especially with the possibility of never having a break, with smartphones and the like, I really do have the potential to work or be available to work 24 hours a day. These days, as spring rolls in, I force myself to get up and get out. This is a great reminder with some great tips. Thank you again!
Rachel Small
April 7th, 2011 at 9:33 amThanks, Melonie! I agree, this is a very important post. I make sure not to answer emails after a certain time of day so clients know I’m not available around the clock. And I love going out for walks or runs in the middle of the day. I used to feel guilty about this, but it’s important to realize that freelancing means being in control of your work and your day.
Gab Lennon
April 7th, 2011 at 9:49 amAgree! I just came from a month-long sabbatical. See what happens to your desktop when you click on the “clean up” button on your Mac. A long break did that for me.
Jeff Fisher LogoMotives
April 7th, 2011 at 10:41 amFor many years my home studio summer office hours were Monday-Thursday, 8 AM to 5 PM. Following each Labor Day, I would change my voice mail to say my office hours had returned to the regular hours of Monday-Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM. About 13 years ago, following a great Labor Day holiday, I went to change my voice mail and stopped. I suddenly realized that I wanted to observe my “summer office hours” year-round. I didn’t necessarily want or need to work on Fridays. Because it’s my business and I get to set the rules, I am only available for client contact Monday-Thursday, 8 AM to 5 PM. Fridays are my day to do as I please. It’s like a mini-vacation each week.
Steve Vitek
April 7th, 2011 at 10:58 amI have two rates, a rush rate and a non-rush rate. Rush is 40% higher.
When I am working on a rush job, the goal is to maximize the income per day. I work like a dog, often from 6 or 7 or to 8 PM with shorter or longer breaks in between to stay sane.
When I am working on a non-rush job, which is at least half the time, the goal is to maximize my enjoyment of the day in small ways while generating some income as well, the way freelancers can do that, unlike employees.
I like to read a mystery novel for a few hours and take a short walk or go to the gym when I am working on something that is not urgent. Since I mostly translate patents for patent law firms and some of them have long deadlines, two or more weeks for a job that will take me only two or three days, working days like that can be turned into mini vacations, at least for a part of the day, while I also make some money during the part of the day when I work.
We’d better find a way to enjoy our days, even if it is a working day, because none of us knows how many days are there left for us.
As the saying goes, nobody says on his dying bed:”I wish I had worked harder”.
Jameson
April 7th, 2011 at 1:05 pmRecently I’ve been focusing on what I call “turning my day upside down”, and what that means to me is focusing on getting the important work done before anything else. I won’t even allow myself to check my email until I’ve written or completed some other high value business activity for 45-60 minutes.
Yesterday, my wife day off, we took the kids out to lunch and walked around the outdoor shops. Because I’d “turned my day upside down” I was able to do it without any guilt, the important work was done.
I also like to take #5 a step further, I try to leave home at home (at least on the other side of my office door) no Face Book, incoming personal calls, my non work email is closed, etc… these are the home-office version of an annoying coworker interrupting you by peering over your cubicle wall to ask a stupid question or to chat.
Kei San Pablo
April 7th, 2011 at 3:27 pmPutting ME on the schedule! Yes, I will. THANK YOU!
B. Herzhaft
April 7th, 2011 at 3:45 pmThe idea of listening to music with headphones really does seem to work – Not sure how it is different than just listening to music out of room speakers – Perhaps it makes one concentrate more closely while working.
B. Herzhaft
April 7th, 2011 at 3:48 pmSV’s comment about having a rush rate and non rush rate is also awesome.
In my business that would not work, since 99% of people would just say “buh-by” in the current economic climate, and almost every job is a last minute rush with low budgets, but it is a really great idea if one’s business is structured where that works.
Ella | The Office Escape
April 7th, 2011 at 7:25 pm@Kei San Pablo – I am also going to do that now…
@Jeff Fisher – my version of longer weekends is Mondays since Mondays here in the Philippines is still Sunday in the US so I get longer weekends but I think I should make it more “official” and put it in my business hours just like you did.
Awesome post! Definitely effective ways of escaping the office!
TLC
April 7th, 2011 at 8:57 pmVery true about taking time off for yourself. Especially true when you’re sick. Give yourself a break and take a nap!
Debra Stang
April 7th, 2011 at 10:04 pmI *really* needed this post tonight. I sat down and counted the hours and realized I’m doing a day job from 8:00 to 4:30 and then coming home and working nonstop on my writing projects until midnight, or sometimes much later. No wonder I’m tired and out of sorts. I’m reclaiming some “me” time…right now!
Kelsey
April 10th, 2011 at 8:08 pmSome days when I was freelancing full-time I would feel like taking a break, so I would go run errands or take a walk. It always felt great to take a few hours off.
Alan
April 14th, 2011 at 8:33 amYou can also take your work out for a coffee ;)
Paul
April 17th, 2011 at 7:33 amthere’s a nice windows program that forces you to take breaks, it’s called workrave:http://www.workrave.org/
haven’t figured out if you can snooze it, because sometimes you’re really in the middle of something you can’t interrupt and it will block the keyboard (if you select that option)
but I think it’s worth giving it a try.
it also displays stretching exercices during the break
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