Admit it. Freelancing hasn’t done any favors to your health.
You’re working more hours than you were working in your 9-5 job. Worse, sometimes you don’t even realize that the weekend is here. There is no ‘off’ mode for you anymore and it’s all just a blur of assignments, pitches, and deadlines.
Say what? It’s not all that bad? Dude, you’ve so got to read on!
Drinking countless cups of coffee
Let’s see if this sounds like you. The first thing you do is brew coffee and take a sip of it as you sit down to start work. You don’t wake up till your second cup of coffee kicks in, it doesn’t register how many cups you’ve drunk throughout the day and all you know is that lack of coffee makes you cranky. Does that sound like anyone you know? Yourself maybe? Wait, is that @menwithpens I see hiding in the back?
Sleeping late
Ah, yes. The bane of most freelancers. It certainly is mine! Sleeping late means waking up late. No matter how much you deny it, your body needs certain hours of night time sleep to function properly. Sleeping during the day is just not as effective.
I’m a night owl – always have been. Apart from my bathroom brainstorming trips, I tend to focus best at night. The problem is that I’m also a morning person. I love sunrises- so much so that I sometimes go to bed after it 
Eating meals while working
Pick up your keyboard and turn it upside down on a clean surface. Be prepared for an avalanche! All right, so I’m being a drama queen, but you can’t deny the fact that your keyboard is probably dirtier than your kitchen sink.
It’s just so easy to get into the habit of eating at your desk. Munching on your sandwich while you work, check email, tweet or browse. Break the habit and take a break for your meal. Relax and enjoy your food.
While we’re on the topic of meals, another bad habit that’s super easy to pick is of continuous snacking. Ditch the snacking habit and save yourself a few pounds worth of weight gain.
Excessive smoking
Granted, not all of us are smokers. Those who are find themselves smoking more and more while working. The closer their deadline comes, the more they puff. I’m not going to go into the health hazards of smoking because we all know them. The smokers among us also ignore them.
However, I will suggest different ways to not smoke so much while working.
- Get rid of your ash tray.
- Every time you feel like smoking, step out.
- Make sure your stash isn’t within your arm’s reach.
If you’re going to have to make an effort to light a smoke, or step out to do it, you might want to wait till you’re done with what you’re working on.
P.S: Just so we’re on the same page, I’m talking about smoking tobacco – not *insert substance of your choice here*.
ADD – Attention Deficit Disorder
Yes, it’s a disorder we can acquire. Constant browsing, emailing, and twittering leaves us with short attention spans. So even if we didn’t have clinically diagnosed attention problems before, we tend to get them after we start freelancing and spend most of our time online.
We need a response to everything. If I don’t get a reply to an email in a couple of hours I start fretting. God forbid if an entire 24 hours pass without a response, I’d worry if the other person was even alive!
Performing under pressure
Freelancing turns us into pressure junkies. It’s a deadly habit if you let it become so. We thrive best under the pressure of an approaching deadline and secretly love how creative we can be when we’re scrambling to meet a deadline.
I’ve found two ways to deal with my pressure junkie ways.
First, the minute I get a project, I get done with all the research. Then I let it cook in my head for a while before getting started on it. I find writing much easier this way.
Second, I’ve trained myself to set my personal deadline as 2 days before the actual one. I’m weird that way. My first thought on a deadline is the one I adhere to, no matter how much I try to work with another one.
So let’s have it. Do you agree? Disagree? Or got any more bad habits to confess to?
Technorati Tags: Clients, freelance business, Freelancing, Writing
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