The Successful Freelancer Knows How to Compartmentalize

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I have been a freelancer for over 30 years and I am still learning how to do it successfully. I am not talking about money here, though money is definitely part of the equation. I am talking about life balance and what allows one to be a freelancer and also have a family, a life, other interests, and room to grow professionally (this requires a separate space from that occupied by the work already being done).

Recently, I am having more success than I ever have before, though I am still far from achieving my ultimate goal, but I can tell that things are changing for the better in very significant ways and in all areas of my life. In this post I would like to share with you some of my newfound wisdom, in the hope that it may help you on your way to financial and professional independence.

If You Don’t Respect Your Own Time, Why Should Anyone Else?

Here’s the thing. The only person who can set boundaries on the use of your time, the use of the product “you” is… guess who? You! You might think that going freelance is scary because you don’t know if anyone will give you work, if you will make enough money, if you will know how to manage yourself… etc. Of all these fears, the only one that is really important and scary is the last one. Knowing how to manage yourself.


If you are good at what you do, you will get work, and after a while you will get a lot of work. Then your biggest problem will be learning to say no. If you say yes to everyone, as you will be tempted to do in the beginning, soon you will find yourself working around the clock. The result will be that your work will suffer, you will be anxious and frustrated, you will never see your family, and you will never advance to a better place professionally because you won’t have time to develop strategies to market yourself to a higher paying clientele. Not to mention the exhaustion.

There are a few good things about working in a corporate environment, or in any case as an employee. The two nicest things are: 1) having coworkers so you don’t get lonely and are motivated to work, and 2) it is possible that when you leave work, your work stays there, and you go home with an empty bag and an empty mind (in an ideal world, this is the case, at least).

Set Limits, Not Just for Others, But for Yourself

This will seem counterintuitive, but it is an absolute truth: you will get a lot more work done if you force yourself to stop at a certain, SET TIME EVERY DAY. Here’s what I have always done:

Me: Oh, dear, I have not finished this task. It will take me another four hours, and it’s already 7 o’clock. Now I have to make dinner.

Myself: Oh well, I can always come back after dinner and work until 2 in the morning. I’ve done it before, I can do it again.

Me: Of course then I’ll be exhausted tomorrow, I won’t be very productive.

Myself: If I’m falling flat on my face, I can always take a power nap around 11 in the morning. Then I’ll get my second wind. If I get behind, I can always work late tomorrow night as well….

You can see where this is going, can’t you? The trouble with this kind of behavior is that the exhaustion adds up, the lateness with the work adds up, and gradually you get behind with your work, with your bills, with your time with your kids and with your whole life.

The main reasons we do not succeed in finishing our work within the time frame of “regular working hours” are:

• Fear that if we don’t deliver very fast, even earlier than the deadline, this client will never give us work again, also known as: the desperate need to prove our worth;
• Worry about our financial/work situation. We have lost our salaried job, we find ourselves in the very frightening territory of the “self-employed,” and we are not at all certain that we are going to make it, also known as: spending so much time worrying that there is no time left to get any work done;
• And last but not least, we have said yes to everyone and their uncle and now we have about 300 hours of work to do in what is supposed to be a 40-hour work week, also known as: not respecting the value of our own time, not knowing how to set boundaries.

A Few Words of Wisdom (also known as My Infallible Recipe for Success)

Here are the steps to take to avoid all these pitfalls:

1. Be respectful of your own time. In practical terms what this means is that when client number 1 asks you to do a job, estimate how long it will take you to do it, and then SUBTRACT this time from the 40-hour work week. So if you get a job on Monday for 15 hours worth of work, do not promise client number 2 a job worth 80 hours by Thursday. There simply are not enough hours for you to get it done. (Little Bonus Secret: If you tell client number 2 that you already have other commitments and won’t be able to deliver his job until the following week, this will tell him that you are in demand, and will reinforce his confidence in you as a professional).
2. Stop Worrying. This is easier said than done, of course, because right now we are all worried, even if we have jobs or freelance work up to our ears. But the next point will give you a helpful tool.
3. Force Yourself to Stop Working at a Set Time Every Day. In the beginning of a new activity, a new profession, or the same profession but as a freelancer, we all know that it is necessary to work harder and longer hours, until things get off the ground. This is a very dangerous and slippery slope to embark upon. The thing is, this new career path is not just for a while, it’s for the long haul, and if you are going to stick it out without burning out and keep up your enthusiasm and momentum, you have to keep your energy up and have some down time during which you can recharge your batteries, replenish your creative juices. If you decide to work from 10 in the morning until 7 at night, that’s fine. But come 7 o’clock, you must turn off the computer, or whatever other tools you use, and leave the room, go back to your real life.

If you follow these simple rules, you will succeed because, 1) you won’t risk overloading your plate and then panicking because you don’t have enough hours in the day or days in the week to get things done, and 2) having only a set and limited number of hours in which to get things done, you will have no time to worry. You will become efficient, productive, you will get the work done, you will still have time left to enjoy your family and friends, and you will get enough rest.

Little Afterword

Of course, there will be exceptions and slips. There will be times when your most important client will ask you to do a rush job, and you will not be able to say no. But if it’s a rush, he should be willing to pay rush prices, right? Try making that clear at the outset. There will be other times when you will be so enthused about what you are doing, so excited about a new project, that you will literally lose track of time. This is not a bad thing. It happens all too rarely and is not to be discouraged; on the contrary. And of course you will worry. After all, you are only human.

This is fine, and to be expected. The important thing is: if you slip, no problem. The next morning you get up and you get back to your routine. After a while the routine becomes so ingrained that it’s just a habit, it’s the way you work, and before you know it, almost unbeknownst to you, you will have become that rare thing: a successful freelancer.

Trust me, the millions will follow, it’s inevitable.

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Tagged as: Employment, Freelancer, Working time, Worry