Since I started freelancing three years ago, I haven’t looked back at my 9-5 career. Between my current projects and the idea of “sky’s the limit” when it comes to my earning potential, I’ve found waking up every day to do what I love exhilarating. Nonetheless, I’ve had to focus extra hard on maintaining a balanced lifestyle, which easily gets pushed off the top of my to-do list when my busy schedule is actually something I look forward to everyday.
Over time, I’ve found a few solid ways to create a balanced lifestyle as a busy freelancer. Here are my best five tips for maintaining a sustainable level of energy for freelance work/life balance.
This post on creating a balanced lifestyle was written in collaboration with California Almonds.
Balanced Lifestyle Tip #1: Define Boundaries Between Work and Personal Space
Having a defined space for work has its perks both mentally and financially. If you work from home, you’ll definitely want to create a dedicated workspace, so you can crush it at work daily and maintain that healthy balanced lifestyle. In your workspace, corner, or even chair, you’ll be able to get into the work zone better than if you work from your couch or on your bed. It’ll also be healthier since you can set up proper ergonomics for the best back, neck, and wrist support.
Balanced Lifestyle Tip #2: Eat Healthy
Eating healthy is a great way to balance your life. The better you feel, the easier it’ll be to accomplish whatever tasks you have at hand.
To add a healthier food routine to your daily life, you don’t need to make big changes. Here are some small but manageable tips for a balance lifestyle.
- Start your morning off with a protein-filled breakfast. Protein boosts your brain energy and will keep you going longer than heavy carb-loaded meals. If you don’t have time for breakfast, you can easily munch on almonds on your commute, which will keep you full and satisfied until you can eat something at work.
- Drink 8 cups of water daily to stay hydrated. When you’re hydrated, your body functions better, which means you can work longer! There are apps that’ll remind you to drink water if you’re too busy to think about it yourself.
- Have healthy snacks on hand to avoid skipping meals. This will maintain your energy levels throughout the day and/or prevent you from reaching for junk food the moment you realize you’re super hungry! An easy way to keep healthy food on you is to prep it while you’re getting ready for work or the night before. Put almonds in a small tin can and pop them in your backpack or purse so they’re accessible to you at any time!
Balanced Lifestyle Tip #3: Create a Routine and Schedule
Creating a routine and schedule can really help with a balanced life. It’ll also help you focus better on work and relax more with your friends and family on personal time.
My Personal Story: When I became a freelancer, finding a balanced life was really rough for me. I’d go to sleep when I wanted, which generally was between 2-4am, then wake up at random hours just in time to make a call or go to an appointment. My mornings also started off with jumping into work or working out; whatever I felt like in the morning. If I jumped right into work, I sometimes didn’t eat for hours, which made me feel awful at the end of the day with the weird sleep schedule and sporadic meals.
Finding a balanced life was a struggle for me, so I first started with small but actionable steps. Since creating a consistent sleep schedule was too hard for me, I focused on a morning routine, which included drinking three cups of water as soon as I woke up, brushing my teeth (yes sometimes I’d skip over this for a couple of hours if I jumped right into work), and having a breakfast or at least a small snack.
Like I stressed above, starting your day off with protein is pretty essential to sustained energy levels for work throughout the day, so if you’re too busy to make a full meal, then try reaching for a handful of almonds, which are a good source of fiber and protein and an excellent source of vitamin E, manganese, and magnesium.
Balanced Lifestyle Tip #4: Stay Fit
Being in shape can increase productivity and focus while working so staying fit is a must for a balanced lifestyle. Besides helping with your workload, physically feeling good will help you work hard and play harder.
If you’re too busy with work to go to a gym for a good work out, then you might want to download a fitness app. The app I use is great, which has short 7-minute work outs that are effective.
Balanced Lifestyle Tip #5: Make Time for Fun
It’s really easy to get caught up in our work especially when it’s challenging (in a fun way), but that means it’s also really easy to get stuck in our self-contained freelance bubble at home. Whether it’s for personal or professional reasons, schedule in some time to make some real-life connections like catching up with a client over coffee or having lunch with a friend on a weekday.
While you’re at it, might as well go on a week-long vacation to somewhere warm and sunny because you can. It’s the ultimate perk of being a freelancer ~ being able to do whatever you want (basically) whenever you want, as long as you give yourself the time. So give yourself time to enjoy the freelance lifestyle and take advantage of being your own boss!
I ❤ emojis. I was surprised to learn that almonds don’t have their own emoji! It doesn’t seem fair that avocado and taco lovers get their own emoji, but almond lovers don’t. Let’s change this! Please join me in signing the petition here to help get an Almond Emoji!
I hope you found these tips for maintaining a balanced lifestyle as a busy freelancer to be helpful. If you have any questions about being a freelancer or just want to say hi to me, I’d be quite happy if you reached out to me on Instagram and said hello!
Thanks for stopping by! xo.