There’s a world out there
Some of us get so involved with our freelance work that we forget about the world around us. We never go out. Sure, the money that we make is nice, but when you can’t remember the last fun thing you did with your family or friends, that’s a problem. Just like you, I wanted to keep my success, but in order to have true success, a person should be happy. They shouldn’t spend day after day working like a drone without any social freedom.
To ensure that you don’t wind up spending your days and nights locked in your office, surrounded by darkness save for the glare of light from your computer screen, I’ll list a few tips that will improve your social life, and keep your freelance career intact.
1. Work during the Day, Sleep at Night
For the average freelancer, a normal sleeping schedule can be extremely tough to maintain. After all, we can work whenever we want, and stop just as freely. I, like most other people, maintained a work schedule that lasted from 6:00 in the evening until 5:00 in the morning. Of course, this meant I slept until about 2:00 in the afternoon. When doing this, I neglected to have any type of social life, and was confined to working and sleeping the majority of the day; that ain’t living.
The switch in work shifts was a little difficult at first, but eventually I got into the groove of it. I try and go to bed every night at midnight, as should you (if you want to maintain a social life). Hardworking freelancers often forget to realize that sleeping while everyone else is awake is not a good socializing technique.
2. Get Out of the Dungeon!
Without going spending crazy and having to seek credit repair help, go out and live a little! As a freelancer, especially a writer, creative simulation is received from living. Try to take your work to another destination. This could help spark your passion.
Just last week, while I was taking my mother to do some errands, I decided to put a pencil and paper in the car with me. Whenever I stopped and my mother got out, I’d jot down ideas, notes, and would speak to people passing by, writing down information that might be beneficial for a project I’m working on. You could take your laptop out into the open, fresh air, and wipe the cobwebs from your limbs. Do some work at a café where others, who might be doing what you do, can inspire and socialize with you.
3. Study and Practice by using Classes or Attending Conferences
Network, Network, Network! That’s the key when it comes to attending classes, whether they are webinars, seminars, or local conferences related to your area of interest or expertise or even something on credit repair can help you. Some of the greatest leaders of our times confessed that they surrounded themselves with individuals deemed smarter than themselves. So, on the subject of webinars, conferences, and seminars, I’m lead to conclude: we learn a lot more from people more skilled than ourselves.
4. Sometimes, Clients Can be Friends
It’s a shared logic, I’m sure, that people would rather work with others they have fun with. Some of the best partnerships guided unyielding success because the colleagues they interacted with could make them laugh; they were inspiring one another through happiness, social freedom, and creative organic perfection.
Some advice:
A.) Invite potential clients to a social event to speak about future projects
B.) Make it simple, like lunch or coffee
C.) Invite your client to an event you both enjoy, like bowling (I’ve had lots of freelance business success, and fun, while passionately bowling).
Yes, at first the struggle to apply the above guidelines seems hard. Once you add these tips to your daily schedule, it’ll be second nature, like walking and talking. Your friends will love your for it, you’ll be happier, and thoughts of credit repair will be far away in the distance.
The sociologist Emile Durkheim observed that a factor of the relative happiness in people’s lives in the industrial world is the presence of what he termed anomie. Anomie is the relative amount of disconnection between one and their fellow man. (Or woman.) Our age seems to be one where we try to inject as much separation between ourselves and others. We all need our own private cars to get to work, everyone listening to their iPods, and hardly anyone wants to actually TALK to anyone anymore; instead we got text messaging and e-mail. I wonder what he would think about our age if he weren’t worm food. A cash advance, or better yet, money one already had, to go out and socialize would be worth it. A voyage out into the world instead of sitting home watching the TV…fun could be had, friends could be made, a person could even meet a member of the opposite sex.
So true, Peter. So true.
Until the next post, much love, peace, and medicated hair grease.
- Thierry