It’s normal to have an “off day” every now and then as a freelancer. Or sometimes, more than every now and then lol.
Freelancing is naturally an unsteady form of income for many people. There is a lot of feast-or-famine going on which can be painful for people without much money saved up.
When somebody works an 8-to-5 job, they can have an off day. If they don’t do much for one or two days in the office, nobody will notice. At most they’ll get a light reprimand. But they get paid the normal amount and their personal situation doesn’t change.
When the freelancer gets lazy for a day, they don’t get paid as quickly for those assignments. Other work piles up. It has an immediate and direct impact on their livelihood. Unfortunately this makes the whole thing much more brutal.
Managing Off Days
The big thing for me lately has been to not let an off day throw me off of my normal routine. I don’t need to be a hero and do extra work on the next day to compensate for the bad day. Just let it go and move on.
When I give an off day too much impact, it continues to mess with me for the whole week. When I put it behind me and move on, it’s much better.
I figure there will always be at least a couple off days every now and then. There’s no way to avoid them forever. It is better to have a policy that reduces the amount of pain an off day can cause than to try and completely eradicate them.
Good Days!
The flip side to the occasional bad day is the large number of good days that are possible. With a good routine and organization, good days can stack up on each other. It isn’t that hard to achieve a good freelance income if you are reasonably disciplined.
I notice that my own performance as a freelancer, and my income, fluctuate with how seriously I take my work. If I get distracted from putting a lot of energy into making money, it’s easy for the income to fall. After all there is no boss to keep me in line.
Do you ever have bad days as a freelancer? How do you deal with them?
