4 Ways to Know It’s Time to Take a Break

Every freelancer hits a wall from time to time. In an office job, you have vacation time for mental health days, but for some reason, many freelancers fail to take time off to relax. This happens often because they have not planned ahead for a period free of work. It can also be difficult to schedule around the daily requirements of writing or design work as well as you’re often the only one working in the office. However, leaving an opportunity for a break is critical not only to your health and well-being, but to your productivity as well.

Work’s Not Fun Anymore

There are elements of every job that can drag us down, but freelancing is usually a choice and we opt to freelance because we like it. But when the job isn’t fun anymore and you feel more stressed than productive, it’s time to cut back and take a few days off. Rearrange your schedule, put a vacation auto-reply up and take forty-eight hours (or longer!)  to be with your family, play with the dog, finish projects around the house or get out of town to clear your head. When you sit back down at the computer, you’ll be refreshed, hopefully better rested and ready to go.

Your Work Is Suffering

Being overdrawn and taxed isn’t good for you or your work (or your bank account.) What’s worse is you often don’t realize how poor your quality has become while you’re overdoing it. Pulling an all-nighter to get a project in before the deadline or because you’re “in the zone” can be productive to a degree, but the materials you’re creating are likely not up to your usual standards no matter how wonderful you thought they were at the time. When you start finding typos, wrong information and sloppy work, it’s time to slow down. Most mistakes happen when you’re tired or you’re rushed. If you’re both, you’re looking at trouble. For a freelancer, being sloppy can mean time-intensive revisions or a lost client,

You’re Too Busy

Only you know what’s too busy, but if you’re starting to see clues that you’re pushed past the limits of what’s reasonable, scale back. There is a steeper curve at the beginning of every new business as you get things started up and market your initial services, but once you’re in a groove, you probably don’t need to be working twelve hour days and neglecting your health, hobbies or family. If you’re too busy to do the things you like to do outside of the office, you need a break. At the minimum try a modified schedule to give yourself more work-life balance.

You’re Frustrated with Your Future

There comes a time for many freelancers when they realize they want a change. You might be happy churning out articles or sales letters every day, but we all need variety in our life. If you’re stuck in a rut and frustrated by your lack of available time to try anything new or even think about what sort of new avenues you’d like to pursue, consider taking a day out of the week to build up a new product line or service offering while keeping your current business going. Take a break for a day or an hour a day if that’s all you can spare to investigate where you want to go and what you want to do next. It keeps momentum in your career which is essential for moving forward in any business.

This post first appeared on GoingFreelance.com