Freelance Writers Need Time Off Too

I am taking a day off today. I have been busy for months, and not just with freelance writing. In the last three months I have completed an international move and done more writing than I ever thought possible. I'm so busy that I have very little time to promote - and promotion is part of what has made me so busy. So why am I taking a day off?

It's simple. Every now and then you need to remind yourself of the reasons why you work at home. My reasons (in no particular order) include being able to set my own schedule, not having to dress up and spending time with my daughter and family. This week I've been particularly busy having done a panic acceptance of too much work the previous week. My daughter has been asking me to play and I promised that if she could be patient (as if!) I would play on Friday afternoon. So that's what I'll do when she gets home from school.

Before she gets home, I'm also going to do some stuff around the house, because we've still got a fair number of boxes everywhere and it's driving me crazy. And maybe I'll also go to the beach and go to my favourite coffee place with my husband. And maybe ... And maybe ...

Days off come so rarely that it's tempting to fill them with stuff. I've always been a hard worker, but I work harder now that I'm at home than I ever did as a lecturer - and that's saying something. The danger of that is that you could burn out, as a good friend warned me. So I'm taking some time to chill before that happens. WAHMs are high risk candidates for burnout because they never have any time off.

Yesterday, I sat at the computer from 8am till about 9pm, with only a couple of short breaks. When I got up my eyes were blurred and my wrists were aching, but I had met my deadlines. I'm only behind on one thing now (here's why) and I'm sure I can catch up over the next week. I've written three articles this morning (1500 words in total, which is just a warm-up) and now this freelance writer is out of here. Time to relax.