In this post, we’ll share some tips on how to survive as a freelancer.
The chances are, you don’t want to just survive. You want to THRIVE as a freelancer!
But before we talk about how you can carve out a successful career for yourself freelancing, let’s cover the basics!
Table of Contents
Look after yourself
Now this one may seem obvious, but before you scroll down or click away hear me out!
As a freelancer, there’s no option to “call in sick” when you’re feeling rough, and a lot of us try to power through.
However, you know the saying – prevention is better than cure.
Preventing and treating short-term illnesses
Sometimes short-term illnesses such as colds or stomach bugs are hard to avoid.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle as a freelancer may help to reduce the occurrence or severity of these sicknesses. So be sure to:
- Stay hydrated.
Here are two tips for staying hydrated whilst working from your home office:
1- Always keep a water bottle in sight and take sips of water throughout the day.
2- Mimic the office water cooler by getting yourself a mini water cooler that you keep in a different room to your office. That way, during your breaks you’ll have a reason to get up and stretch your legs before returning to your work. - Get at least 60 minutes of exercise daily
When I first started freelancing, I found it difficult to squeeze in daily exercise, but it is really important for your overall health.
1- Make a habit of going for a walk outside every day. When working from home, it’s quite easy to go into hermit mode and drive yourself stir crazy!
2- Go to lunchtime or evening classes at your local gym. Going to the gym will help you to meet people from your local community and help to prevent loneliness that may creep up on you if you work from home. - Maintain a nutritious diet
If you previously worked in an office you probably had a lunchtime routine where you’d either pack your lunches the night before or you would go out with some colleagues to grab some lunch.
When working from home it’s quite easy to skip meals or to raid your fridge a few too many times during the day (I might be guilty of this 🙈).
Some tips I have picked up along the way are:
1- Along with keeping a bottle of water in your home office, keep a bowl of your favourite fruits and nuts.
2- Get into the habit of cooking from scratch every day (sounds tough but trust me once you begin making yummy dishes that are healthy, you’ll get quicker at it and even crave your own cooking! - Reduce your stress levels – more on this below
- Get enough sleep – more on this below
If you do happen to get ill, try not to just power through as this might make things worse. Make the time to seek medical advice from your GP or Pharmacist and schedule in time to get more rest than normal.
Reduce your chances of getting repetitive strain injuries
When you are employed, your employer has a duty to ensure that your work environment is safe and that you are working in a way that prevents physical harm.
However, when you are freelancing, working from home or remotely, you won’t benefit from this.
So it will be your responsibility to reduce any injuries that may occur as a result of your workspace.
I have put together a 3000+ word guide on how to prevent repetitive strain injury from typing, so be sure to check it out and take action.
But in short, here are some tips:
- Support your back with a correctly adjusted chair
- Keep your knees slightly lower than your hips when seated at your desk. Use a footrest if necessary.
- Place your screen at eye level.
- Get an ergonomic mouse, and keep it close to you when working, to avoid excessive stretching
- Use a V-shaped or split ergonomic keyboard to keep your wrists in a neutral position
- Position your keyboard 4-6 inches away from you
- Position your screen to avoid glare
- Take frequent breaks!
Reduce your stress levels
Freelancing can be extremely stressful at times.
Stress can have an effect on how you feel emotionally, mentally and physically.
On top of this, stress can make you more susceptible to other illnesses.
In order to reduce your stress levels when freelancing:
Make sure that you stay active. This might involve exercising regularly, taking part in activities such as yoga, or going for walks.
Manage your workload, don’t let it manage you.
Develop a time management strategy that works for you. When problems arise, focus on the actions you can take to resolve them.
Stay positive. Nobody told you freelancing was going to be easy, but it’s worth it! Always remember that you have what it takes to rise out of hard times and challenging situations!
Get enough sleep
As a freelancer, I’ve had sleepless nights worrying about not having enough work…and sleepless nights worrying about having too much work!
Sleep is vital for maintaining good health.
No matter how work is going, keep regular sleeping hours.
If you find yourself suffering from insomnia, make some simple lifestyle changes:
- Create a comfortable sleeping environment
- Don’t drink coffee before bed
- Don’t overindulge before bed
- Schedule in time to relax before you go to bed
Know what to do if you’re too sick to work as a freelancer
If you become severely unwell and are unable to continue working what should you do?
Self-employed freelancers can apply for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
The amount you receive from ESA will depend on various factors such as your income.
You may want to consider taking out income protection insurance for illness. This will cover you against sickness and being unable to work. These insurance policies are designed to maintain your standard of living if you are unable to work.
The association of independent professionals and the self-employed offer up to £2000 compensation for its members if you are ill or injured.
When it comes to knowing how to survive as a freelancer, staying healthy is the foundation. Remember, without health, we have nothing so health always comes first.
Right, that’s enough about health haha! (seriously though it really is important for your survival as a freelancer). 🤗
Build up your emergency savings
Regardless of whether you have a stable income or not, it’s wise to build up your emergency savings.
Start off by writing down all of your monthly expenses. This will help you to identify the goods and services that you could do without during months of lower income.
Once you’ve got an accurate view of your monthly outgoings for essentials, multiply that number by 3.
That will be your first emergency savings goal. If you haven’t already, open up a savings account that you can manage online, and make withdrawals from without incurring a penalty.
Name the account “Emergency savings”.
This account will allow you to navigate rainy days without going into your overdraft or dipping into your other savings.
Try to contribute a percentage of your monthly earnings to your emergency savings account each month.
Oh and of course, don’t use your emergency savings unless it’s an actual emergency!
You might need to use your emergency savings if you:
- Get sick and need to temporarily take some time off to recover.
- You’re going through a significant life event and need to take some time off to handle the situation
- Are looking for awesome new clients to work with
When it comes to knowing how to survive as a freelancer, you’ll want to be continually growing your emergency savings. This will act as a safety cushion when unexpected life events happen.
Tip: Think of ways in which you can manage your money that will remove the temptation of dipping into your emergency funds.
Be prepared for your taxes
Ok, so I hope I really emphasised the importance of having emergency savings account as a freelancer! (Go and open one as soon as you finished reading this post if you haven’t already done so).
Right, next we’ll talk about taxes.
So as a freelancer, you’ll be required to pay your taxes yearly rather than monthly as you would if you were employed.
Instead of waiting until it is time to pay your taxes and taking that sum from your current account, you might want to consider opening another easily accessible savings account.
Each month, or when you get paid for your freelance work, transfer some money into this account.
This way, there won’t be a nasty shock when it comes to paying your taxes as you will already have some if not all of it saved up.
Paying your taxes on time is crucial for avoiding any penalties.
Whilst we are talking about taxes, you might want to look into getting an accountant to help you to do your self-assessment forms especially if you are a new freelancer.
Tip: At the end of every month make note of all of the expenses you have incurred as a result of freelancing. This will come in handy at the end of the tax year.
Anyways, back to talking about savings!
Money management is an extremely important skill for everyone.
Sadly, they don’t really teach it to us at school, so we kind of have to figure it out ourselves.
There are some really good resources out there on how to manage your finances.
The YouTube channel: The Financial Diet has been quite useful for me. Especially the video below which prompted me to have separate savings accounts for different purposes.
It also prompted me to look into what freelancers should know when it comes to saving up for a deposit for a house. I came across this interesting book called The self-employed mortgage guide by Gary Das.
Ok, one last point on savings, then we’ll move on to another topic:
If you don’t take control of your finances and learn how to manage it, it will dictate the type of work you do as a freelancer.
If you aren’t managing your finances well and are struggling to make ends meet as a result, you may end up taking on jobs that don’t pay well or working with terrible clients.
Startup a side hustle
Now this one might be easier said than done, but there have been many people who have gone from freelancers to founders.
There’s even a podcast called freelance to founder! It’s about freelancers who have gone on to become excellent business owners and build great businesses.
As a freelancer, you’ve probably got some really good expertise on your topic.
Freelancing will definitely improve your entrepreneurial mindset so you’ll gain plenty of transferable skills that you could use for any businesses you decide to start.
You could consider creating a blog, starting a podcast or even a YouTube channel where you share your expertise.
There are many ways that you could monetise the suggestions above, which will help to supplement your income.
If you visit coworking spaces frequently you may meet up with other freelancers who you could join forces with to co-found a side hustle!
Doing this might make having a side hustle more feasible as you can share the workload.
Build up your reputation as a freelancer
When freelancing it’s a good idea to specialise in serving clients within a particular niche.
Therefore, it is wise to build up your credentials and authority in your chosen niche.
This will involve:
- Working on your online branding
- Building an excellent portfolio showcasing your work
- Collecting reviews and testimonials from previous clients
Building up your credentials will significantly help you to pitch for new clients.
This is because you’ll be able to let your brand, your work and what others say about you to do the talking.
Potential clients will do their due diligence on you because they want to ensure that they get a return on their investment from deciding to hire you as a freelancer.
If your client Googles your name, what will they find?
Ideally, it would be great if your website appears on the first page of Google.
Not only that, if your website has been beautifully designed and has a page showcasing your work and the results it got that will be even better.
Having testimonials from past clients in as many places as possible will act as social proof and help you to build up a great reputation as a freelancer.
It’s probably worth mentioning here that I have written a comprehensive review of Leadpages, and how freelancers and online entrepreneurs who do not have any experience with code or design can use it to create a website. Check it out after reading this post!
It can be extremely difficult to allocate time to work on your own brand when you are busy helping your clients.
Tip: set aside days in your calendar each month where you just focus on your online brand. This might involve:
- Writing case studies that demonstrate the results you have attained for a client.
- Asking previous clients for reviews
- Updating your freelance CV
- Updating your online profiles on LinkedIn, Upwork etc
- Taking online courses that will boost your credentials
- Improving your website
- Scheduling social media posts
- networking and handing out your business cards
Let your brand work for you!
Imagine having a brand so strong that clients easily find your services, see that you are great at what you do and contact you to hire you instead of you pitching to them!
The quicker you build up your authority in the space you work in, the quicker you’ll be able to raise your fees.
Therefore, when it comes to knowing how to survive as a freelancer, building up your reputation is essential.
Manage your time
I have created an extensive post on time management for freelancers.
I would definitely recommend that you read it.
In that post, I emphasise the importance of respecting your time as a freelancer.
Genuinely respecting your time is a huge factor in determining how successful your freelance career will be.
When it comes to time management, there’s always room for improvement and what works for someone else might not work for you.
So it might take a bit of trial and error to find what works for you.
Just to emphasise this point further, time management is a very important skill and is crucial when it comes to knowing how to survive as a freelancer.
Set yourself some SMART goals
As a freelancer, you’ll need to balance current client work with developing new skills and looking for new potential clients.
Setting yourself some smart goals can help you to stay on track and enjoy a fulfilling freelance career.
Having clearly defined goals will shape the types of jobs you take on and will ultimately shape your career.
A good way to set goals is to first envision your dream lifestyle as a freelancer.
What is your big vision? What do you love working on?
It’s easy to get caught up helping clients to the point where you forget about your own goals.
Then break down your vision into short term and long term goals. This will help you to prioritise your goals.
With each of your goals assess them to make sure that they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. Or in other words SMART.
Build up your support network
Your support network will be a group of people in your life who will offer both emotional and practical advice.
You’ll be able to turn to your support network when times are tough.
The network may be made up of family members and friends. However, it’s a good idea to add some other freelancers to your support network.
Other freelancers, especially those who are working in the same industry as you will have a good understanding of what you are going through.
Connect with freelancers with more experience than you. They’ll be able to draw upon their own insights on how to survive as a freelancer.
For example, they may have overcome some of the challenges you are facing in the past and will be able to offer great advice.
If you are a freelancer working alone at home, try to schedule in time to spend quality time with members of your support network to avoid feeling isolated.
Loneliness is experienced by many freelancers, so if you sometimes feel lonely whilst working from home, you’re not alone!
I have written a post on how to beat loneliness when working from home be sure to read it!
Always remember that no matter what you’re going through, there are always people who you can turn to for support.
Create a great Workspace
Creating a comfortable workspace at home, where you’ll actually want to work from is very important.
Regardless of your budget, or space, you have available to work with you, can build a functional home office.
At the bare minimum, you’ll need a chair, desk, computer or laptop and an internet connection.
When you first get started creating your home office, start off simple.
Once you get to know your working habits better you can add more office equipment and accessories. This will help you to avoid buying things for your office that you don’t actually need.
Tip: Keep track of all of the items you purchase for your home office. You will be able to list them as expenses when you fill out your self-assessment form.
How to survive as a freelancer: summary
I hope these tips on how to survive as a freelancer are helpful to you.
As you navigate through your individual freelance career, you’ll pick up lots of tips and tricks on how to overcome challenges and thrive!
It’s not easy freelancing, especially at the beginning of your journey, but keep pushing forward and remember that there is an ever-growing community of other freelancers out there who you can turn to for guidance and support!