Freelance Monday + The Bliss of Being Busy
Those of you who have followed along here for a while know that I often write about slow blogging, slow living and finding a healthy work/life balance. My goal has always been to work less hours per day to have more time over for reading, long walks, watching movies, yoga, cooking and doing stuff that makes me feel good. But you know what I always forget? That work makes me feel good.To be on top of my to do list. To sit down with a really exciting but hard project and feel like I'm moving forward with it. To experiment with cooking and photography while taking notes on future ideas. To spend a full day writing a kick-ass blog post. To pitch ideas and watch them come to life. To find a quiet café, order a coffee, plug in my headphones and let myself get completely absorbed in writing/photo editing for hours. To look up from the screen, all dazzled and surprised to find the café suddenly busy with lunch guests. That kind of work.
Pst! The lovely crystal necklace in the photo is new, and I bought it from Anna-Lena Stolt, who's jewelry I really adore <3I think I have been too fast banning work from my spare time. In such an early state of growing a business, it requires as much attention and energy as you can spare. It is not realistic to always take the full weekend off. Or to only work 4 hours a day. Well, I guess you can do it that way, but I'm way too impatient to wait around for my business to grow. I want to do everything I can to speed up the process.That said, I don't wanna spend any unnecessary energy on hustling. No, what I'm talking about is investing time, energy and thought into creating content that will make you, and your business grow.Coming from a slow living perspective like I do, I think I have almost been afraid of work. Too many people I know have been burnt out, and I'm pretty stress sensitive myself. But (and here's the thing!), not working stresses me out almost more than being busy. It makes me feel like I'm not moving forward, like I'm not earning enough money to make a living, like everyone else is running past me.
Since about 2-3 weeks back, I've had a lot on my plate. And it continues like that all through March. Strangely though, I've felt calmer, happier and more focused than I have in a long time. Spending 2-3 hours on a Sunday writing and scheduling next weeks Freelance Monday post makes me feel on top of my to do list, instead of starting the week with feeling stressed over being behind.The perks of being self employed is that I can work as many evenings and weekends as I like! I can also take long lunch breaks and go to yoga classes, or take a long weekend off for traveling every once in a while. Perhaps I'm only creating obstacles for myself, when trying to fit my work into a narrow 9-5 frame. After all, being your own boss is supposed to create more freedom and less restrictions, right?So from now on, I'm gonna set my own schedule, just the way it fits me and my goals. I am pretty sure it will result in less pressure around what I should achieve in a day or week, and enable me to truly enjoy the moments I do take off work.
I'm curious of how those of you with kids and side hustles make it work! How do you think about work/life balance, and are there certain things you have to set aside in order to reach your business goals?
What I'm doing to kick-start 2017On discipline, productivity and getting stuff doneFocus Weeks - How it has improved my productivity
To Do, week 9
- On Monday I'm working half day with a client project, and half day with the service I'm developing for you guys! In a not too distant future, I'm going to offer an early bird price on this service for my cashew kitchen letters club. If you wanna be able to take part in this offer, make sure to sign up for the email letters :-)
- Tuesday is office day in town, and I'll be working both with this month's link love post, and with the new service. I'm also planning to go on a lunch yoga class :-)
- Wednesday is my favorite day!! Because it means recipe developing and photographing. I'm gonna try and squeeze in two photo shoots this day. One granola recipe that I can't get enough of right now <3 Plus a hearty main dish that I think you're going to love! While photographing I will most likely listen to my new favorite podcast (it's in Swedish) since they release new episodes on Wednesdays. Love this routine of creative work & podcast listening <3
- On Thursday I'm off doing some work for a client all day.
- And on Friday I have a couple of hours in the morning to write blog posts, then Louise arrives around lunch time! <3
- Because this weekend I'm hosting a little workation for my blog friends and colleagues Louise, Elin & Annie!! Obviously there will be a lot of computer work for us while we dive deep into our respective projects. But I'm also planning to cook my signature recipes for them, as well as show them around the island. It's gonna be great! <3 I can really recommend doing this with your colleagues every once in a while. It brings so much new energy, inspiration and perspective!
What are your plans for the week? :-)
xxAgnes
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