5 new year's resolutions for freelancers that don't (always) work
Have you forgotten your ‘word of the year’ already?
Me too.
Actually, for the first time ever, I don’t even have a word of the year! I feel liberated!
You know all those freelancing hacks, tricks and must-dos that flood your feed every January – promising to transform your business? In my last 14 years as a business owner, I’ve tried ALL of them.
Some, I’ve persisted with for months (or years😭), convinced I must be missing something, or doing it wrong, when they didn’t change my life.
I wasn’t. And if they’re not working for you, you’re not either! Because one method can’t possibly suit every working style, personality and business type. And the beauty of running a business is you can play to your strengths and find a way that does work for you.
So here are 5 popular tips I don’t recommend…
1. Writing a word of the year to ‘guide and inspire you’ over the next 12 months
I stuck with this for years, convinced that writing out colourful intentions in my new journal would help shape my year.
Space. Balance. Courage. Did they help? Nope. Invariably, by 1st February, I’d forgotten what the word even was.
What works instead?
I do love the fresh start in January (also in September – any excuse for a new pencil case and felt tip pens!) But choosing one word to cling to, no matter what the next year could throw at us, feels superficial rather than helpful. I do however have a set of internal values, which kind of define how I’d like to live my life. Or be remembered. So at new year, I look back over the previous few months to see if my actions and activities were aligned with those values. And if not, I make a note of what can I change in the short term so that they are. I’m happy with that.
2. Meditation
Controversial. I really wish meditation worked for me because I LOVE the concept, and know how powerful it is for some people. After dabbling for years, I finally completed a full 365 days of meditation using the Headspace app in 2019, and noticed no discernible difference. I then went 365 days without it, and didn’t miss it at all.
What works instead?
Any kind of mindful activity that takes you away from daily ‘stuff’ is A Good Thing. Meditation didn’t do anything for me (in a similar way to bubble baths and candles), but switching my mind to something sports-focused is like magic. Playing netball, coaching football, volunteering at parkrun – all give me a similar headspace that takes my mind off everything else. I can highly recommend it.
3. Timeblocking
The idea is that you can take control of your schedule by splitting a day into units of time and allocating tasks to each of those units. A bit like Hugh Grant in About A Boy – except it’s less ‘Taking a bath: One unit. Having my hair carefully disheveled: Four units’, and more ‘Writing a LinkedIn post: One unit. Sorting through an endless pile of invoices: Ten million units’.
This kind of rigid, stop-start structure doesn’t help me at all (maybe why I spent longer colour-coding my beautiful revision schedule at uni than actually following it). I wish it did – fitting every task into a neat box (with the conviction that it will take exactly that amount of time) sounds so straightforward. I still attempt it occasionally, before realising that 80 hours of client work are never going to fit into a 40-hour week anyway, and I revert to my own methods. Fluid and flexible suits me better.
What works instead?
I have an ongoing to-do list, split into clients and deadlines. On a Friday, I look at what I need to do the following week and loosely allocate activities across the days. Then each day, I work on exactly what my brain feels like doing at any given point. Sometimes I’ll devote a whole day to one project. Other days, the time is split across clients, and occasionally it’s broken into much smaller tasks. Sometimes my brain doesn’t wake up until the evening so I don’t even attempt writing, and will either crack on with one of the courses I’m doing, or go for a long walk.
One thing I stick with every week – almost without exception – is reserving Mondays for my business. Strategy, content, marketing, business development. Clients rarely get a look-in on Mondays.
4. Eating the frog
The concept that tackling the worst thing on your to-do list first makes the rest of your day more bearable. Things can only get better!
I cannot eat the frog first. Whether it’s a tricky piece of client work that’s nearing its deadline, or a pile of admin I’ve been putting off, I need to tackle at least a few tadpoles before contemplating the bigger beast.
What works instead?
I’ll usually do at least an hour of non-frog-like work first – either copy projects that are already flowing nicely, easy emails or LinkedIn comments – as a warm-up to the bigger piece.
Plus, I don’t do my best and most creative work in the morning anyway, and actually come to life in the afternoon – with a second wind in the evening. That’s the opposite of what most people recommend, but working out a schedule that suits your own working patterns (without assuming you’re the same as everyone else!) makes such a difference to how you structure your day, and how productive you can be.
5. Setting 5 and 10-year plans
Speak to any business coach and they’ll insist the key to success is setting short, medium and long-term goals, mapping out a plan to get there, measuring your progress, resetting priorities. And so on.
I’m not a coach so I won’t disagree. But I know MY business, and my working style, and I find setting these kinds of goals really difficult. In fact, just the the idea stresses me out! I’ve got a mild superstition about looking too far ahead, and have literally no idea what I’ll be doing, or how I want the business to look in 5 years – let alone 10.
What works instead?
I do look vaguely into the future now, which definitely didn’t happen in my first few years of freelancing. Back then it was all about finding the next client and getting more experience. I now have a few things I’d like to achieve this year, and what that means for the next 3 months. I’m a big fan of looking at what’s going well, what I’ve enjoyed, what I’d like to do more of, what I can improve. Then jotting down what that means for the business. But nothing is set in stone (or even committed to a whiteboard).
6. A bonus sixth… A miracle morning routine
Morning routines. The 5am club. Exercise, affirmations and green smoothies before the rest of the house wakes up.
Surely one of the easiest routes to a successful business is cramming a few hours of work in before sunrise? So unsurprisingly, I’ve spent months trying to make this one work. But I never felt any more productive, inspired, or even virtuous, starting my day so early.
What works instead?
As I mentioned above, I’m often up working late. And if I’m not, I’m watching re-runs of the West Wing. Waking naturally at 7 suits my own rhythms and gives me a chance to sort out some domestic stuff before work.
Exercise fits in later (green smoothies, not so much).
The advice you’ll find crammed into your LinkedIn feed isn’t wholesale. There’s no one style or technique that works for every individual and every business. So try their ideas. Try your ideas. But take most ideas with a pinch of salt. The best resolutions are the ones that naturally suit your own life and your own working style.
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