Self-employment can be an incredibly rewarding experience with plenty of benefits. Being your own boss allows for you to make crucial decisions, take creative control and give yourself flexibility that many workplaces would not allow. However, this type of employment also brings its own challenges — an intense feeling of pressure to get things right, and a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. For this reason, being self-employed can make it difficult to switch off at the end of the day, especially during busy or stressful periods. Whether you're a freelancer doing ghost writing jobs, or a business founder running a team, it can be difficult to step away from work when it feels like so much is riding on the hours you put in.
While it can be hard to close the laptop or step away from the desk at the end of the working day, it is crucial to give yourself “you time” outside of work. Of course, it’s normal to have periods of time when you work slightly longer hours than usual, but this should never become the standard. A healthy work-life balance is important for everyone, no matter their role.
What does “work-life balance” actually mean?
It’s a term that’s thrown around a lot in conversations about mental health and positive work environments, but what does it actually mean, and how does it apply if you’re your own boss?
Essentially, work-life balance is the art of maintaining a harmonious relationship between the working and personal parts of your life. It sounds simple, but it can be very easy to get caught up in one, and let the other slide at the same time. It’s also not just about balancing work time with non-work time, it’s also giving the right amount of weight to different aspects within those times so that you can maintain the balance. For example, balancing social time with time that is just for you — if you are somebody that needs time to yourself, and you overbook yourself with social events, you might find yourself too worn out to work effectively when you need to. It doesn’t have to be difficult, you just have to figure out what works for you.
The importance of work-life balance
Humans need some level of variety in our lives, most of us couldn’t handle doing the exact same thing every single day for the rest of our lives. This especially applies when it comes to work — we simply can not work every minute of every day — that would be a one way ticket to serious burnout. It doesn’t have to be that dramatic though, for some people in some roles, a normal full-time work week could cause burnout if the job was stressful enough. Everyone is different.
If you’re not familiar with burnout, it’s essentially what happens when we become extremely overworked in any way, whether that’s through the hours put in, the level of responsibility, or the lack of variety in work. Burnout is more than just being overtired, it can actually have serious consequences on our work and health, for example:
Decreased concentration resulting in lapses in judgement and increased errors
Reduced motivation levels that impact quality of work
Lack of satisfaction and enjoyment from work, or other activities
Heightened emotions and susceptibility to sadness and anger
Impacts on physical health, including increased headaches, stomach problems, energy levels, quality of sleep, and general wellbeing
Potential increase in feelings of anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions
Tips for maintaining a work-life balance while self-employed
As your own boss, you can make an active choice to improve your-work life balance in a few simple ways:
Set boundaries with others
If you’re a sole trader contracted by a company, it’s easy to feel like you must do whatever they ask to stay on their “good side” and ensure ongoing work, but it’s important to remind yourself that you don’t owe them any more than the job they are paying you to do, and you deserve to have the same breaks and standard working hours required of an employee.
The same philosophy applies if you run a business. Let your employees know that you will be offline and unavailable for certain hours, and give yourself the same respect you would give them when it comes to personal time.
Have a separate work space
For many people, being self-employed means working from a home office; if this is the case for you, keep your physical working space away from your relaxing space wherever possible. If you’re lying in bed and your desk is looking back at you, you are naturally going to think about work. If you can, set up a separate office space in a study or spare room. Even if you don’t have the space for this, implement other strategies such as turning off your work-related notifications on your home computer — if you can’t hear it going off, you’re less likely to let it pull you in.
Say ‘no’ when you need to
You likely know this, but might not always enforce it: it’s okay to say ‘no’. In fact, you should say no sometimes. If a client adds more work to a project and it’s just not reasonably doable in the timeframe, say no. If you’re too tired to do the after hours meeting that someone is requesting, say no. This doesn’t mean turning down opportunities or neglecting your work, it likely just means renegotiating the terms or coming up with an alternative arrangement.
Take your leave
Employees working under a more ‘traditional’ employer-employee relationship get leave, and you should too. Even if you don’t have a traditional employment contract with stipulated leave terms, you should be taking breaks that are longer than the hours you sleep at night. Take a day off when you’re sick, and book a holiday every once in a while. It’ll likely make you more productive, in the long run.
You know yourself and your business best, so only you know what will and won’t work for you. Remember to pat yourself on the back every so often — working for yourself in any capacity is no easy feat. Similarly, remind yourself that work can never be everything, and you deserve the same work-life balance as everyone else, even while you’re building your own empire (of any size).
