FREELANCER ON HOLIDAYS

Advantages of being a freelancer

There is no doubt that one of the great benefits of being a freelancer is that you can manage your professional and personal affairs without being accountable to anyone. But this does not mean that you have a lot of free time to spend the day lying down. On the contrary, it is possible that your freelance work extends beyond a normal workday. As a freelancer, you know what it's like to work late at night, super early in the morning or on weekends when everyone else is off.

In a previous post, FEELANCER, PROS AND CONS, I explained that freedom of schedules is very good. You plan your calendar and organize your time as it best suits you, but, at the same time, you cannot afford to waste your time.

If, in addition, your professional activity allows you to work remotely, that is the most wonderful thing in the world. From the comfort of your home office, you can run your business in your pajamas, without wasting time commuting and without the added expense of being most of the day away from home.

But these advantages are a double-edged sword. If not managed properly, these benefits can work against you and cause disruption.

When you work remotely as a freelancer, work and personal life overlap and the boundaries between one and the other become blurred in such a way that they become confused. If you are not careful, working in pajamas will soon turn into several days of not stepping on the street and not wasting time going to the office and back means that you stop having face-to-face conversations on a regular basis.

By working as an employee, annual vacations are scheduled in the working calendar and, when you have days off, you do not have to be attentive to email or messages. But, if you work on your own, you are the one who plans your holidays. This activity is as important as the best of your projects.

It is essential to admit that resting is as necessary as eating or breathing. A person, however independent worker they may be, cannot be ON forever. You need resting time to charge your batteries and clear your mind. You must organize yourself to find a gap, what's more, I would almost tell you that you should include resting days in your agenda as if they were a job.

Despite the flexibility provided by this type of occupation, depending on what you do and your workload, it can be difficult to find that gap to spend several days without attending to your business. I have to admit that, since I've been working as a freelancer, whenever I've gone on vacation, my laptop has come with me. Of course, my smartphone too.

When you are the only one responsible for your business and your job and financial stability depends on the work you are able to cover, it is very difficult to disconnect. There is always one client whom you cannot say no, for whatever reason, or that project that is about to arrive and you have to be prepared.

What dates do I go on vacation?

If you've been self-employed for a while, think about that interval of the year when you work less.

These periods of low workload can be the best time to take a few days off. For example, January is usually a month with few professional events. Try to find a few days when you don't have to answer phone calls or emails, or get up early to work, or deal with changes or adjustments. If you always have a lot of work to do, choose a time of year when you can stop taking on certain projects to clear your desk. It depends to some extent on the type of customers you have. Take some time to analyze how many assignments you have received in recent years and mark on a calendar the weeks when you have less volume of work.

The inconvenience of traveling on the same dates as the rest of the people are the prices and the overcrowding. Since I've been a freelancer, I've been fond of traveling in low season. Hotels, restaurants, monuments, museums, etc. they are much less crowded, you can enjoy the locations more calmly and the price is significantly lower. But of course, this means having to be available during my holidays, since these are times when most companies are working.

Short getaway or long vacation?

Consider the effective duration of the holidays, that is, the actual time you can afford to be away: three days, one week, two weeks.

It is completely up to you, but the planning is not the same.

A three-day getaway can be done with your car, to a destination not too far away, with little luggage. A trip of a week or more requires more preparation, making reservations, flights, deciding the places you are going to see, etc.

Free visits or organized trip?

Organized trips are a very good option, because you don't have to worry about anything: every minute of your holidays is perfectly planned. The downside is that they keep you busy 24 hours a day and, at least in my case, if I have had to deal with some unavoidable or urgent matter, it is quite cumbersome, because it means getting up earlier or going to bed later, after having fulfilled the travel day schedule.

I prefer to travel on my own. I like to make my own travel plan and adapt it to my tastes and needs. People who usually travel with me already know how it works. We visit places at our own pace and, if at any time I have to go to the hotel or whatever, then we reschedule on the go. Always, of course, attending only to urgent and unavoidable matters and postponing everything else until I return.

Wi-Fi everywhere?

Yes, of course. The freelancer who works remotely needs to have access to the Internet wherever they go. And you will say “well, what a thing, Wi-Fi already exists everywhere”.

Well, no, it's not everywhere. Even if the advertising on the site says so. “But there is the mobile data.” Yes, but if you have coverage. If there is no coverage, there is no data. This is a true story: the first time I went on a cruise, I asked about the wifi on the ship. In the travel agency, they explained me that the boats have a satellite internet system but it could be booked without any problem. What they didn't tell me at that moment was that they were going to charge me more than €100 for a week of Wi-Fi access and that, if I didn't sign up for it, I would be offline the whole time we were on navigation, because the mobile phone's roaming system stops working as soon as you get far from the coast. In my opinion €100 was an armed robbery (well, unarmed; they didn't have a gun), so the first two days I had to manage going downstairs with my laptop to get the Wi-Fi at the port offices where we docked, to read emails and urgent things. When I saw how awkward the situation was, I asked again about the Wi-Fi and then they offered me an option for single days at €17. I finally needed to book 2 single days, so there is a difference from €34 to €100, don’t you agree?

So yes, make sure there is Wi-Fi wherever you go and that your data coverage is good. Also monitor the roaming conditions. Although it may seem that it is an instant service and even if it is included in your mobile plan, in some companies you have to communicate a few days before the trip so that they activate the service. It happened to me in Portugal and I spent the first three days of the trip without roaming.

I hope this post helps you to organize your holidays time.

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