If you are an independent professional or an artist, you already know that life is much different for you than it is for the nine-to-fiver. There’s always an uncertainty in your life and you don’t always know when you will have free time or when you will be way too overbooked. This makes it much more difficult to find a balance between work life and personal life. You’ve heard the saying ‘fast or famine,’ and for many independents this is exactly how it goes.
So how do you find a balance when one day all you have is free time, and the next day you feel a deep gnawing in the pit of your stomach, wondering how you will ever get the current projects done and still manage to eat, sleep, and exercise.
The first thing you need to do is breathe! Deep breaths, don’t panic! Start your day with a couple of simple things. Make your bed. Yes, that’s right – there’s a reason your mother told you to make your bed. Research has shown that making your bed puts you into an organized mindset and it makes it much easier to move forward and be productive.
But wait, there’s one more thing you need to do first thing in the morning and that’s meditate. Yes you have time to take 10 or 15 minutes out of your morning and meditate focusing on where you are going today and tomorrow. This is yet another proven tool!
Now take a little time to set flexible boundaries. Your business is real and it’s fluid, which means every day is going to be different and you need to learn to set boundaries relating to how much work you can handle in a day. By setting these boundaries you will find yourself having less chaos and more stability. You will find it much easier to find the balance between work and home life.
Finally, go with the flow. Recognize as an independent professional or an artist, you are going to have days where you don’t have a minute of free time, and you are going to have days where you can kick back. Successful independents are cut from a different cloth than those that work for others, so you should be able to achieve this if you set your mind to it.