Hi there, how was your weekend?
Lately I have been actually taking my weekends off. Like so many of us, when you freelance, it's easy to keep plugging away with no regard to the day of the week or the hour of the day. For the last few months, I was doing that and I never seemed to be caught up. Then I wound up in the hospital with some pretty strange symptoms: I couldn't remember my name of the names of my family. Talk about checking out! The good news is the doctors ran every test possible to see if it was stroke or heart related and found no evidence that it was either. The bad news is, if I don't know what caused it, how do I prevent it from happening again? One thing I decided was I could start taking the weekends off.
If I don't set a clear schedule for myself, I can get into big trouble. I need to have start and stop times and days of the week when I do no work at all. I still write on those days though, I just don't get paid for it.
When you are a freelance commercial writer, you can easily get so busy writing for work that you forget to write for fun. When I do this, my creativity dries right up! I need to use that free spirit part of my mind to write for fun so that I can keep the business writer from burning out. On the weekends I write creatively. It's lighthearted, semi-autobiographical and fun. It stimulates my thinking and actually helps me write for business for effectively.
So, what do you do on the weekends that helps you get through the work week? Do you have special rituals or entertainments that you think help keep you inspired Monday through Friday?
Let me know!
Teresa
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2 comments:
Whew! Way to learn about relaxing the hard way!! And I'm just as guilty of overdoing it. It can feel scary to let go for a day or more - like, "Will I lose all my momentum? Will I be able to get back into the routine?" But without taking time away from the computer, it's easy to lose perspective, lose creativity, and as you demonstrated, lose our health.
Great post, and a definite word to the wise!
Thanks, Sue. Yep, it was definitely scary! I have worried about losing momentum also, so when I get back to work, I try to start with something fun and creative- like my blog!- to get the brain clicking again.
Teresa
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