Why setting boundaries as a freelancer is essential to helping you thrive
On the art of saying no
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When I first went freelance about 20 years ago, the concept of boundaries wasn’t part of the collective self-care lexicon. I felt obliged to answer emails whenever I got them – even if that meant at 2am from clients on the other side of the world, and would respond to queries and edits whenever an editor asked for them, even on holiday.
The thing is, this wasn’t even in character. Behaving like a robot who was available at any time of day, any day of the week, wasn’t how I had been in staff jobs. But as freelancers we are fed the narrative that we’re lucky to work at all, and that it could all disappear at any moment.
So we operate from a place of desperation and fear – what if the client isn’t happy and doesn’t hire me again? What if I’ve quoted too high a fee? What if I don’t get any repeat work? It’s easy to feel like you have to pretend as if you have no life of your own. I probably don’t need to spell out that this way lies exhaustion and misery. But even worse, working in this needy, servile manner will forever flatten your potential to earn more and actually be in charge of your career.
When I left my last staff job and decided that it was going to forever be the freelance life for me, I soon had to take a cold hard look at the way I was operating because I was speeding towards burnout, and not for the first time. Working without any care for my own well-being had left me frazzled and broke - because I was too scared to properly negotiate money or contracts or to pushback on deliverables that hadn’t been agreed upon, for fear of seeming difficult, I was working more than I should have been and getting paid way too little.
Isn’t being freelance about being flexible though? So what if I worked on the weekend or answered WhatsApps at 9pm if it meant I wasn’t traipsing into an office most days and having to be present on Slack or Teams constantly?
Our brains are already overloaded with a lot of screen time between our phones, computers and TVs. Being on a screen is not at all conducive for the important work our brains do when left to their own devices. Daydream. Ponder where to go on holiday. Think up something fun to do at the weekend. All of this is just as critical to being human and is pushed out of the way every time work squeezes its way into our free time.
Sure, being able to fire off ideas while waiting to pick up your kid can be handy. Answering emails on the train can be productive and save time at your desk for deep work. But, intentionality is key. You have to be doing this because it really works for you. As an example, I’m writing this on a flight to Geneva, and just before this I was responding to emails about a piece I’m writing. But for me, this is a work day, and so this feels fine. I would not be trying to glance at my email while I’m putting my kid to bed (full disclosure, I have done this in the past, before my freelance rehab, for more of which, keep reading).
Freelancing works successfully only when there isn’t an unequal power dynamic. Meaning that if you as a freelancer hold zero power (or rather believe you have no power) and your client holds all the cards, you are playing a losing game in which the house will always win.
Flexibility is great but it needs to go both ways – unless your clients are being as flexible as you, by paying you upfront perhaps or some other concession to make your life easier, then it’s not your job to be the one who bends backwards to facilitate work.
Then there’s the matter of work-life balance. If you don’t have control over your time as a freelancer then you may as well work in a company and reap the extra benefits. If your life is constantly being compromised by your work and you are constantly half-listening to your kids as you’re always working on your phone, or you are never fully present at dinner, watching a film, or with friends because you have an eye on your email, or you will literally write an entire presentation on your phone while you are sitting on the steps outside the Colosseum in Rome (this is a true story via a friend), then pal, you do not have the balance right.
And it’s not something you just have to put up with to be freelance.
I had to radically change my way of working because after burnout number 3, I knew it was make or break time.
First up in my freelance rehab was a gear-shift in my mindset and realising that every piece of freelance work I take on is a business transaction. This meant reminding myself that I was an equal player in my working relationships with my clients. While I felt fortunate to be getting regular work, I stopped feeling grateful. Businesses don’t do favours - they don’t hire freelancers they don’t want to work with. If someone has hired you, then understand that you are providing a service they want. Organisations need freelancers as much as ever because it’s just not possible nor practical to try and cover every single role with a staff employee.
Next I needed to start operating from a position of abundance rather than scarcity. This might sound like new-age mumbo-jumbo but it’s been an incredibly helpful mindset for me. I have always passed on editors’ details to fellow freelancers, or told them if I know organisations are looking for freelancers because I’ve always figured there’s always enough room for all of us. And applying this thinking to work in general has made a tremendous difference – when magazines you used to write for have redundancies and so the people commissioning you leave or some online publication starts using AI to write posts, it may feel like the work available is shrinking. Trust me when I tell you it really isn’t. It may be that the narrow avenue you used to write for has shrunk. But despite endless death knells sounded for publishing, stuff is still being commissioned, edited and published. You just need to look around, beyond your tried and tested clients. In a word: diversify.
The third thing I did was ring-fence my time far more carefully. I would communicate to clients well in advance if I was taking a holiday and would be out of contact. If new clients emailed at the weekend, expecting a response, I would politely let them know my working hours. This is the boundary that might strike fear in your heart. It might make you clutch your sides thinking “Oh no, I could never”. The thing is, you have to. Working 24/7 is not sustainable and a freelance client has zero obligation to look out for your best interests.
If you don’t protect part of your life for yourself, your freelance life will always be stressful and feel hellish.
Setting boundaries as a freelancer can feel risky. But as Brené Brown says, a boundary “is simply what's ok and what's not ok.” And that is not something anyone can dictate to you. Your freelance career is literally your business, and you are the one who decides how to run it.
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What to do when freelancing isn't how you thought it would be
Luckily I haven’t but then I’ve also seen a lot of editors come and go, as I know you have too, which is what I would hold on to. Also, having been an editor - and maybe this is what really helps- is I know that even though there may be hundreds of potential freelance writers I could hire, the number who are REALLY good, write to deadline etc are still not that many. (Ps you’re one of the good ones)
I like the term "freelance rehab". Right now, it is not much of a work-life balance issue for me -- I can, after all, take a nap in 45 degrees C heat wave. :) I feel that I need to set boundaries on another front -- what is acceptable in terms of attitude just because one of the editors is from, let me put this way, one of the top publications, and there is a sense of entitlement about commissioning and dropping -- "if not you, there will be plenty of others." Maybe that's what holds many of us back, knowing that there will be lean times too. Have you you or anyone else faced that too?