How I’m Steadily Growing My Freelance Business Without Burning Out

Running a freelance business is not easy. Consistently growing it, alongside other commitments such as a job, parenthood or family care responsibilities is – for many – a quick path to total burnout.

Here’s how I’m slowly growing my freelance writing business, and (mostly) keeping burnout under control.

I Do Work I Love

You can’t always pick and choose your clients, but when I have the choice, I choose well. I choose to work in niches I’m interested in, writing content that I genuinely enjoy researching. I’ve set up a blogs focused on topics I love and I’ve signed long-term contracts to produce content for platforms that I like writing for.

Don’t expect too much from work you love. Burnout is still possible, but it is less likely. Loving what you’re doing can actually energise you, on a good day. And on a bad day? It will still take you longer to feel like you’ve totally run out of energy if you’re enjoying the process, even a little.

I Charge a Fair Price for It

Just because you enjoy your job doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get fair compensation for doing it. This is generally accepted in most sectors but when it comes to things like content writing there’s still an odd attitude from some potential clients.

Perhaps writing is seen as art (even though content and copy writing is all about business) and being a starving artist is still a noble or romantic concept for some. Don’t buy into it. Look at your rates. Raise them if they’re too low. Setting rates too low often leads to burnout because you just have to do too much work to make ends meet.

I Minimize Pitching and Payment Chasing

A big chunk of the writing I do each month is produced for a content marketing agency. This gives me less freedom in the topics I write on, but it eliminates two of the things that I’ve always found tiring: pitching for new work, and chasing clients who haven’t paid. The agency finds the clients, and the agency deals with making sure those clients pay their bills.

I also have a few private clients who I’ve worked with for a while, and who always pay on time. Not having to chase up multiple invoices and send out late payment reminders saves me time, energy and stress. Don’t get me wrong. You may not mind pitching and payment chasing. The point is to find ways of working that minimise the parts of the job you personally find exhausting.

I Have a System for Everything

That agency I mentioned? They have a great online system. I can see every task I’m working on, listed in my dashboard along with the deadline I have to hit. Every time I complete a task I raise a worksheet. When the worksheet is cleared by my project manager, that job is automatically added to an invoice. The invoice processes itself by magic at midnight on the last day of each month, and a few days later, a payment hits my bank account.

For private clients who require it, I use a super simple similar invoicing system. My task organization is even simpler, in the form of a basic to-do list. Even though I’m a solopreneur, I do outsource some stuff, and when I do I make sure it is fully systemized to make life easier for me and those I work with.

I Prioritize

I know too many people who do multiple things at once, often very badly. My work tasks are carefully prioritized and one thing gets done before I start another. If I need a break from priority number one, I work on priority number two briefly, but I know I’m going back to priority number one as soon as is practical. And yes, I also know that technically you can’t really have more than one priority.

I Re-purpose

Depending on the task, most of what I do gets re-purposed. Articles get re-posted to my blogs or other platforms. Research for articles that I ghost write gets used to write a whole new piece on a similar topic. Re-purposing content helps you make money while cutting down on the amount of work needed.

I Look for the Easy Option

Nobody admires someone who takes the easy way out, but they should. Doing something the easy way can conserve time and energy without necessarily losing quality.

The ‘easy option’ isn’t always as easy as we’d like. Take the task of attracting traffic to your content. Learning the principles of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) isn’t easy, and it’s an ongoing task, because things do change. However, properly optimised content can bring in traffic for years to come (depending of course on other factors).

Using sound SEO practices isn’t really ‘easy’, but it is less time consuming than actively marketing your writing all day long on social media and other platforms.

I have my finances under control

The truly burnt out freelancers I know are those who have to take every job that comes up, regardless of whether they really have the time, energy, and skill set for it, because they need the cash flow, right now.

We all need cash flow. But there are things we can do to help keep our finances under control, even in months when freelance income is lower than normal. Things like cultivating multiple streams of income, creating at least some passive income, maintaining a low cost of living, an emergency fund, and adequate insurance.

For freelancers and side hustlers burnout is always a risk, but like most risks, taking steps to avoid it is always better than dealing with it.

Karen Banes is a freelance writer specializing in entrepreneurship, parenting and lifestyle. She writes articles, website content, ebooks and the occasional award winning short story. Her work has appeared in a range of publications both online and off, including The Washington Post, Life Info Magazine, Transitions Abroad, Brave New Traveler, Natural Parenting Group, and Copia Magazine. Learn More About Karen