Doing solo work comes along with many perks, from having a flexible work schedule and not having to commute to being your own boss. Nevertheless, living the life of a freelancer is not always a piece of cake.The challenges of running a solo business include a certain degree of solitude, financial anxiety, overwhelming projects and the impact of all of these on your health. Being successful is not only about getting the best projects, working with top clients and being on top of your game. It is also about understanding why health and wellness is important and figuring out how to stay healthy and happy in the long run. In this article, we have collected 8 tips that might help you find a healthy balance between self-care and productivity. Keep reading to find out!
Why health and wellness is important
According to a recent health and wellbeing study conducted in the UK, the number of organizations and companies that have a more comprehensive and holistic approach to the health and wellness of their employees is on the rise.What this means is that health and wellness are becoming more and more important in professional life. Unfortunately, it is considerably harder to achieve health and mindfulness if you’re starting from zero. However, by maintaining wellness as a whole, you can prevent future problems like burnout and anxiety.
Stay healthy and happy in 8 steps
Staying healthy partially depends on having the right freelancer mindset and sticking to maintaining certain day to day habits. Whether you work from home or a coworking space, you can improve your health and wellbeing in 8 simple steps. Here’s how:
- Schedule your work days well
- Have a dedicated workspace
- Stay nourished and hydrated
- Don’t forget to socialize and regularly connect with your loved ones
- Listen to and take care of your body
- Prioritize your mental health
- Avoid doom scrolling
Schedule your working hours well
Having a balance between work and private life is important for many reasons. A good work-life balance helps with stress reduction, improves mental health, prevents burnouts and allows us to maintain connections with our loved ones.Try scheduling your working hours well and include short and long breaks into your schedule. Additionally, you can avoid working certain days or certain times of the day. Don’t forget that sometimes tasks and gigs will just keep coming, and trying to handle them all at once may increase your chances of burning out. Certain project management tools or time tracking apps can also help.
Have a dedicated workspace
Location independent talents, freelancers or digital nomads know the importance of having a comfortable workspace. Not having a designated work area may cause us to lose focus and miss important deadlines and fall behind on our plans.You need an ergonomic, easy to use, efficient working environment with all the gadgets you will use while doing your job. Try separating where you live and work. As an alternative option you can also consider using coworking spaces. As they are equipped with all the tools you might need, you can just focus on your work. You can also meet other professionals in coworking spaces; you can collaborate and network easily in a shared space!
Make sure you are well-nourished and hydrated
One of the integral necessities of taking care of your mental and physical health is a healthy diet. Pay good attention to being well nourished and hydrated throughout the day. No matter how busy your schedule might be, skipping meals, not taking enough nutritions and being dehydrated are detrimental for your health. Being familiar with the components of a healthy diet is a must!
Connect regularly with loved ones
It is true that sometimes, our professional responsibilities and financial worries get ahead of our social life. While it is considered normal to be occasionally busy, overworking for extended periods of time can cause damage to our psyche.Whether virtually via technology or face to face physically, connecting with our family members, acquaintances, friends and other loved ones has a direct and positive impact on our daily and overall motivation.
Take good care of your physical health
We spend many hours in front of our computers without even noticing. Sitting in the wrong posture while working is something we often don’t even realize. The fact is that in the long run, sitting in the wrong posture can cause spine-related problems that may decrease our quality of life.Indoor exercises, regular breaks and short walks are among some of the things that you can do in order to show the necessary care and attention your body deserves. Other methods for taking care of your body are yoga, meditation and light exercises that you can do during your breaks or even at your desk.
Prioritize your mental health
Physical and mental health go hand in hand. In the absence of one, the other is affected in a negative way. Prioritizing your mental health is perhaps the most important thing that you can do in order to maintain your overall wellbeing. Learn to listen to your body and pay attention to the signals it gives you. Seek professional help if you feel overwhelmed. Remember that addressing mental health at work is equally important as addressing it in your private life.
Avoid doomscrolling
Doomscrolling or doomsurfing can be defined as the craving to continue scrolling through bad or depressing news and negative events on the internet. Being one of the latest complexities of the internet era, doomscrolling does more harm than good.At times of uncertainty and adversity, some people keep a close eye on the news in order to find answers. Along this search, one can keep scrolling, reading bad news and upsetting comments one after another. However, as the internet and social media use has intensified over the years, we need to devise smart strategies to cope with such negative impacts. It is important to regulate your relationship with social media by limiting the time you spend online and being careful about the content you’re exposed to.
Stay on top of your finances
Solo workers can have financial anxiety for reasons such as having an unstable flow of gigs, not having savings or even managing invoices and payments. You can stay on top of your finances by having your projects secured via legally compliant agreements, using a smart billing and payment service, budget control and setting up a savings account. Having fewer uncertainties about your work would mean an overall improvement of wellbeing.As a smart finance and business companion, Ruul seeks to offer effective work solutions to talents in order to regulate their solo business more efficiently. Seeing payments and invoices in one, organized space can help you a lot in managing your budget.
Staying happy and healthy in the long haul
As talents working solo, we should pay more attention to our wellbeing, and mental as well as physical health. Try being loyal to the working hours that you decided beforehand. Don’t live and work in the same place, in order to maintain the psychological separation between your business life and private life. Strengthen your social connections with your loved ones and try to stay away from the constant influx of bad news online. You might be surprised at how changes as small as these can improve your happiness and motivation!Follow Ruul on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to get more tips on how to improve your workflow and how to stay balanced and grounded at work.
