Success is a sum of small efforts—repeated day in and day out.

— Robert Collier

And now for the fun part: the freelancing lifestyle. It's why all, or probably most of you, want to make this a reality for yourself. Hell, it's why I quit my job with absolutely zero plan. What's the point of living if we don't have some control over our lifestyle? People are tired of being forced into the same 40‐hour workweek structure. Can you blame them?

Once you become accustomed to a freelancing lifestyle, you will never be able to go back to any other lifestyle, I am sorry to inform you. It's an infection that has no cure. You've been warned!

At the very basis of the freelancing lifestyle is a new accountability in which you, and solely you, are responsible for waking up and meeting client deadlines. This will probably be the biggest deviation from your previous 9‐to‐5. No one is going to yell at you if you don't come into the office by 9 a.m. No one is going to monitor how long you take to get your coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. And no one is calculating your Paid Time Off to see if you still have time for a vacation at the end of the year. All of it evaporates.

But there is an exchange for pure freedom that goes on. It means that the buck stops with you. You're the one who must map out what time you need to wake up and how many hours a project is going to take. It's you who needs to adhere to any timeline a client might establish. It's you who needs to make sure you don't deliver late on a Fiverr order, which, if it becomes a habit, can sink your profile rather quickly.

Accountability starts and ends with you as a freelancer. This can be scary to people at first. We've spent our entire lives being told what to do, where to go, and what time to show up. We go on autopilot and don't realize that we've completely ceded our happiness and time to someone else. When we finally get that kind of control over our time back, we might panic. And if you do panic, don't worry—you are not alone. That's why anticipating this kind of shock as you foray into a freelancing lifestyle is the best thing you could do to set yourself up for freedom.

So, what does a “freelancing lifestyle” look like? What should you expect?

What Is a Freelancing Lifestyle?

A freelancing lifestyle is living differently day‐to‐day in order to meet the demands and expectations of your clientele. Some days, it might mean waking up at 7 a.m. to catch a Zoom call with your client who lives 12 hours ahead of you. Other days, it might mean being able to sleep in until 10 a.m. since you only have one project due by the evening. In essence, there is no structure to a freelancing lifestyle—it's however you want to outline it.

You have total control over your schedule as a freelancer. You can stack work on Mondays and Tuesdays, taking Wednesdays off every week. You can move work around so you are able to sleep in every day, or you can wake up early and have all your work done by lunchtime so you can go golf and sip on martinis until dinnertime. You can even live in a van and travel the country, syncing up project deliveries when you have WiFi at McDonalds or Starbucks. (I know people who follow these different schedules.) There is no one right way to live as a freelancer.

As the sole responsible person for your freelancing business and schedule, if you fall short, deliver late, or forget about a client, that accountability falls on you. It can't be pushed off to a boss or a manager. There is no middleman to jump in and protect you from the wrath of an angry client. You face the brunt of it. Now, that might sound scary, like more responsibility than you want to shoulder, but hear me out. Forcing yourself into this kind of accountability will teach you more about business, life, making money, and happiness than anything else will. You will become the kind of professional who can thrive in any industry moving forward. Facing the accountability head‐on will make you proud of yourself. It will give you a feeling of elation we have been robbed of by being thrust into corporate jungles. There's something so human about it.

And the thing is, you are going to fall short at times. I know I have as a freelancer! You are not perfect, and you are never going to be perfect. It's humbling to fall short with a client and have them remind you directly what you did wrong. The middleman coddles us in corporations, keeping us protected from the big, bad clients that loom on the other side of your Microsoft software. Working with clients directly will teach you about communication, customer service, and emotional intelligence (EI). Increasing your EI will make you a more effective, enjoyable, and respected person in everything you do in your life. Considering that EI has been declining among the population over the past two decades (Ellwood 2021), refining your personal ability to recognize and process others’ emotions will make you that much more empowered in the world of business.

Structuring a Productive Freelancing Lifestyle

Now I don't want you to jump into the world of freelancing with zero plan for how you are going to structure your time or workload. You can customize it however you prefer, but I am going to provide you with some suggestions to ensure you are as successful as possible right from the get‐go.

• Step 1: Identify your productive periods. Every person varies—some people are alert in the wee hours of the morning; others prefer to power up in the evening when everyone else is asleep. It doesn't matter when your A game occurs; it just matters that you know when that time is. If you don't know when you are your most focused, practice the next 24 hours doing freelancing‐related tasks. See which time intervals make you sleepier, or which ones encourage you to procrastinate. Note: if you have ADHD or any other neurodivergent diagnosis, your periods of focus shift daily. Still, freelancing can work better for this kind of thinking when compared to a typical 9‐to‐5.
• Step 2: Identify your attention drains. Are you someone who can't go more than five minutes without checking your Instagram? If so, consider turning off the notifications on your phone, or putting your phone in another room while you enter your working flow state. If you're like me, you can't work while other people talk around you (writer probs). I identified this early and have created silent spaces where I can get my important work done.
• Step 3: Sleep, hydrate, and prioritize your focus. In a lot of ways, your mind needs to be sharper and more alert if you are going to work for yourself. No one can step in and pick up the slack. You need to “biohack” your way to the highest level of focus possible (believe me). This means that going on a bender until 4 a.m. and waking up violently hung over isn't going to go well with freelancing. I personally cannot do any sort of writing if I am hung over. I also cannot focus on work after lunch if I eat a large amount of food, particularly carbs. I therefore prioritize proteins, veggies, and fruit during my focus time. I also avoid drinking in the evening if I know I have a lot of freelancing to do the next day. Feed your brain with foods, water, exercise, and rest so that it can operate to its full potential. People often fail to mention how important it is to take care of your body if you want to work for yourself!
• Step 4: Find other people in a freelancing lifestyle. I am not telling you to ditch all your corporate friends. But it is incredibly important that you find new people in your life living this same kind of lifestyle. They will be your rocks when you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed. And it's easy to find these people—they are on social media, clearly labeled as freelancers, looking for people like you to bond with. Find a few of these people to be there for you as you slip into this new lifestyle. This is especially important if your family, significant other, and/or best friend are not supportive of your new decision.
• Step 5: Learn to love content batching. This is probably my favorite time management hack of all time. Content batching is when you have a certain task that you need to do every day, and you do all of it for the week in one two‐hour window. I do this with recording TikToks, podcasts, YouTubes, and writing blogs for my website. If you need to check over payroll, for example, every day of the week, carve out a time on Saturday when you do the entire weeks’ worth of payroll at once. Batching is how you will be able to open holes in your week, like entire days off or afternoons off. If you make yourself do the same 13 things every single day, you are going to feel as though you are back in a corporate job. Play around with your time blocks!
• Step 6: Make time for noncompensated hobbies. A funny thing happens when you start working for yourself—you start to see the monetary potential in everything around you. You start to realize that truly anything can be turned into a business. Starting with your freelancing business, you may want to start making content on social media, accruing sponsorships, and posting affiliate links to your website. I encourage all of that, but I also implore you to keep some hobbies and time for yourself. You need to have hobbies you can turn to if you are feeling overloaded. For me, that's taking photos, going on drives, working out, reading books, cooking (barely, I am a horrible cook), going to the beach, or learning additional new hobbies (currently trying to learn how to play golf, and completely unrelatedly, also DJ).

If you follow all six of these steps, you will be more than prepared to venture out into a world in which you are your own boss. Once you get your structure all set up, you will realize there are really no cons to be in total control of your time. You can finally see family that lives halfway around the world; you can be with sick loved ones if they need your attention at the hospital; you can manage your own sicknesses or auto immune diseases with less pressure at home; you can travel anywhere you want; and you can choose to stay home with your children while they grow up. Most importantly, you can finally feel a sense of control over your life again.

Chapter 5 Key Points

• A freelancing lifestyle revolves around personal accountability.
• Although you have more freedom than ever before, it is on you to create a schedule in which you can be your most productive for clients.
• Spend time learning about your focus periods and when you are your most alert.
• No two freelancing schedules are the same—create one that works for you and your goals.