How to Reset as Creatives and Freelancers

As a creative or freelancer, it is essential to take time for yourself to reset. It is easy to become overwhelmed by the workload and the pressure of deadlines, competing priorities, and impossible-to-please clients on top of everything else that’s going on in the world. We get tired and sometimes we just need to press the reset button. Setting adequate boundaries, taking regular breaks, and engaging in self-care practices are essential for our mental well-being and our physical health.

Why You Need to Reset

Regularly recharging is the key to staying healthy, creative, and productive as a creative or freelancer. Taking breaks helps you to stay focused and motivated, and also prevents burnout. Resetting allows you to return to your creative process or work feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the next thing.

Knowing When You Need to Reset

You might not realize you’re on a trajectory to being burnt out until it’s too late. You may be feeling unusually tired, unmotivated, losing interest in your art or your work, feeling overwhelmed, and having difficulty concentrating. If you start to notice any of these symptoms, it might be time to find ways to recharge.

6 Ways to Reset Before or During a Burnout Period

1. Take more regular breaks: Scheduling breaks throughout the day is extremely helpful. Not only is working consistently for hours not as productive but staring at a screen (like most of us do) for extended periods is also draining. Try using something like the Pomodoro Method to ensure you take regular work and screen breaks. You’ll come back a little bit refreshed and finish your workdays, hopefully, less drained but having gotten more done.

2. Create a sustainable daily routine: Sometimes we spend more time stressing over what we’re going to do rather than just doing. Creating a daily or weekly routine introduces a level of predictability in our lives that can help us preserve some mental capacity. We can use that mental capacity on other things, like being productive when it is time to create or get some work done. Try creating time blocks (and alerts) in your calendar for things like meals, meditation, walks, phone calls with friends, and other rejuvenating activities to ensure they are factored into your schedule. You can bake your resets right into your calendar.

3. Reset your boundaries: If you’re like me, this one is the toughest to do. It’s easy to say “Oh, I can squeeze that in” or “I can push that other thing off”, but after doing more than a few things, those other things pile back up and you still haven’t found more time. It’s important to:

   1. Know your boundaries

   2. Communicate your boundaries

   3. And uphold your boundaries

   If we don’t respect our boundaries neither will the people around us. Having a good understanding of how long certain tasks take and how much time you have to work on them moving forward is critical. We can’t set realistic expectations if we don’t know what our capacity is. And we must be real with OURSELVES about our capacity. Oftentimes we think we can do more than we actually can and we set ourselves up for failure. I use an AI tool called Motion to help me with scheduling my tasks and fitting things into my schedule so that I can get a good picture of what’s achievable in a day, week, or month.

4. Take time off: Taking time off is one of the easiest and quickest ways to recharge, but seemingly one of the most difficult to do. This is why it’s helpful to do the rest of the items on this list more regularly to avoid getting to a breaking point. If you can afford it, try to take a personal day or as many days as you can/need and spend that time restoring yourself. Be sure to let your clients or anyone impacted by your time off know as early as you can to be courteous. Some ideas for ways to spend your time off:

• Take a vacation to a new place for a change of scenery.

• Do a staycation at that cute hotel you’ve been eyeing or in a cabin off the grid.

• Stay home and do nothing or all of the things you love to do that rejuvenate you.

• Do some mindless volunteer work that will fill your soul and calm your brain.

• Go on a wellness retreat.

• Spend time with family and friends.

5. Find inspiration: Finding inspiration is also essential for resetting. Take some time to look at other creatives’ work, or try new approaches to your work. This can help you to come back to your tasks feeling refreshed and inspired. You never know what could be your next muse. Here are a few places you may want to look:

• Local art museums

• Dribbble

• Designspiration

• Pinterest

• Local book stores

• Outside your window

6. Spend time in nature: We all know that spending regular time in and around nature has positive effects on our mental and physical well-being. There is something particularly rejuvenating about grounding yourself in nature and admiring the beauty of the natural world around us that can give you an actual breath of fresh air to help you reset. This can be as easy as a walk around your neighborhood admiring the trees or bushes a walk in a park near you or a hike on a trail. You might visit a local indoor garden if it’s cold where you are or try going to a local plant shop and spend some time admiring the variety of house plants. Any way you can connect with nature will do.

Taking time off from our work, even if we enjoy our work, is essential. Sometimes we can’t afford to take time off, but we can find ways to give ourselves moments to reset and recharge and find ways to deplete ourselves less and less as we move forward. It is okay (and quite necessary) to say no to others sometimes and say yes to yourself. We can’t pour from an empty cup, sis. Be well.