This is a question that a lot of home-based freelancers / small business owners have. Should I work on weekends? Should I work in the evenings? Is it better to keep regular 9—5 hours? How many hours per week should I be working?
The answer, of course, is it depends! But if you’re a freelancer or home-based small business owner, you can figure out your own answer to this question pretty easily by asking yourself a few more questions:
1. What is your working style?
Are you the type of person who can sit down at a computer and work for 10 hours straight? Do you prefer working a couple hours, then taking a 30-minute break? Is it more important to you to have two days off in a row, or a couple hours to yourself every day?
Everyone has a different working style. The trick is to figure out what your working style is, if you don’t already know it!
For example, I work best when I work pretty much every day of the week… as long as I take a couple hours off in the middle of the day, pretty much every day, to do my own thing. And I also usually need a half-day or a full day off work every week or two.
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2. What type of work do you do?
These days, I’m doing a lot of social media management. And I love that! This also means that I can’t really let more than 24 hours max go by without checking client accounts. However, if you have a graphic design business, for example, you might have more freedom to get the work done when it works for you, provided that you meet your client’s deadline.
I love my work, and although I can think of a dozen hobbies I’m excited to take up when I can give them the time they deserve, I’m sure I’d still choose to do work in the evenings and on weekends on occasion. It depends what you want to do, what your clients need, and the type of work that you’re involved with, as to the hours that you’ll keep.
3. What is your lifestyle like?
What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Do you have small children that you need to spend time with on the weekends? What is your life situation like?
I’m lucky in that my lifestyle (such as being childless by choice) gives me plenty of flexibility in terms of when I work and when I don’t. Your lifestyle might not offer you that kind of luxury, in which case it would be smart to work when it fits around other life commitments (such as family).
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What it ultimately comes down to…
Some days you’ll work weekends. Other days, you won’t.
At the beginning of your freelancing career, I strongly encourage working evenings and weekends—if you want your business to succeed, you need to put a huge amount of work into it! As the mother dear has observed many times, no one will ever care about your business as much as you do. You’re the only one who really know what it’s going to take for it to be a success—and what success for your business means to you.
I love the points you listed. Weekends are precious for me. I try not to do work on the blog on weekends unless it’s Sunday evenings. If I do, it’s just catching up on some reading and research.
I can definitely relate to this post. With a 9-5, I want weekends off without a doubt. When I am working on my blog, I can work on it everyday and take a hour or so rest throughout the day. I spend a lot of time researching since I am still a newbie to the blog world. I would love to have weekends off from my blog though but I feel like I will be missing something if I do that. As you mentioned, I do take a full day here and there to not work on it.
I definitely blog on weekends, but I also make sure to take time to enjoy/complete other tasks and interests as well.
I’ve definitely wrestled with this and blogging – some weekends it works out and some I guard my time with family/friends and don’t write. I love your approach!
I work full time at my regular job which leaves only nights and weekends to blog, I also have a small side business which sometimes means working on weekends. But I try not to work all weekend if I can avoid it.
I work 3 days a week at my real job as a nurse and then have my blog. It seems like I am always working on the blog in my “free” time or thinking about what I need to be doing! I have recently been forcing myself to make more free time without the laptop attached to my hip!
It’s important to do that! Gotta find that balance.
I try not to work on weekends. But it’s hard when you have a home based business. I’m always checking what’s happening.
The important thing is that you have regular time away from work for you and your family.
YES! Always.
I don’t work out of the home but I do blog! And I love it. I use my weekends for the kids and any family outings. Depending on the weather of course.
I feel like I am always on the job. Moments I’m not in front of the computer are just times I’m collecting experiences and thoughts for the next blog post, manuscript or marketing campaign.
I try to avoid the weekends as best I can. Going from a 9-5 job to my own business, it’s tough to change a habit. Of course, it all depends on client deadlines.