Any student can choose digital marketing as freelance for creating their side income. Working as a freelancer of digital marketing helps you alot financially but it can also hurt you because without having systems and routine of traditional offices managing multiple clients, deadlines and staying creative can be a pain in the head that can lead us to burnout. In this article we will discuss how to avoid burnout in our freelance journey of Digital Marketing.
Prioritize yourself first & do self care.
Doing Digital marketing as a freelancer is such an interesting and dopamine giving work that sometimes we forget ourselves and just think about our work all the time. We enjoy doing digital marketing so that we forget we have to eat, sleep and take rest.
The only solution to this is to create a non-negotiable self care routine for yourself. Do the things that give your energy back to you like going to temple, doing gym, meditation or anything that helps you to boost your mind.
Regular physical activity or regular self-care routine will help you to stay productive and energetic and will help you to face your deadlines without any stress.
Beyond that self care routine we should do some small activities too while we are working like taking a 10 minutes walking rest every hour or a short stretching break or just a coffee break. Anything that makes you move from the desk can help you to refresh your mind.
Say No to extra stressful work
In our freelance journey there always comes a time when we start getting a lot of work through our referrals. We start getting lots of appreciations from our community along with that we start behaving too nice to clients & friends & because of that we start taking lots of projects because at the moment Saying No becomes hard task for us.Saying “yes” to too many projects can lead to long hours, stress, and ultimately a dip in the quality of your work.
Set Boundaries and learn to say No to those projects that do not align with your goals and are not profitable to you.
You don’t have to accept every project of your client just to be nice to them. You don’t have to take extra workload.
Remember quality work is more important than too much bad work.
Practice polite, humble & professional ways of saying No to your client.
Create systems for Your work
Nothing can be done without creating a system for it. Systems and routines are very important for doing freelance work. Every new system will have its error ratio and success ration. When you will create a new system for doing work there will be an 80% error ratio and 20% success ratio in it. Along with time you have to evolve your system and fix your error ratio and increase the success ratio of your system. A system ratio with 60-70% success rate is considered a fine success ratio because we can become robots to do it 100% perfectly.
Pro tip– Use an alarm clock method to analyze your time in the best possible way and do some extra work.
Set Goals with deadlines
There is a famous quote called “Goals without deadlines are called Dreams” . This is the best quote by which every freelancer can live by because the main duty of a freelancer is do the work before deadlines and if want to do something for even your self you should always create a deadline for that goal otherwise it is called a fairytales dream.
Setting deadlines helps your brain to act faster and do the work properly without even procrastinating.
Break down your bigger goals into small actionable steps. Use project management tools like Notion, Notepad etc.
Stay Updated without being distracted
One of the biggest duties of a freelancer is that they have to be updated to the market otherwise you are called an outdated guy who dont work on time. The main problem with being updated is that we can become easily distracted. Just don’t become so overwhelmed with the updates and it will be all fine.
Schedule your time for learning but don’t get obsessed over it. Stay updated by dedicating a specific time in your day or week for learning.
Automating your freelancing
Scheduling social media posts, sending invoices, tracking analytics, and managing emails can take a toll on your time and energy.Automate or outsource non-essential tasks to free up time for high-value work. Prioritize automating repetitive tasks first, then consider outsourcing as your business grows. This can prevent you from becoming bogged down by admin work and allow more time for creativity and strategy.
Conclusion
Growing as a Freelance digital marketer is easy if you avoid getting burnout. Hustling harder or earning more doesn’t mean that you have to reach your burnout levels. Setting clear goals, maintaining a structured routine, and taking care of your mental and physical health are key to thriving in this fast-paced, competitive industry.
Always remember that your business is run by you not your business runs you. Your business will only grow if you are growing physically. Mentally and spiritually.