What Freelancing Really Feels Like
On paper, freelancing is the ultimate dream: no boss breathing down your neck, the freedom to work from anywhere, and the ability to choose your projects. In reality, it’s often a strange mix of freedom and quiet panic.
When I started freelancing in 2024, I imagined lazy Tuesday mornings at a café, mid-day gym sessions, and the luxury of picking and choosing my clients. Instead, I found myself working through weekends, answering Upwork messages at midnight, and feeling guilty any time I wasn’t “being productive.”
There’s no office clock to punch out of, no colleague saying “let’s grab lunch,” and no boss telling you to take the afternoon off. There’s just you, your to-do list, and the constant, low-level anxiety that maybe you should be doing more. Even when I wasn’t working, I was thinking about work, mentally drafting emails while cooking dinner, worrying about deadlines and checking my phone before bed “just in case” a client needed me.
The Unseen Struggles of “Flexible” Hours
One of the hardest adjustments for me was the complete blurring of work and personal time. Without a clear boundary, work seeped into every part of my life like water into a crack.
Vacations? They turned into “workcations” where I’d take calls or finish client edits while my friends were at the beach. Even a normal day off wasn’t really “off”, I’d catch myself sneaking in “just a quick task” that somehow stretched into three hours.
It’s not just the time you spend working, it’s the mental space it occupies. The more clients I took on, the more my mind became a constantly running background process, scanning for tasks, worries, and upcoming deadlines.
What I’ve Learned Along the Way
If I could go back, I’d tell myself this: time off is not the opposite of productivity, it’s part of it. I used to think hustling 24/7 would prove I was serious about my career. Instead, it just left me tired, distracted, and oddly resentful of work I had once loved. Now I know that as a freelancer, you have to actively protect your free time, because nobody else will do it for you.
I’m still figuring it out. Some weeks I feel like I’ve found the perfect rhythm; other weeks I’m buried in client work and eating dinner at my desk. The balance is fragile, and maybe that’s just the reality of freelancing, you don’t “solve” it, you learn to live with the constant push and pull.
And yet… I wouldn’t trade it for a traditional 9-to-5. The freedom, the variety, the ability to choose my path, it’s worth the struggle. But if you’re thinking of going freelance, know this: the real challenge isn’t finding clients. It’s finding the off switch.
