A freelancer’s guide to surviving the most terrifying month of the year

Freelancing for a living can be a tough proposition at the best of times, but there’s one month of the year when it really seems like an uphill battle. Welcome to November. Here’s a tried-and-tested guide to making it through.

Every year, on November 1, I flip the calendar on my fridge over with a sense of trepidation. I have spent much of my career working for monthly magazines, and I know that by December 20 or thereabouts, not only do the January and February editions have to be at the printers, but March needs to be almost there as well.

But there’s something about November anyway, isn’t there? It’s the price we pay for the countrywide shutdown that seems to happen once we hit mid-December – deadlines are pulled forward, and everyone seems to be running around in a permanent state of panic.

As a freelancer there’s a double whammy, though – January and February are often our quietest months, and that translate into a severe cash flow crisis, right at the beginning of the year, when all kinds of extra expenses rear their heads: school needs, professional and other fees, increases in insurance premiums.

So, after almost two decades of freelance Novembers, I have worked out a little survival strategy for myself, which I think could work for anyone. Here’s what I try to do.

1. Take a Sabbath. It seems counterintuitive when you’re busier than ever, but if you don’t schedule a day of rest, you won’t take one. I tend to choose Sundays, because they work for me, and I try very hard not to work on those days, and also not to socialise as far as possible. Sundays are for reading, napping, pottering around the house, and possibly ambling around a market if I feel so inspired.
2. Don’t accept every invitation you receive. If you do, you find your evenings and weekends jam packed with parties and gatherings and get-togethers, and they can be exhausting in themselves, especially if you tend towards introversion. Think about what you can cope with – and make rules for yourself. I prefer not to go to more than one event per weekend day, preferably one the whole weekend, and going out on a week night exhausts me. Those are my rules and I try as hard as possible to stick to them – but there has to be some flexibility too, obviously.
3. Learn to say ‘no’. And don’t think you have to give a reason! It’s none of their business why you aren’t attending. So just say, “I can’t make it.”
4. Take a step away from social media. Not only is it the world’s biggest time sink, but it’s emotionally exhausting. Log out of all your social media apps if you can’t be disciplined about it. Or turn off your notifications while you work. And if you must be on social media, schedule it in blocks, and set an alarm so you log out again – it’s all too easy to lose track of time. Your productivity will thank you.
5. Stop moaning, start working. It’s easy to get into that pattern where you sit down at your desk and spend the first hour of the day sighing and moaning about how much work you need to do – when you could have been working. I’m going to ‘mom voice’ you a bit here and tell you to stop being a drama queen. Suck it up, cupcake. We’re all busy, we all have a lot to do, and the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll get through it all.
6. Stay on top of your emails. These are best handled in chunks, so they don’t distract you while you’re working on more important things. All of the world’s top productivity experts recommend that you don’t tackle them first, and that you schedule blocks of time for email – an hour at 10am and then again at 3pm, for example. Again, turn the notifications off, and read and reply when it suits you. International best practice says a response within 24 hours is acceptable. It doesn’t have to be within the first five minutes after it lands in your inbox.
7. Take a lunch break. It doesn’t have to be the full hour, but give yourself a break, for crying out loud. Take your food, find a bench in the office garden, or a window away from your desk where you can see out – just get away from your desk and take half an hour to eat and to relax. Your afternoons will be far more productive if you do.
8. Aim to go home on time. You know that work stretches to fit the time allotted, right? So if you give yourself the option of working late, you’ll be less productive. Yes, in this busiest time of year, I am encouraging you to set the goal every day of going home on time. Set the goal, knuckle down, and watch how well you perform.

They’re all pretty simple solutions, but they aren’t always easy. The key is to remember that you’re not a machine – you’re human, like everyone else. Prioritise tasks, schedule rests, and then just apply your nose to the grindstone till it’s done. You’ve survived all the previous Novembers – you can get through this one too!