I'm a new freelancer, here's a day in the life
Come on a sniffle-induced spiral with me
8:00am: Jesus Christ, I’m tired.
8:15am: I’m still in bed. This past week I was hit with the kind of cold that would’ve definitely killed people in the Victorian era. The kind that’s impossible to work through, but you try anyway because it’s “just a cold”. You know the one. It’s actively disgusting to be around. You’re simultaneously clammy and freezing cold. Exhausted, but sick to death of being in bed. Your nose is blocked, but also somehow still running like a tap. All.The.Time.
8:30am: I get up. After a good few days of rotting, I made a deal with myself that yesterday was the last day of illness. No more shivering. No more audible blowing of noses. No more worrying my next cough will break a rib. Just health and productivity. Unfortunately, my body didn’t actually agree to this deal, and I still feel like death.
8:45am: I force myself up to make tea and knock back as many cold and flu tablets as the packet instructions allow. I will fight. I simply cannot cope with the guilt of doing nothing for another day, mainly because I’m full-time freelance now, so if I do nothing, I don’t make money.
9:00am: I compromise with myself. I will shower and put joggers on and do work that requires little to no thinking from the comfort of my sofa.
10:00am: Once showered, I realise I have no work that requires little to no thinking on my roster. So instead, I look for the most inoffensive task I can find. Basically, anything that doesn’t involve Meta Business Suite.
13:00pm: I settle on drafting content for a social media client. It’s a local bar/café and by most people’s standards, it’s a ‘fun client’. This takes up most of the morning, with only a few ill-advised TikTok breaks (research, if you will). By the time I finish, it’s time for more tablets and lunch — a dreamy combo.
14:30pm: I’m not going to lie to you, lunch turned into a nap, and that turned into me waking up feeling slightly more human. Unfortunately, however, feeling slightly more human came with an unbearable wave of panic that I should definitely have more work on than I currently do.
15:00pm: I park myself in front of the laptop and tell myself to WORK. To do some cold outreach. To promote myself. To magic up a paying client with just a few clicks. To suddenly work out the formula that leads to six figures. To do something.
15:30pm: I do the LinkedIn puzzle games. I watch a TikTok from a freelancer who is absolutely smashing social media marketing for local kitchen fitters somewhere in Yorkshire. I panic. Why am I not smashing social media marketing for local kitchen fitters? Forget that this isn’t my niche or my goal. Forget that I’m already pretty much at capacity for social media management. Forget that this girl could be faking the whole thing. I open my prospecting list and type in the names of several local kitchen fitters that might need help with social media marketing. Then I close my laptop, sigh, and let my head clunk onto the desk.
16:00pm: I recognise my spiral for what it is. Freelancer panic/sickness guilt. On good days, I can tell myself I have a business plan and a network that has my back. Work will come, because it has come so far. I’m doing the right things. I am paying bills. This doesn’t help me though, because today isn’t a good day — today is a day where if I close my mouth, I can’t breathe. Today is a day for fear and Lemsip and overwhelm.
16:30pm: I finally admit defeat. Nothing useful is getting done. I jot down a list of some freelancing ‘wins’ so far, to remind myself that I’m actually not a hopeless failure. Then, I write a to-do list for tomorrow that’s productive and reasonable (and has nothing to do with local kitchen fitters). Then, I run the most extravagant bath of my life. I hear my own voice telling me I don’t reaaalllyyy deserve the most extravagant bath of my life, but I get in anyway. I leave my phone in the bedroom. I try to soak out the remainder of my death-cold and read two chapters of Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro.
18:00pm: All clean and sparkly (if not still a bit gross and snotty), I resist the urge to do any more work. It wouldn’t really be work anyway, it’d be staring at my screen, trawling LinkedIn for expired leads, or comparing myself to Grace Beverly. I successfully distract myself by making a massive, massive bowl of chili and tomato pasta.
19:00pm: Full of pasta, I sink into my sofa, still fighting the urge to grab my laptop. I tell myself, repeatedly, that I will do better work tomorrow if I let myself do absolutely nothing tonight. A particularly aggressive cough — the type that sounds like an old classic car and feels like it might just break a rib — underscores my point, and I search Disney Plus for something low stakes.
20:00pm: After an hour of Modern Family, I move the pity party up to bed. I arrange the pillows slightly upright so I can still breathe through my nose, and give myself full permission to fall asleep watching Netflix on the laptop. I’m asleep by 8.30pm. Genuinely. And that’s fine. No groundbreaking productivity hacks here. Just a reminder that being a well-rounded human (freelance or not) means knowing when to admit defeat and put your feet up in front of the TV with a massive bowl of pasta.
About The Content Girl
Opinions, insights, and the occasional marketing musing from a professional Content Writer giving writing in her own voice a go. You can expect:
Commentary on pop-culture/regular culture and the like
Insights/tips/information around professional Content Writing/Marketing and freelancing
Personal essays (I’ll try to make these not insufferable, I swear)
Book reviews, recommendations, and roundups
The odd piece of flash fiction
Freelancer diaries:
If you’re new to a freelancing journey (like me), looking for practical freelancing lessons from someone who is literally going through it (and learning the highs and lows firsthand), or just curious about making your full-time living as a writer, I’d love love love if you’d consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Each Monday (ish), I’m putting out an edition of freelancer diaries that give a no-jargon, no sales, real life look at freelancing, including:
Freelancer Diaries: How I found my first three clients
Freelancer Diaries: How I set my rates
Freelancer Diaries: How I stay sane WFH in a team of one
URGH thank you for this glorious slice of unpolished reality. So very needed. There will always be these days, and that's OK 🙌🏻