Right now, I’m in the middle of preparing for a retirement party for my Mom to take place this Sunday. My siblings are coming into town beginning tonight and we’ll be entertaining until Sunday evening. Because I don’t see my three sisters and two brothers often, I can’t tell you how excited as I am. As a writer, I’m screwed.
Well…not completely screwed. I’m trying to get lots of work done ahead of time, and I’ll be scrambling to make up for lost time during some early morning blogfests this weekend, but this freelancer knows no weekends off.
I think if there is one thing I miss about my old like it’s the weekends, vacations and sick days. In three years, I haven’t taken one vacation without my laptop. I took a couple of sick days this year, the first time in over five. I don’t mind the lack of vacation time, it’s a small price to pay for the freedom of making my own hours, spending the day at home with my son, and being able to pick and choose the jobs I want. What I do mind is that catching up before and after those times when I’m away from my computer.
I did notify some of my clients to tell them I wouldn’t be posting as much this weekend. This gives them a head’s up, so they know their blogs won’t be loaded with as much weekend content. It also allows for them to hire guest bloggers if they feel it necessary. Many times I’ll let my clients know I’ll be away from my computer, even if I plan on working. This way if I don’t work as much as originally planned, they’re ready.
It’s funny, when I make plans now my first thought always revolves around work. For instance, I’m planning a trip to Blog Expo in
As freelancers, do you completely shut down at vacation time? If so, how much work do you give up?
Vote for Celebrity Cowboy in the Dirt 100!
Visit my other blogs:
Hah, funny you should post this today. I’ve just written about my psuedo-vacation (I’m basically taking a break from personal blogging, but that’s it). It’s especially rough here in Italy where nearly everyone takes off most if not all of August….
Like you said, though, I look at it as a small price to pay, and I do know that if I *really* wanted to take a vacation, I’ll do it. Someday
I almost never travel without my laptop, for any purpose. That said, I also feel that my everyday freedom almost makes up for it.
I am committed to not working on vacations. I haven’t had to do so yet. We’ll see how that works out next September (’08) when I go full time after my youngest is in school full time.
When I am on vacation I do spend a lot of time doing personal writing – journaling. I don’t get to do that nearly as much as I want anymore.
I’ve had days that I managed to convince myself were vacations — I did laundry and filed, rather than wrote!
The problem I’ve really run into, though, is that my fiancee works the normal grind, with plenty of nice, shiny paid vacation. I’m more than a bit jealous, and sometimes I have to kick him out of a room or the apartment when he’s off work, so I can still do mine.
I was thinking about this very issue on my wahmwriter blog a few weeks ago. My first question these days is also about internet access. Vacations certainly aren’t what they used to be.
Actually, until recently, it didn’t come up much because I didn’t have a laptop (haven’t really taken a vacation, either, but that’s neither here nor there). Now that I have one, it affects my planning, but not any more than my workload did before.
Mostly I’ve been able to forewarn and keep my vacations free, at a loss of income, but not at a loss of work. Life prior to and following kind of sucks, though, and there’s lots of sniping between my husband and I for the week before and on return.
Some days I wish I didn’t have a laptop, and I don’t publicize that I do–I feel it gives me a buffer; ha ha–this just brought to mind the time I cradled my open running laptop to bed in my free arm, and my husband accused me of babying it! Maybe you had to be there.
I’m just finishing a vacation – I do blog and I did the blog posts ahead of time. I think it is nice to take a vacation when you can!
Two and a half months ago, I took a cruise with my sister. It was awesome because it was a forced vacation, meaning that if I wanted to get on my laptop I had to pay (in the ball-park of an arm and a leg). I ended up buying a 100-minute package for something like $50. Mind you, this was an 8-day cruise, and as we all know 100 minutes is what we usually spend several times over in one day alone. After the 100 minutes was up, the cost to me to be online was something like $.75 per minute.
So I determined to do absolutely as little as possible. I let clients know ahead of time that I would be away and unreachable. And, as strange as it was to be completely disconnected from the world. It was also heaven!
It was the first time I had done this in many, many years (although I’ve only been freelancing full-time since November, I worked in government/politics before that – aka vacation via blackberry….).
I highly recommend disconnecting completely from time to time!
Vacation..:-(…it’s hard when you’re based in Europe where employed people get 4 to 5 weeks off a year while you get nil as a freelancer. I do take vacations with my family (my husband wouldn’t have it otherwise) but I still work during our trips though not as much as when I’m at home.
Laptops…we have 2, mine and my husband’s and we never travel without them. No conflict of interest here. We’re both nuts about our computers. When I delivered 4 years ago, he downloaded my email at home and brought over my laptop to my hospital bed at least once a day…
Two years ago, I purposely took a vacation where there was no Internet access or cell phone access. I was off the grid. One of the best times ever.
However, I’ve also completed articles from Java Junkie in Rapid City South Dakota, the northern tip of Lake Michigan, a coffee shop in Bemidji, Minn., a restuarants in Green Bay and the Wisconsin Dells, and other places I don’t even remember.
At one time I planned to bring work…gave me vacation from the vacation, but I increasingly seek a real break. The problem is that Murphy’s law goes into overdrive just before vacation: Contacts aren’t available, clients have last minute needs, etc.
If looking for Wi-Fi, check out wifihotspot.oom I use it before travel to locate primary and secondary locations. I’ve had hotels where wifi didn’t work, so I know I need a backup. That’s how I found Java Junkie on a trip to Mt. Rushmore.
Panera Bread also offers access, as do some other restaurant/fast food/coffee place.
As to weekends, one way to do it is to schedule the infrequent day off for family gatherings, etc. Otherwise it can be real easy to actually have less time with family than if you’re in an office.
The separation is important for sanity. That’s why I never work anywhere in the home outside of my office. If a call comes in when I’m occupied (dinner), I still go to my office to take it.
In the beginning of my freelance career I would always work on the weekends and at night. After a while I started to burn out and decided “enough is enough.” As of right now, I don’t work weekends, and I don’t work on vacation. I try to have all my writing assignments for the week completed by noon on Thurs, which lets me devote time to personal obligations (errands, housecleaning, laundry, etc.) It took some time to adjust to this schedule, but it’s been working well. I am married, but I don’t have any children, which might contribute to my ability to complete my work early.
The only weekends I don’t work are the ones where I stress out because I should be working. I rarely accomplish as much as I intend to during any given weekend, however, because I find it very difficult to work when my husband is around.
There has been only one vacation where I didn’t bring my laptop with the intention of working, and that was for our wedding and honeymoon earlier this year. All of the other trips — usually road trips to visit the in-laws — I’ve taken my laptop, and generally spent the entire trip stressing about where I’ll find wireless next. (We usually stay with Michael’s brother, who lives in the country and has no internet access whatsoever.)
All I can say is, it’s a darn good thing we’re writers because we enjoy what we do!!!
Vacation? Even if I could take the time off, with our town and property taxes here now almost triple what they were when we moved into our house ten years ago, I gave up all hopes of taking a vacation until I’m back in a full-time job. And even then, I think the money will go into home repairs that we’ve put off and upgrades of things like water heater, furnace, washer and dryer…
I take my laptop on almost every road trip (usually to the inlaws). I haven’t taken a real vacation since going freelance, but I suspect the laptop will be traveling with me then as well.
I do find it difficult to work ahead and then catch up when I do take a couple of days off, and the loss of income is another drawback.
Another good topic! Vacations are vital, Deb. Of course, I’m sure I’m not as busy as you.
Luckily I can pre-write and schedule weeks worth of blog posts. Anything else pretty much comes to a complete stop.
I usually take my laptop in hopes of finding a hotspot, just so I can check for any urgent emails.
I’m going camping tomorrow. There’ll be no internet access, or electricity where we camp. It’s nice to unplug once in awhile…Lesli
I try to give myself at least one day over the weekend without work. It doesn’t always work.
Last vacation I went on, the place had computers and Internet access, so I was able to check my email and keep in touch with editors while I had my morning coffee, then I went out to sit in the sun. I didn’t plan to do any actual work, but as it turned out, not writing irritated me. So when everyone else was either napping or playing golf, I wrote an article.
If we are able to take a real vacation in the near future, I will contact my editors and tell them when I’ll be gone. I have a good idea when my editors will be sending me work, so I think that will work.
I’m in a different category than most of the other posters: I have a very demanding, full-time career outside of the home and I freelance write/edit as my “2nd career.” I cannot live without constant checking of email. If I am forced to be somewhere without it, I suffer withdrawal symptoms (cold sweat, shakes…you name it). I, too, was on a cruise in July and had to pay by the minute to access my email.
But I’m not complaining. In a short period of time (since January) my freelance writing work has grown to rival my first career in earnings. I just have to balance the two. Thanks!
We just returned from a four day “vacation” to Southern California to visit relatives and spend two days at Disneyland, and part of a day at the beach. My husband brought a laptop along for his work (he’s the director of engineering for a television station) so he has to keep on top of things while away. I did my best to stay away from the compuer, but finally jumped on, primarily to delete junk mail, but to also see if I had any work-related mail. Thankfully, no.. I think!
It was nice spending time with the kids and my husband and not being chained to the computer.. but now that I’m back…
I went to FL in February and since we drove from PA to FL (18 hours), I took my laptop in the car and did work from there. I went online before we left and saved pages with information to my PC and made it so that I could view them without being connected to the Internet. That way, I had all the info I needed to write the articles (keyword articles — nothing too fancy).
When we got to FL, we did things during the day and then I would work from about 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. and then go to bed. I only spent one entire day working. It worked out because that was the day the family members we were staying with wanted to cook us a big steak dinner — I worked while my travel companion went to the store and then later on, I helped with everything.
this is so funny, because I was just on the phone with a campground in northern michigan and the conversation went something like this: “what do you MEAN you don’t have internet?” “Well, ma’am, people tend to come up here to get away from all of that stuff” ….
::dead silence on my part::
I don’t like being away from my clients, email or deb’s job list
If I can schedule everything just right and take time off then I surely will do so. However, with my laptop it’s not always necessary to take an entire day… this is great around the holidays and in the summer because I can be up at my parents’ house, waiting in an airport, or sitting in a hotel and still be able to work. I love the flexibility of a portable office!
I’ve only been doing this for about six months, so I haven’t taken an official vacation yet. However, I do try to spend at least one day a week where I don’t check my e-mail at all. It doesn’t always work out, but I’m still so delighted to be doing this that it doesn’t feel like work yet. We’ll see what next summer brings
I actually took a vacation this year and didn’t do work — first, my husband mandated that I was not allowed to do work (and who am I to argue?). Second, there was no internet connection where we traveled, nor was I exceptionally motivated to visit a coffeehouse to get “connected.” I let clients know prior to my vacay that I would not be available and it worked out fine… except for the pile of work that awaited when I returned.
The pile of work you come home to is always the toughest thing for me, too. Even though I take my work with me on most vacations, it’s actually very rare that I accomplish everything I intend to do. I usually just end up doing the important stuff.
I certainly have to make a conscious effort to shut down during vacation or weekends. But I do my best to stay away from work. Everyone needs a day off (or two or three!)
I didn’t work on my job over my family’s vacation, but I did work on my summer class.
It’s a bit easier for me to avoid working most weekends and holidays in a sense because I often don’t have work. When I have an assignment, I tend to get it done ASAP. Marketing is something I’m still working on.
At any rate, when I do have work, I’ll work on it on weekends if I must for school reasons, or if I enjoy it. The exceptions are Sundays. I never do any work, even schoolwork or studying for a test, on Sundays. (I’m a sabbatarian.)
Goodness….now that I’ve thought about it, I’ve never taken a day off since no one knows when until I got sick last month.
My friends are calling to tell me that they hope the next time they see me, it won’t be at the hospital.
That reminds me… I was forced to essentially take a few months off for health reasons. (Gall bladder trouble would leave me in bed for a week straight; then I had to catch up on school, then I’d get worse again…)
And I feel unwell often enough that I’m concerned about how I’ll do in a 9-5 job. It’s easier to work at home in fifteen-minute intervals in my PJs on days when my body’s misbehaving. (I have a genetic disease of the endocrine system that might be at fault for my weak immune system.)
So yes, if I include sick days, I’ve taken quite a bit of time off.