Being a Workaholic Made Me a Worse Freelancer

Don’t fall into the same trap

‘She’s a nutter’

‘What a nerd’

‘Poor girl, she has no life’

‘Are you working again?’

‘I can’t be around you when you work, it makes me feel awful’

Here’s a selection of what people have said about me throughout my entire life. And, in most cases, they were right. From the moment I stepped foot in an education environment, I was the A* student in everything I did. All my school records are flawless. And I always maintained high standards easily, as if it was an innate skill. I never understood why my classmates struggled. I never understood why they never knew how to get high grades. I had it in my blood. It just worked. (Pun very much intended)

So what do my academic goals have to do with my workaholism? Everything and nothing. Because yes, I did work a lot during school, but I worked nowhere near as much as some of my friends who still never got higher grades than me. But being the shiny student everyone envied came with its set of pressures. Pressures I could easily juggle only because the education environment was my natural habitat. I was myself in the scheduled, organised, linear routine of school. Once life became less about school and more about ‘what now’, however, my glass carriage of perfection became a pumpkin again.

Freelancing isn’t the healthiest choice for someone who needs a structure, like me. It’s been exactly one year since I started freelancing and, despite the chaotic energy that comes with it, the creative freedom it provides makes me happier than I ever thought I could be navigating something so uncertain. There is a dark side to it, though.

Frantically Trying to Keep it Together

As my freelancing took several directions during the past year — journalism, independent media, editing, Medium, owning a publication, on top of my degree and my part-time job — so did my work habits. For the best part of the last 8 or so months, I have been a work machine. I’m not declaring that proudly.

I had reached a point where stopping made me sick. The more organised I tried to be, the more work I had to do. The more to-do lists I wrote, the less I could cope with them. The more I tried to prioritise, the deeper I fell into toxic productivity. People started tip-toeing around me, worried they might break my focus, or I might snap at them out of stress. My partner found it increasingly difficult to spend time with me, as I always worked. There was always an email to answer, an article to edit or write, a comment to leave, a phone call to make. Never enough time for him.

Anxiety started creeping in, waking me up at 7 every morning with a churning hollow in my stomach, and a heart and mind racing at light speed. Mind-mapping. Mental lists. Writing articles in my head. Giving myself deadlines. I started to be scared of doing anything else but work. When I was told to stop, I’d panic, and become unreachable. I was nothing but angry, frantic, fidgety, there was simply nothing more to me than work.

When my therapist suggested to only work 9–5 days, as any normal work routine should look like, I panicked again. I started thinking maybe an 8–7 would be more doable. I began considering sleepless nights, fantasising about me, my laptop, and an entire pot of coffee, alone in the living room while everyone was sleeping. Once out of that altered mental state, I started reflecting on how it affected my work, not only my health. I wrote all about how I escaped toxic productivity, and you can read about it here:

How My Workaholism Affected My Freelancing

Not surprisingly, the more I tried to keep it together, the more it fell apart until I felt like I’d lost all the control over my work. Seeing someone working inhumane hours might seem a positive thing. I’ve been told many times that I’ll be successful. Everyone close to me was proud of me for how much I worked. But when my workaholism reached its peak, only I knew how dreadful I actually felt. Not at all successful. Much less pride-inducing.

Freelancing is a career you build for yourself. But because of that, it can feel impossible to stop. My harmful work habits were triggered by freelancing, as it was a side-hustle I had complete agency over. Even now, when I’m a bit more organised and relaxed, I feel like I’m swimming in an increasingly deeper pool whenever I sit down to work.

For a while, I stopped writing on Medium. I had gone from 2 articles a day, to none at all for weeks. I also stopped doing editorial work for the publication that got me into freelancing. I began failing to meet my deadlines and every time I promised someone I’d publish or edit their piece in however many days, I rarely honoured my word. All my ideas had died, so had my motivation. I felt trapped every time I tried to brainstorm and write. I didn’t have the strength to pitch new publications or look for jobs. I started a Quora and Upwork account, only to leave them untouched.

I simply couldn’t bring myself to do anything. Soon, it all became a pointless auto-pilot routine that kept me feeling like I was working while doing nothing in particular. As a new freelancer, who doesn’t earn nearly enough to support themselves solely from being self-employed, this downfall did not have dire consequences for me. But imagine if freelancing was my only source of income and I became unmotivated to do it. I would have lost clients, readers, writers, people’s trust, and probably a lot of money.

If you’re a financially successful freelancer, this piece is for you. If you’re a beginner at freelancing, this is for you too. My experience will hopefully shed some light on what it truly feels like to be the ‘success-prone’ hardworking person everyone envies. It’s not fun and games. And it can cost you not only your health but also your career.

Thankfully, I am now on the right track, trying to keep my workaholism in check. I have started being active on Medium again and my own publication is growing, slowly but steadily. I’m in a much better place and I’m ready to reclaim my freelancing.

So if you feel like you could fit another hour of work before bed or like your priorities are becoming too many, take a step back, a day off, and reconsider whether you’re falling into work addiction. And try to escape it before it’s too late. Stick to that 9–5 and take that lunch break. Stay away from emails at the weekend. It will be fine.