How Rest Time Helps Freelance Writers Create Better Client Content
Recently burning the candle at both ends? Me too. That's why we have to talk about how taking a break, especially over the last few weeks, helps improve your writing and adds value to your clients.
This livestream will focus on how resting and rejuvenation impacts your writing quality, how this adds value to your client work, why downtime is critical to growth, and how much time you need to decompress to move into a better writing future.
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How Rest Time Helps Freelance Writers Create Better Client Content
Are you being lazy by taking time off? Are you not getting ahead in your business or not getting ahead with your writing by taking time off? That's what this live stream is about. And we're gonna go over a couple really important things, um, to know as a freelance writer and to know if you're getting into content marketing, writing or content strategy, brand messaging, all the things that you would do as a freelance writer.
So as we're kind of going through these different things, hey, , uh, we're gonna talk about rest time and how that really benefits your client content, how that's gonna help you create better content and how that's gonna help you, um, really do an overall better job. There's a lot of these, um, , there's a lot of things that go along in the freelance writing community about, like, you need to market all the time, which you do.
You also need to take a break, . Um, and there's also, um, a bunch of things about like how people write, you know, like 40 articles a week or they end up working like 20 hours by writing all this content and working faster isn't really the solution to not getting rest, right? So even though people end up writing a ton of articles per week, that's how they work.
They work really quickly. And maybe that's not you. I know, I know that's not. Um, I don't work very fast. I actually work pretty slowly and I just feel like we need to talk about rest time and how it really impacts your client work and how that really changes between rest and like rejuvenation and all these things.
Hey Vicky. Ooh, yay. LinkedIn's post scheduler finally. Geez, even Instagram did it. . Hi Lil Vicky. I always like when Vicky shows up cuz she does the. Uh, but first, the first thing we're gonna do before we get into this is, um, we, I need to do a free coaching spin. So back in the day, a while back, um, when we had the course, I sent out a survey, right?
So like a survey, um, for if you are, um, why you didn't sign up for the course. My course is freelance right? Or Wealth Lab. And I'm always wondering when I send that out, like is it something in the course that you. Is it right for you or you feel like the course needs more stuff, um, or there's specific lessons you wish?
Uh, were in the course, so I always send out the survey just to see, um, if I can add or fix something in the course. But everybody who answered the survey gets a chance to win free coaching, and that's what we're gonna do today because now I have scheduled space to do that. First things first. We're gonna do the spin.
So can you guys see this? There we go. Oh, nope. There we go. So there's the wheel. It has all the names on it, and we're gonna spin and see who wins. Free coaching. So let me do the spin. Okay. It's spinning. It's spinning. We're gonna see who wins. All right. It should pop a name up. There we go. Suzanne Stavin.
Noha. So can we see that kind of on there? Like I know it's a little bit, there we go. Suzanne Stepha, you have one free coaching. I'm gonna email you, but it's on here. So I also wanted to say, um, that we do, and by we, I guess I mean me. Hello blanket friend, um, that I do free coaching wins all the time. So, um, right now I have a survey that goes out to my subscribers to see if I can create different types of content for them or different free and paved re resources or boot camps.
Um, and if you answer that, you get entered to win a free coaching session. So if you're a subscriber, you can go, actually, you can get my free pricing guide. So if you go to mandy ellis.com/pricing. , you can pick up my free pricing guide. It just went through an overhaul. Within the last year, I added a ton of new projects.
So you get that and you get added to biweekly tips and tricks, emails, and you get chances to win free coaching. So it's a free one hour coaching session. We can go over whatever you want, but it's a chance to kind of like move your business forward. Hi, woo. And we have our Woo friends here. All right, let's get our Woo friends in place.
All right. Hi. I like your high fives. Can you go back to your hub? Go back to your hobbit hole. Good job. All right. Lemme put your blanket on cuz I know you're a little chilly. All right, Barry. I love your little support duck. Here you go. All right, there. You ready? Good job. Oh my gosh. What? Gentle Bear. Oh, we should put his goggles on.
Bo has a pair of goggles that are made for dogs. They're called Rex Specs , and he has to wear them now because he has zero regard for his body when he is outside, so he can run his, he's been having eye problems, which if you've been watching this live stream, I'm sure you know all about that. Um, but he just runs into stuff all the time.
And, uh, here you go. And so he has to wear goggles, his goggles or his goggles for dogs outside so that he doesn't poke any of his eyeballs or ruin anything that's happening cuz his eyesight isn't great. Maybe we'll wear them next time. . All right, let's get to number one. Let's kind of get into our topic today.
1) How rest and rejuvenation impact your writing quality
Hold on. There we go. Number one. Okay, so number one here is we're gonna talk about the resting and rejuvenation part. Hey, Lisa. , um, what we're doing is thinking about the difference. So rest time is just straight up rest. It's just like sleep. It's loafing, it's watching movies. It's just like actual rest, downtime.
Okay. Maybe tech free time and then your rejuvenation part. This was something that I, um, picked up a while ago where I didn't really get it. Like people were like, you need rest and rejuvenation. I was like, that sounds like the same thing. Why are you telling. . So, so rest is like your physical downtime.
Like you're, you're not on your computer, you're not checking stuff, you're like doing other stuff like just loafing. We're playing board games or going for walks or just getting some more sleep. Your rejuvenation time is basically like filling up your cup. Okay. So it's like reading magazines that inspire you or it's, um, going to museums or it's something, um, that really fills up your creativity and really helps you kind of see different types of content or different types of ideas.
So your rest time is like letting your brain snooze, like putting your brain on s. . Then once you gather your rest time, right, and once you feel a lot better, cuz a lot of times we deal with burnout or we deal with just like overloading our schedules. Once you get your rest together, then you wanna start rejuvenation.
Then you wanna kind of get into like, okay, what were all those things I put off while I was working too much? What were some things that like I wanted to read or what were some books I wanted to. You know, under my belt or what were some like mini courses or um, emails. Like there's certain people that I follow their emails, right?
You get their newsletters all the time, and they just always have these great ideas or these great, um, strategies for business or for content writing. Catch up on those. So this is a really important distinction. First, sleep time, rest time. Second, fill up your creativity bank. Okay? Filling up your creativity.
Is all about what things inspire you to keep writing or what things inspire you to help your clients, like strategies or processes, um, or problem solving. Um, Or if you're catching up on podcast episodes or livestream episodes, um, or things that kind of help you be a better writer. So those are two separate things, and they're both important to creating better content for your clients.
One, you think better when you're rested, and two, you provide better content and better strategy and better ideas when you have filled up your cup and re kind of like, um, rejuvenated your creativity. So those are really, I. . Yeah, exactly what Vicky said. You can't use rest time for cool stuff. Rest time is like power down.
Rejuvenation time is for cool stuff. Like stuff that helps you write better stuff that helps you kind of like, um, feel like you're back to your sparkly self kind of stuff. So that's the first thing. Two. And we have a WOO machine over here who's grunting away. Yes. , would you like to say something to the team?
Would you like to comment on how I'm doing? Charlotte always gives me negative five stars on Yelp because I give not enough trios. Here you go, bud. Good job. Good job. Good job. Yes. . All right, so let's talk about two, number two here. So when we're doing our downtime, right, our downtime and our rest time, right?
2) How downtime adds value to your client work
So when I say downtime, I mean rest time and rejuvenation together these things are helping you, um, write better. So a lot of times when you get into rest time, so this is a, I'll give you a couple story time examples here. So for me, there have been. Where I have worked so much and I needed rest, like I was getting close to burnout or I was burnt out where like I couldn't remember what I wrote.
Okay. So I would write an article, submit it. My editor would give me something or my client would give me edits and I'd be like, Ugh, I don't even remember writing this. That's a big problem. That's a big problem. This was years ago when I was still trying to like learn how to put all my shit together. Um, and it was, I was really burned out at that point.
when you're thinking about writing quality, you don't wanna be in that place. You don't wanna be in that place where you're like, I don't remember writing this, or, I don't remember what it's about, or I don't remember. Like these specific things. And it takes you a lot long longer to edit. So when you get the rest time and the downtime and the rejuvenation, your quality improves because your brain is functioning better because now you've rested.
Now your brain can kind of like do its stuff right now. It can get back to operating at full capacity. The rejuvenation. has now populated your brain with more ideas. Um, you've read a lot better quality stuff. So for me, I'm always trying to find writers or columnists or, um, types of magazines or articles that I really feel like pushed me to learn new words or to learn better sentence structure or, um, To see things in a new and unique way.
So those things I can then apply to my client work. Um, and that is just huge. Like your clients oftentimes, especially if, um, if you're working a lot with business clients, they're not out trying to apply like the structure of like afar or like. , uh, Bon Appetit to like a tech business, right? Like the way this is, to me a really cool thing.
So whenever I see someone describe food, like to me that I just, I don't know, that's just something magical to me. Like I, the way that they can just like translate the experience of eating something I, it's just like blows my mind. So I obviously write about food and restaurants, right? So like that supplies my clients in food and restaurants, right?
So reading all that material helps me like, Make my descriptions better, but it also helps me describe things better to a different audience and in unique ways, right? If I can pull some, like cool words that talk about food and apply that to tech, right? Like it's tasty tech with, tasty wouldn't be a good word, but you know what I mean.
Like apply different words from different niches. To like other types of niches. It makes your work really unique and readable and it helps people think about things in a different way. That's really important. So these things go together. Your rest and rejuvenation connect to your writing quality. You have to keep feeding the little writing beast.
You're not going to become a better writer if you're not growing and learning and expanding your, basically your writer dictionary essentially. Yes. Hello? Did you wanna submit a. . I don't know if you guys can hear her, but she's over there making all these like ridiculous noises. Um, so these things are really important.
Your writing quality. Okay, so write this down. Your writing quality depends on your level of growth. Okay. So like, if I kept the writing quality I had in fifth grade when Mrs. Short taught me how to use a semicolon, which was like one of the biggest moments of my life, like learning how to use a semicolon was just like, it changed.
So if I kept that quality of writing from fifth grade to now, I wouldn't be here . Right? So your level of growth, the amount that you're willing to push yourself, the amount of material that you're willing to read in terms of quality, not just reading bulk material, but reading actually quality material that affects the quality that you can bring back to your clients.
And I'm telling you, after working in this , working as a freelance writer for 10 years and being a writer for much longer, Like there are industries where they just are insular, like they don't read anything outside their industry. So if you can read widely and read quality and start collecting more things, right, because oftentimes as reader or as writers, we are readers first.
Right? This is kind of how we start getting into it. You learn how to read and then you learn how to write, right? And learning how to read is like filling your brain with words and choices and structure and syntax and diction and all these things that you then apply to your work. So the more that you can read that and the more you can read, like the best stuff, like things that really, um, you can just tell like by reading it like, whoa, this person is like way ahead of me, right?
Like you can just read it and be like, I've never heard seven of those. I don't know how this sentence structure works. How did they get away with a four line sentence or like, you know, like that kind of stuff that teaches you how to apply that back to your, to your clients. Read more of that. That's really important.
Um, and it's, it's filling your writer dictionary. Yeah, , tasty Tech is, is good in like a, a short term way, but like, if I wanted to describe a product, like if I wanted to explain how to use a product, I'd probably use like really juicy food words, to do it. Um, yeah. It, there's like always these little things.
Yeah. Prepositions or semicolons. I always feel like there's something in your writer life like Holly. Me learning semicolons, there's always something that changes your life. So like the first thing that changed my life, like as a writer, and I'm sure you have the same thing, and this applies right to our rejuvenation.
The first thing that changed my life was the semicolon with Mrs. Short. The second thing was I had a sixth grade teacher. Um, her name wasn't Mrs. Lighthouse, but it was Mrs. Something like that. Um, and she, um, I just, she just like tore apart my grammar. I just remember that like, I forget her name right now.
Um, she , she always told me my grammar was just like, atrocious. So I decided in sixth grade, like they would always tell me like, your writing is good, but every, all, all of the functional aspects of your writing are just trash. . So I decided then , that was another pivotal moment to like, all right, cool, like let me work on this grammar part and then it'll improve my grades, but it'll also improve like my actual writing quality.
So that was another thing was like sixth grade I decided like I have to figure this grammar stuff out cuz it's like, like instead of getting an a, I would get like a B minus. Like it really tanked my grades. I had terrible grammar. Um, so I decided to fix it and. I think that's just like me getting that lesson in sixth grade.
That's a lesson that you can get at any time. And I also wanna point out, like, I still learn about grammar all the time. Like if you go to minion Fogerty, um, she's like the quick and dirty grammar tips girl. Love that stuff. Okay. That is an ongoing process of learning. It's just like when you start, so , I don't think her name was Mrs.
Lighthouse. It was Mrs. It started with an L. Um, I bet I could go Google. . But, um, yeah, Mrs. Short, well, Mrs. Short was best friends with Mrs. Robin. And Mrs. Robin was my regular teacher in fifth grade. And Mrs. Robin, um, uh, Was like your regular teacher. And then I went to Mrs. Short for like English in fifth grade.
So like we would trade classrooms. Okay. Back to back to the point, the point is writing quality matters. Your rejuvenation is filling your cup. This should be an ongoing thing, but when you're taking rest time, like I have magazines, like I'll pull 'em. I have 'em right here, right? So like, um, they have like post-its all over them , but um, so like, I collect these, right?
So like AAA Explorer, right? AAA Explorer, it's, um, a magazine you get as a AAA person, right? But these are, um, this is something I would like to be in someday. I haven't pitched them, like I've pitched 'em like once. Um, but they pay really well and it's really fun material. It's really great material. So I save these all the.
And I read through them to help improve my stuff. You can also use apps like there are apps like Xeno or, um, what was that other one? Uh, mag Stir. Um, there's a whole bunch of apps where you can pay like 10 bucks a month to get access to like all these magazines and all these subscriptions and you can read tons of back issues.
That is great too. , I know Mrs. Robin, Mrs. Short. Yeah. They were best friends. Um, Mrs. Robin passed away a while back. Ooh. 10, 15 years ago. But, um, they were best friends at school. Okay. , in any case, moving on. Um, okay, let's talk about number three, and we're gonna do a pup date, because I'm getting a lot of sass from my, my little friends over here.
Okay? You ready? Good job, Barry. All right, Charlie, gimme a high five. Good job. Other one. Good job. All right, we gotta fix your, Or else you're gonna be upset because you're gonna be cold. Good girl. Good girl. All right. Oh, find love on a dating site. We need to ban you. Goodbye, friend. Well, not really friend.
3) Why downtime is critical to growth
All right, here you go. Okay, cool. So, . Now we're gonna get back to three. So let's talk about three. So three. How much do, um, no, wait a minute. Boo boo, boo. Yeah. So downtime, critical to growth. Like how much do you need? So this is something that I read years ago and I'm hoping that it's, um, it's probably still relevant.
Um, but they did a study that said that you need at least nine days to, um, decompress from work. So if you go on a vacation, You need nine days to decompress, to actually rest. Okay, so this is something that's really important. And why? No, you have to go back to your hava hole. No, you have to go back to your hava hole.
Hold on to cough.
Hold on. We're having a hobbit vege.
Okay. Hopefully. Now settled. Here you go. One more. Here you go. Good job. Okay. Um, hoopla has a magazine binge pass. Okay, cool. Yeah, so Hoopla is another option to try. So you said you have a library card and gets hoopla. Is that a Canadian thing or an American thing or both? Um, cuz if you can get it with a library card, that's better than paying 10 bucks a month for another.
You have Libby. Okay, so Libby Hoopla. Xeno. Magister. There's a whole bunch, but there's plenty of opportunities to read. Lots of magazine issues. Okay, so downtime study. So there was a study that says you need, um, nine days to totally decompress. So what that means is like when you take a five day, like you take, you know, time.
You need to plan for that time multiple times a year. So you need at least more than nine days off, right? Nine days is like a weekend, five business days, and a weekend, right? That's nine. Yeah. . So when you're thinking about this, you said you think it's both. Okay? Yeah. So try Hoopla. Libby Mag Zeno for back issues.
Um, So when you take time off, this is when I plan my stuff to make sure that I'm getting like, multiple weeks throughout the year. Because if I just take a three day weekend, or if I just take like, um, you know, a holiday weekend, like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, that's not enough to decompress and you need times throughout the year to actually decompress.
And this study changed my life. I read it years ago and it changed the way I thought about my vacation cuz I was like, oh, it's just time off. Like as long as I get time off, everything's gonna be great. And it's just not the case. all time off is not created equal. Okay? This is one of the reasons why from December to January, I try to take off three to four weeks.
It just depends on like what my schedule is. Um, last year I took a month. This year I took about three weeks. Um, and I kind of spread out my client work. So like, um, I took three weeks and then I started a little bit of, um, I started client work up and then I started some other things up the week after that, which is today, this year, this week
But all time off is not created equal, so you need to have time off. That includes nine days at some point. And this is something that took me years to. Five business days is nothing in the course of the year. Okay. And this is how you get the time off. You have to plan it ahead of time. This is something that like, I hope I should probably, well, I should harp on my students more about this, but you need to plan your vacation time ahead of time.
Because a lot of times I get writers that are like, I'm always busy. I never have time off. Like I'm always accepting assignments. And that's because they don't plan far enough ahead. They're just like constantly in this churn of like, oh my God, I need money at work. Money at work, right? If you plan. You can put all your deadlines outside of the time off and you still get time off.
Right. And I'm telling you, like I, I kept thinking like, oh my God, a whole week of no work and no money. Yeah. Five business days is such a small amount of time. Throughout the entire year. Okay. And there's plenty of times where we all have had clients go on maternity leave, long vacations, two week vacations, they, um, go and do other stuff like all over.
Right. Like several years ago people were put on furlough. Um, it was a whole thing. So we have to remember that even if you took, like, let's say, let's take, say you took like six weeks of vacation off. Um, and most of those like are over the holidays where most people are off two weeks anyways. So let's say you take three weeks over the holidays.
Now you have three weeks over the rest of the year. Let's say you take off the whole week of Thanksgiving, which is basically mostly Monday and Tuesday, cuz a lot of people take Wednesday. Thursday for Thanksgiving, Friday off, right? So really that's only two business days, but we'll count it as five . Um, but that's another thing.
So now we're up to four weeks. Now we have two weeks to separate out. I usually take mine in March. So like I'll take a week off in March because that's usually kind of like a good, um, bubble zone for me to kind of split like my workup. So I'll take some in March and I'll take some in. So if you think about it that way, if I take the whole week of Thanksgiving, so one week I take three weeks at the holidays cuz most people take two and I take a bonus one, and now I have two weeks left for the rest of the year.
Right? Then it's only 10 business days because holiday time is when people are taking time off anyways. So now I have only 10 business days really to worry. , that's essentially nothing you have to take at least nine days off. Like I, I know that sometimes we can get away with a long weekend or we can get away with like, you know, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday or whatever.
But at some point, multiple times a year, you have to take nine days off to decompress and let yourself rest and rejuvenate. That's really important cuz the rest time could take 50 to 75% of those days and then you need to fill your cup. The rest. So we need to have that time off. That's really important.
Hello? Flu. Um, when you're kind of thinking about your downtime and all of this time off, right? We have nine days now. We actually have time to grow, right? We have time to kind of let our brain sink in all the less, excuse me, all the lessons that we learned, we are giving our brain time to just like melt away.
And then when we get to rejuvenation, we're filling our brain up with new ideas, right? So these pieces. Are actually really important. These downtime, vacations, or time off are really important to your growth as a writer. Your growth, just like letting your brain kind of absorb all the stuff that you've done for the past few months.
and really getting to the next level. So for me, when I think about the next level, like I need to have downtime so I can kind of review my calendar or look at all my appointments, like how many appointments was I averaging per week, or how many things do I need to drop and what things do I need to pick up?
Um, your downtime, I usually do this over the holidays. I didn't this year, but um, I'm gonna do it soon, like in January where you review all the stuff, like your projects, your clients, what are you getting paid, what are you working on, what do you wanna move? That's part of this time that's really important to growing your business.
If you don't slow down and you don't stop and review your business, you're gonna be one of those writers who gets stuck in the plateau. I've seen this a ton of times. People are like, I've been making 30 to 50 K for like 10 years. It's because they never stop and slow down and review their business.
They're always like, oh, working money, working money. Like they're not actually analyzing like, how do I actually get to the next level? Or what types of things are bringing me. Or what types of clients, you know, do I need to trade out for other clients? Or what types of things do I need to work on? You need to have uhoh.
We have a lost snack. Did you get it? Good job. You need to have time to actually go through all that analysis. It's really important. Um, and the time that people just like don't do that. It just really is hurting your business growth, your writing growth, your client growth, income growth, all that stuff. So that's three.
4) How much rest time freelance writers need to decompress to move into a better writing future
Let's talk about four. All. Boo boo, boo boo. Um, 1, 2, 3, 4. Yeah. So when we're decompressing, right, when we have our time and we're moving into a better writing future, right? We are making sure that we're taking, um, taking those nine days, multiple times a year, right? And it's literally just 10 business days.
Weekends are free, right? Those things are really important to just like, The decompression part, but also learning about a bunch of different things that you didn't know. Like whenever I analyze my year or I go back, there's always a bunch of stuff that I missed. Tons of things, dozens of things where I'm like, oh, well that, that week, you know, I had 20 appointments, but I, you know, most of the year I'm averaging 10 appointments per week, which you know, is a lot.
And I need to kind of decrease that by doing this. Like there's a whole bunch of things where when you're getting through your day-to-day schedule, , you miss out on all of these important kind of trends and factors. So, um, one of the things you need to look at is like deadlines. Are you putting them too close together?
Are you making it so that you're rushing around all the time? Are you making your clients' problems, your problems, right? A lot of these are hidden lessons that we get at the end of the year or we get as we analyze our business. So when you're looking back through, during your rest time or like you're looking through your content, this is something that I think is really important.
Read back through the content that you have from the last year, like pick some things. There's sometimes where like you've written, you know, 30 blog posts for a client. You don't need to read all 30, read like the last four or five, but read back through your content. Is your content getting better or worse?
Is your content looking like it's more of a fit for the client? , uh, are you moving into the types of content that you wanna write about? And if not, why? Like, do you need to take a class? Do you need to, um, understand more about that type of content? Do you need to understand what types of clients need that content?
There's a whole bunch of different pieces there when we're going through the motions, right? Completing deadlines. Complete, complete, complete. We just missed all of these really important gold nuggets along the way. So, hello, you're stepping on my foot. Back up. Go back to your haba hole. I already put you in your haba hole before.
Okay, sit. Good job. All right. Sometimes we have a sassy hobbit hole escapee. Um, when you're kind of going through the motions and you're on the hamster wheel, you just miss all of these really important trends and things. . So make sure that you're spending your downtime and you are decompressing so that you can look at your past year objectively.
We're not looking at the past year to beat ourselves up, and we're not looking at the past year to be like, wow, I did a really shitty job. , we're looking for opportunities to do better. That's it. We're, we're looking at it non-judgmentally in. , um, about how can we do better in the coming year or the coming six months or the coming three months.
Like how can we kind of balance this better or how can we work on, um, you know, getting some time to read more material to, uh, write better? Or how can we learn more about our niche or are there different opportunities that we missed cuz we were too busy, like there were conferences we wanted to attend or there were, uh, things that we wanted to do.
Listen to a specific podcast in our niche, and we missed a ton of episodes because we're doing X, Y, Z projects. , you have to go back and look objectively at all that stuff. We're not trying to like look for opportunities to say like, look, you're a shitty person, , or You're a shitty writer. We're looking for opportunities for growth, or things that we can pick up on that are like, this really isn't working for me.
There's a lot of times when I end up doing these analyses where I realize like, this isn't working for me. Like, as much as I love doing this, or maybe I realize I, I hate it more than I thought. You have to look for that and say like, all right, how do I kind of adjust? How do I make changes for the future?
How do I kind. , um, get myself to a new or different level by altering. and like it's really easy to just get swept up in the day-to-day. It's really easy to get swept up in, like, I have to do marketing and send invoices and meet my deadlines and find clients and do this thing and pay my bills and blah, walk the dogs and blah, blah, blah.
It's really easy to get swept up in that, but you need downtime to not only create better content, but you need it so that you can look at holistically how you're running your business so that you can run it better. This is one of those things that I get asked a lot, and this was something that came up in the survey.
Is, um, and we've talked about this before, but I'm gonna write it, I'm gonna put it on my little whiteboard, so hold on. So people ask me like all the time, like, how do you do it all? And it's like, I don't , I don't do it all. I don't, but what I do do is these analysis, um, these yearly analysis with my, um, with my, hold on, with my business.
Okay? So it's like this, right? It's like that diagram that you see from like economic things. So when I first started, there we go. When I first started, right? I'm over here. All of my projects and all the stuff I'm doing in my freelance writing business, it takes all of my time. It takes all of it. It's really high up there.
It's a big pain in the butt. Um, and I'm learning, right? I'm learning how to do all this stuff, right? But as I get more familiar with freelance writing and clients and marketing and I automate some things, and I systematize and process, Now running my freelance business takes, you know, not very, very much time.
So like, let's say it's half my time, 50% of my time is running my freelance writing business. And the other 50% of my time could be expanding my freelance writing business if I chose to do that. But I didn't. I chose to create a course and a community, um, and coaching and all this stuff for freelance writers.
That's something that is really, um, a big, like a big thing for me, a big passion of mine. I hate saying passion cause everybody. But it's a, it's something that's really important to me. So I can do that because I've gotten through the shitty part where all of my time used to be in my freelance writing business, and now my time can be split between different stuff.
I've just chosen to run other things, right. Um, I know I always do this thing wrong, but you guys get it. Like it all, it takes all my time or whatever it is. I'm not good with this. This is why I'm not in economics. But you guys get it, right? So let's, okay, let's see if I can fluid it. . This is why I did really bad with these kind of things.
Like I know the principle and I understand how it works, but I'm not good at diagrams or things like that. I'm good at explaining like what I'm trying to tell you. But you guys get it. Okay, let's see if we fix this . So all my time, right? So now let's say my freelance business. Um, I only know that my freelance business takes 50% of my time because I'm constantly analyzing it during my downtime, right?
I'm constantly analyzing it. I'm know. I know what's going on. I know what I'm spending my time on. I know what things are taking up all my space. I know how much mental energy I need to devote to certain projects and what types of things I need to do for my students. Like this is, I know Margaret's like laughing at me with my stupid diagrams.
Um, but this is like the idea, right? It's not that I do it all, like you guys will notice like, well, maybe you won't. But I didn't really post on social media for the last month because I've been taking time off. I don't do it all. I stopped doing it stuff and I preschedule things as much as possible. So, for example, I preschedule invoices in DOA to send so that I don't have to pay, do that all the time.
Like they send on the dates that we agreed on. And then, um, I preschedule a ton of stuff with my students, like the course is created so I have a drip for it. So like all the stuff gets dripped out on the weekly schedule for Freelance Writer Wealth Lab over the 10 weeks of the course. So that stuff is prescheduled, and if they need me to make another video, I have time to do that because everything else has been created.
Eventually I will go back and redo the whole course and freshen it up and whatnot. Um, but I'm not at that point. The other thing too is like managing the community, right? Managing our Wealth lab community. It doesn't take much time because these are questions I've seen thousands of times. Like I've answered these things so much that like I don't even really have to think about it that much.
I just start typing, do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like the way that it seems like I'm doing all this stuff is because I already followed the principle of analyzing things, right? And because I've automated, because I've done things a thousand. , I've written so many blog posts, right? Like I don't need to think about it as much, but when you're newer to freelance writing or you're kind of in like the one to three year mark and you're still trying to like get all your processes as and systems all, all over the place and, um, you're still trying to like get everything set up, um, when you like, when you're trying to do it on your own.
Right? I know. I hear. , um, that time, right? Like I'm, I've been doing this for long enough that I've already set up all these things to do it for me, right? And then also, so I get to focus my time on actual writing, and then I get through emails, which is like a pain every day. Like I have to do a lot of emails every day.
but most of the other stuff, I try to, like all my social media stuff, I schedule it ahead of time. I make sure that I have certain times of day set up for my writing projects so I know what my schedule is. I also have a tracker now for like how many free hours I have during the day when I don't have appointments.
So like, is it two hours or eight hours? Like, do I have appointments all day or do I have no. That also helps me schedule when I need to get my client work done. And then I also schedule like, how much brain space do I need for my students? Like, do I need a ton of brain space to review something or to do something in the community?
Or is it something where like I have several um, questions or comments or things that people need and it doesn't take much time so I can do it. At the end of the day, there's all these different things that you learn in your business. Like when do you write your best work? When are you good for like kind of.
Repetitive tasks. When are you good at these things? That's how it works, is like you just have to get to this point. Like you have to get through the shitty part, right? You have to get through the shitty part of like everything takes all your time, everything. Then you eventually are like, okay. The writing doesn't take as much time.
And then now the systems don't take as much time and then the marketing doesn't take as much time. And then, and then. And then, and then, right. So, oops, I went the wrong way. But you get it. So like as we're doing this, right, everything when you're kind of setting it up takes forever, but then you get into this kind of well-oiled machine situation where then you have more time to do other stuff, or you have more.
um, to, like, this is how writers end up working 20 hours a week, right? Is they, um, don't have, like, they either write really fast or they get their work done in half their time and then they can go off and do whatever. So I'm not, I'm good at like diagrams. Yeah, I'm only good at diagrams in terms of like explaining what, I mean, the diagram itself I don't think is actually good , but I think what I'm explaining for the diagram is decent
Um, yeah. You wanna figure out the Yeah, exactly. Is the rhythm and flow of your own business. Like I'm telling you what's in my business and what works for me and what I'm working. But that could be very different than your own business. And like I said, like I'm a kind of a slow writer. Like it's something where I know that a project of mine, like something could take me two hours to write it or it could take me eight or 10 or 12 hours to write it.
Um, and I know that I need at least a three day process. Like I know when I'm creating something, I need one day to outline it and get the research done. I need one day to write it and one day to. And it doesn't mean three eight hour days. It means I need to separate those by like t going to sleep. Like I need my brain to like absorb and refresh in between those processes.
Like I know some writers are like researching writing and editing in one day and they send it in. That is not me. . That is not me. Um, yeah, the time, the access, um, what's Katie Porter? I don't know what Katie Porter. I know who Marie Condo is, . Um, but in any case, when we're thinking about these things, the reason that I can get things done is because I manage my time.
And the reason that I manage my time so well is because I spend my rest time and my downtime analyzing my business and making sure that I'm doing all these things and changing the things that suck and changing the things that I. And actually giving myself the brain space to non-judgmentally review my stuff.
Okay. That's really important. You have to do it. It's not just sleeping, it's not just reading magazines, but you also have to analyze your business and see where you can make some changes. Okay. I don't know who that is. I'm not good with politics. . I'm not good with politics at all, so I'm just gonna say, Marie Coning, if it doesn't bring you joy, cut it out.
I know you're willing. Do you wanna say hello to everybody? You wanna come up and say hello? Come here. Oh, she says no. She says don't pick me up. All right, let's do a update cuz you're being sassy. Oh, okay. So she's a whiteboard. I like the whiteboard. I feel like it's effective. All right, Charlie? Yeah. Yeah.
Back to your hobbit hole, Charlie. Hot hole.
Good job. All right. Can you be my pet? Good girl. Other one. Ah, otherwise, good job. . Oh my goodness. You're drooling quite ferociously. Yeah, that's, yeah. That's a . That would be my slogan. Change the things that suck. Yep. High five. Other one. Other one. Other one. Other one. Good job. All right. Okay. So I hope that this has been helpful.
Um, and I hope that it's kind of helped you see the difference between rest, time, rejuvenation, how it's going to help you manage, um, your schedule, how it's helping you create better content for your clients, how much time you actually need off multiple times a year. Like, I'm not saying, you know, don't take a four day weekend here and there and Don.
You know, government holidays or whatever off, which you definitely should take all government holidays off. I remember when I didn't take any government holidays off and it was a nightmare. So make sure you take government holidays off and work in at least two other times a year where you can take a week off.
It is such a small period of time. Just make sure that you schedule it ahead of time. It's a lot easier. The whiteboard's amazing. I did Holly, um, Holly sent me that other. , that's like not as shiny. And I'm thinking about getting that, um, , when will I make t-shirts? I don't know. Maybe that's part of my 2023 plan is I'll make t-shirts for everybody and then, and then we will, we'll call 'em Woo Patrol, right?
Do you wanna be part of the Woo Patrol? She's like, I don't know. She's like, leave me alone . She's like, just gimme the treats. So I hope that this was helpful for everybody. Um, I hope that you guys learned a bunch about reviewing things, writing quality, doing good stuff for. Um, and we're here every Friday.
We do a live stream every Friday. Sometimes I take time off, obviously based on this live stream. Um, but we do it every Friday at Noon Central. You can pick up my free pricing guide here, so if you go to mandy ellis.com/pricing guide, you can pick up my free pricing guide. Um, I just redid it within the last year, so it has a ton more.
And when you sign up for my free pricing guide, you get my weekly tips and tricks email. So beyond just these live streams, I also send, um, tips and tricks. E um, a tips and tricks email every Monday. So, uh, let's see. Oh, and you can always ask a question, so if you ever have a question that you want me to answer on the livestream, just go to ellis.com/question, put it in there and, uh, we can do a topic or a question.
You can pop it in there. All right, hope this was helpful, . ? Yeah. Oh, good. Margaret says she's gonna take time off every quarter. Good job. I think you should do that. I think you should. I just don't, I mean, I think you should do that. I'm totally in agreement with that, . All right. I hope everybody has a good Friday and a good weekend, and I will see you next Friday at noon.
It's noon central time. All right. Bye.
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