Should Freelancers Work on Vacation?

Advice about Should Freelancers Work on Vacation is more actionable when workload and working hours can be reviewed without treating activity data as a measure of personal worth. this practical guide can provide a structured work record for that conversation, and guidance from World Health Organization adds broader wellbeing context. Use the information to adjust scope and capacity, not to reward constant availability or remove necessary breaks.

This is a topic I give a lot of thought to. And as several of my clients might point out, I should, because I tend to take a lot of vacations. In an average year, I might spend two or more months sitting on a beach in Mexico, writing from a country home in England, or just enjoying the mountains of Colorado. And, over the course of my freelance life I’ve been to Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean.

Along the way, my vacations have gotten to be longer and more frequent. So, it’s probably not surprising that my feelings on “working vacations and “definitely NOT working vacations” have changed.

Before I tell you what I do, let’s break down the arguments for and against:

You Shouldn’t Work on Vacation Because It’s a Vacation

Hard to argue with that logic, right? One of the reasons we work so hard during the year is to spend some time by ourselves, or with our families, away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Getting some time away and forgetting about your work or problems isn’t just healthy, but necessary.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that, for creative freelancers, it’s even more important to give your brain a break from time to time because burnout (and the accompanying decline in creativity and productivity) is a distinct risk if you’re burning the candle at both ends.

You Should Work on Vacation Because You Need To

For the first few years of my professional writing career, taking several days off wasn’t much of an option. Even if I hadn’t needed the money (and trust me, I did), the idea of baking away on a beach and leaving my clients waiting – and tempting them to try new writers in the process – wasn’t that appealing. When I wasn’t working I was thinking about it, anyway, so complete relaxation wasn’t much of an option, vacation or no.

Freelancers don’t just miss out on paid vacation time (if you’re not working or not billing), but we don’t have others to cover for us, either. That means our work either goes to someone else who would love to steal our clients and paychecks, or it piles up so we can be stressed out when we return. Where’s the fun in that?

My Middle-of-the-Road Solution

So, what’s the perfect answer for freelancers who want to know whether or not they should work on vacation? I’m not sure I have one, but I do have a system that works for me.

Here’s how I handle it: For short trips (like a weekend journey to the mountains) I almost always tuck my laptop away and forget it’s there. The time I spend with my family, unwinding and having fun, is important to my mental health. We only get so many days to walk the earth, and I don’t want to waste every one of them staring at a computer screen.

For longer trips, though, I usually take off the first couple of days and then jump back in with a few hours each morning. I certainly wouldn’t have to, of course, but my clients appreciate not having to work around my admittedly bizarre calendar, I keep making a little bit of money, and nothing that’s going to be urgent or taxing is waiting for me when I come back home.

One other thing to note is that, in my experience anyway, taking too long away from your work isn’t always a good thing. I certainly enjoy what I do, and it’s fair to say that I miss it if I don’t write for more than a week or so. More to the point, however, is that it’s actually difficult for me to jump back into a regular writing schedule if I haven’t been practicing my craft. While my mind might be fresh, my skills certainly aren’t.

And finally, I have found that I actually do some of my best work on vacation anyway. After the first few days, my focus is a bit sharper and I actually feel like attacking a new challenge. How long it takes for me to get to that point usually depends on how stressed out I was before I left home.

So, that’s my answer to the working freelancer’s vacation conundrum. How do you handle your workload away from the office? Let me know in the comments below!