To make your solopreneur career worth it, keeping your time in check is essential. Following some of the principles we mention will help you stay away from burnout and make your work effective. Also, not all work you'll have to do is equal - and paid.
Solopreneur trap - always working
Building your own thing feels very rewarding, and you can find yourself counting your working hours much more freely than you used to do back in your employee days. Ultimately, you're doing it all for yourself, not your employer. This is a common trap solopreneurs fall into - simply put, they are overworked and have a very bad work-life balance. It's made even more attractive by another feature of solopreneur life - working from home. Having the flexibility of deciding when to do the work is a privilege that can easily become a curse.
Solopreneurs who fell into it usually have a common denominator - splitting the work. It looks something like this:
8:00 am - 10:00 am - work
10:00 am - 11:00 - personal stuff
11:00 am - 12:30 pm - work
12:30 pm - 2 pm - personal stuff
2 pm - 5 pm - work
5 pm - 6 pm - personal stuff
6 pm - 7:30 pm - work
The problem is that most people can only partially switch off from work during their personal time between these work stints. So instead of working 8 hours, it's not too much of a stretch to say they were working - or at least being in the working mode - for 11.5 hours. The line between personal life and work can get very thin or become almost non-existent. Employees with office jobs are well protected from this - when they're at work, there's not much they can do apart from working. When they're done for the day, they're done.
Constantly stopping and restarting your work also means your focus is all over the place, and it's very easy to get distracted. Everybody knows it takes a while to fully immerse yourself in the work - when you have to do that four times a day instead of 1 or 2, it takes its toll on your productivity. Working 3 hours straight is much better than working three times for an hour with some breaks. Aim for one break if you don't want to go for eight without stopping, but we don't recommend going beyond that.
💡 Keep in mind
Everybody is different, and some people will thrive on this schedule. We just want to point out the risk.
Managing your bookings
Try to establish some kind of structure for your workday and workweek as soon as possible. It will help you keep your work organized, effectively use your time, and plan your life outside of work.
We recommend using Flowlance to manage your bookings. Our service lets clients book sessions during available time slots in your calendar (coming soon). You can pick and choose the available time slots yourself. Session packages are integrated, too - Flowlance will count the number of sessions each client has left from the purchased package. It's a much better solution than going back and forth with each client about the time and date of every session.
💡 Keep in mind
The more repeat sessions you have, the more stable your calendar structure will be - these sessions can be scheduled for the same time every week.
Acquiring clients and building your brand
Not all the work that you do will be billable, though. As a solopreneur, you will likely have to spend some time acquiring clients and building your brand. This is especially true at the beginning of your career. Later on, you may have a client base large enough to fill a good part of your calendar, referrals they will send your way will fill the other part, and a reputation will help you fill out the rest. Depending on your expertise, industry, and especially ambition, you can then be content with where you are or keep going for more attractive clients and projects.
From the long term point of view, it's much more beneficial to build your brand rather than depend on active outreach to gain clients. The strength of your brand and your content will work for you day and night while reaching out to potential clients requires a lot of time and has very limited long-term benefits.
A competitive industry and no reputation can force you to spend most of your time building your brand and doing client acquisition early on. The ratio should start shifting more towards the billed work as you progress - once you get the ball rolling, new clients will come from word of mouth and positive references from your former clients. We'll cover this more closely in the following lessons, along with tips on what to do instead of cold-calling yourself to death.
💡 Keep in mind
If you'd like to become an influencer or establish passive income streams, building your personal brand and social media presence will be necessary even if you can get clients without it.
Administration
Some things will have to be handled by your accountant or lawyer, but you still have to take care of the more trivial daily tasks, which can become very time-consuming if you approach them incorrectly. The golden rule here is to keep everything organized and ideally in one place - as you'll start having more clients and sessions, it can easily become a mess. We've already mentioned that Flowlance can help you automate the booking process - it can automate and simplify your administrative tasks, too.
Instead of manually looking up how much time you spent with each client and filling in the client's invoicing details, invoice by invoice, you can generate and send the invoices with two clicks and then manage their status (sent, paid, overdue). Flowlance will also give you a beautiful overview of your solopreneur business performance, which can be appreciated even by your accountant.
Remember
👉 You'll have to put some effort into keeping your work and private lives separate.
👉 Don't split your workday into too many parts - it will feel like you're always working.
👉 Splitting your workday will also make it harder for you to focus.
👉 Not all work that you do will be billable - you have to build your brand and take care of administration, too.
👉 Building your brand is much more beneficial in the long term than active outreach.
👉 Flowlance can help you keep Administration time to a minimum.
Homework
1️⃣ Set times when you'll work - and when you won't.
2️⃣ Decide whether you'll accept sessions for late hours.
3️⃣ Think about what your ideal workday and workweek look like.
4️⃣ Think about how much time you'd like to spend building your brand and whether you'd like to become an influencer at some point.
👏 Keep shining bright!
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