It's Andy Fish!

I’ve been in Freelance since 1998– that’s a long time. I take far fewer vacation days as a freelancer than I did back when I had a “real” job.

The Freelancers Union (good ol’ FU) says its very important to take a vacation– and I agree. It’s good to recharge your batteries- we can’t work all the time.

However let me tell you about my little brother– he’s been working freelance translation in Japan for a number of years, not as many as I’ve been a freelancer, but enough that he knows the struggles of finding clients, of keeping clients and worse, losing clients.

Speaking of Japan- about 15 years ago I went there for 3.5 weeks, and I did as all good Freelancers are supposed to do– I let me clients know I’d be away on vacation for quite some time.

Full disclosure, I brought a laptop and I worked a little bit at night– maybe 20% of my normal workload. A good chunk of clients understood the concept of my being a way, and just as many would shoot me an email with “are you back yet” in the content in some manner.

I’m not going to lie, it cost me some clients, and worse it cost me some gigs that would have been year makers, so is it any wonder that I’m hesitant to take such a long vacation again?

So what do you do?

Well, for one, open a separate bank account that you can toss some money into soley as a vacation fund. You won’t feel like you’re taking money ear-marked for bills when it come time to pony up for that trip.

Try a small vacation first– a long weekend, five days, or a week, and see how that plays out. If there is no damage to your work flow maybe next time you can extend it just a bit more.

Most of all, if you’ve got freelance friends who can pick up some of your clients while you’re gone (and you trust that they’ll ive them back) that’s the best possible option.

Regardless, take some time off. Working yourself to death isn’t a good option.