The Freelancer’s Dilemma: How to Avoid Mental Exhaustion to Stay Competitive & Creative

In a highly competitive global economy, innovation, creativity, and your business’s ability to differentiate itself through its ideas and products are essential for continued growth and profitability.

As a freelancer, information overload, 24/7 connectivity, constant interruptions from wherever you’re working, and email and text communication lead to overwhelming anxiety. Add in the fact you’re not in the office for the meetings or even the water cooler chat, and your insecurities and fears can take over - am I doing enough? Are they happy with my work? Am I and my work a good fit for this business?

All of this anxiety highjacks your time and mental resources resulting in scarcity. And when you experience scarcity of any kind—time or mental—you become absorbed by it. Your mind orients automatically toward an unfilled need.

The problem with mental scarcity is that it creates its own trap. It further perpetuates scarcity and reduces all components of our mental bandwidth—we are less insightful and less forward thinking; we have less mind to give to the dreaming about that next breakthrough idea—which are essential components of innovation.

If you want to support and nurture innovation in your work, it is time to start thinking about how to reduce mental scarcity and increase your mental bandwidth.

Here are three simple, yet powerful, ways to start.

DEVELOP ROUTINES FOR REGULAR TASKS

Develop a routine for common tasks so that your brain can automatically repeat it with minimal input by you. Once the routine is established, it is interpreted by your brain as a pattern. These patterns, through frequent use, become hardwired into your brain. And the more you use a pattern, the less attention you will need to pay to doing this task. Thus, freeing up mental bandwidth for ideation.

Consider developing routines for the following:

• Phone calls
• Opening documents
• Filing and saving documents
• Sorting and processing mail
• Making travel arrangements

AUTOMATE EMAIL PROCESSING

A lot of the work you do is virtual – over email, text or perhaps a project management app. Email processing consumes significant amounts of time and mental capacity. Reduce the time and mental drain by automating frequent email responses, by automating email follow up, by automating the prioritization of incoming messages, and by automatically filing reference materials.

Automate frequent email responses. Use a free text expander software app like FastFox for PC or Text Expander for Mac, or a more robust program like Witty Parrott. These will work in any program, including your email platform, and allow you to insert commonly used text with just a keyboard shortcut or by dragging and dropping text. No longer will you waste your mental energy thinking about what to say, nor precious time typing out a response: you will reply automatically within seconds.

Automate your email follow up. Automate your follow up by setting up and using the "waiting for" rule. Here’s how it works: when you send an email where you need a response from the recipient, cc yourself on that email. That email will then be automatically saved in a folder you have designated for all of your follow ups. As new messages are automatically added to this folder, the numeral indicating how many messages are in the folder will become bold. No longer will you spend time searching through sent messages or trying to remember if you have followed up on your open requests.

Automate the prioritization of incoming messages. The most important mental processes, such as prioritizing, often take the most effort and are energy intensive. Let your email program automatically prioritize incoming messages. Color code your incoming message by sender priority. For example, you might color code your manager red, your top clients in green and turn the messages where you are cc-ed to light gray. So, when you open your inbox, you can quickly scan them for the most urgent messages, those from your manager or key clients.

Automate the filing of reference materials. Automatically file all of your reference materials, trade publications, and industry news by writing a rule. For example, you might write a rule to file all of your trade publications in a folder named "Trade Publication Reading". Now, when you open your inbox, it will only contain email messages that require action by you and you won't waste precious time or mental energy sorting through messages you can read at a later date.

CULTIVATE JOY

Don’t forget the freedom of thought, time, and space that comes from working freelance. Great insights occur more frequently the more relaxed and happy you are. Take time during the workday to do something totally unrelated to work that brings you joy, makes you laugh, or just makes you smile. Spend some time on YouTube watching funny videos, call a friend, take a walk, or read for pure pleasure. It does not matter what it is as long as it brings you delight.

Don’t let mental scarcity rob you of your next big, bold, breakthrough idea. Support and nurture your creativity and impact by increasing your mental bandwidth, developing routines for regular tasks, automating email processing and cultivating joy.

What’s possible if… you shifted your thinking to “what impact can I make today?’ instead of “How much can I get done today?” Remember - you’re in the driver’s seat of your time, energy, attention, mental capacity – and impact. 

Carson Tate is the founder and principal of Working Simply, a management consultancy. Her new book, Work Simply, was published via Penguin Portfolio last year.