The Freelance Mum: A flexible career guide for better work-life balance. Annie Ridout

       Don’t burn out

      While it’s important to commit lots of time and energy to your freelance work, you will need to practise self-care, too. It’s very tiring being a mum, it’s very tiring working alongside motherhood, it’s very tiring setting up as a freelancer. But you might find it beneficial to re-frame what you consider a ‘break’ to be. For instance, I was invited to go on a mum and baby retreat in Hampshire recently. It was two days and a night of yoga, healthy food, massages and inspiring activities. It sounded heavenly, but my husband couldn’t take two days off work, and it landed on the two half-days my son was with the childminder so I’d have had to still pay her even if he came with me. Someone needed to collect my daughter from preschool. I had a book to write. So I said no.

      However, writing a book while continuing to run The Early Hour, write freelance articles and produce commercial copy takes up a lot of my energy. And as soon as I finish work, I’m on mum duty. I don’t get a break until they’re in bed. And then I open my laptop and work. So really, I don’t stop until I go to sleep. But what I’ve found is that stealing tiny pockets of time for myself makes it all bearable. For instance, I hop in a really hot bath five minutes before the kids to soak alone before adding cold water and pulling them in with me. I go for a 10-minute run in the morning. Once I’ve finished work in the evening, I read a novel for five minutes before lights out. This is my ‘me-time’. I’d love to have the massages and weekend spa retreats but it’s just not doable so I find time for myself in smaller, more manageable ways.

      BBC documentary presenter Cherry Healey is a single mother to her two kids, aged eight and four. She works three or four days a week, depending on where and what she’s filming, and they spend the weekend as a family. ‘What I really like is a Saturday with no plans,’ she says. ‘I’ll go out on a Friday after work if I’ve already missed kids’ bedtimes, and I’ll go for dinner, with my boyfriend, or go dancing. But Saturdays are about going to the park, iPads, lolling about. Doing the laundry. We very rarely go away for the weekend. Lazy weekends at home are important for my mental health. Sometimes I feel I should be doing more with the kids but one thing I’ve learned is that it’s the times I make loads of effort that they end up crying because I didn’t get them something from the shop. Keep it simple, and local.’