Freelancers: stop looking at office porn

Sitting in a cafe with my chai latte, laptop out and writing the best articles. That’s the dream, right? In reality, I’m writing to you from the sofa in sweatpants and from underneath a comfy blanket. What happened here?

We’ve all seen them, those Pinterest perfect workspaces. Squeaky clean white, super stylish and not a speck of dust on them. Colourful matching pens and stationery and everything seems to fit together somehow. You can get so discouraged looking at your own workspace. I know I did since my workspace (and my blanket!) don’t look anything like the Pinterest perfect images.

But then, why don’t I go out more and work from a cafe or another inspiring place?

The thing with freelancing is that its hard work, and most of the time it feels like hard work too. Sometimes you roll out of your bed straight to your laptop and eat lunch with your laptop too. I know that is wrong from a lot of different angles, but hear me out. When you’re working as a freelancer, the hustle is real. It can mean whether you eat or not that month, especially when you’re starting out. So it can feel very stressful in the beginning.

There are morning when I wake up and feel like every second I’m not working is ruining chances of success. Deep down, I know this is utter bullshit, but I can’t help but feel on edge. Feel like I have to make this work or else…

So that’s why it’s easier to let dust gather around you and throw on a pair of sweatpants. As much as I love looking at those office images, I don’t get where they find the time to create that perfect picture.

Freelancing for me, is bloody hard work and at the end of the day, all I want to do is go to sleep. Not fiddling around with my pens and trying to match them up.

It’s super easy to feel discouraged seeing those stunning images on Pinterest. Seeing all the cool offices that you aspire to work in. Or to keep dreaming about working in a cafe. But the hard truth is that unless you make money that is not going to happen. And that is okay too.

We as humans put so much pressure on ourselves to do it how we’re supposed to be doing. We only focus on that picture-perfect life (especially since social media). Because of that, we forget that we’re looking at an image that someone styled to look their best. We don’t know what it looks like at the end of their workday, or how often it gets cleaned. We need to remember that social media and the internet is a place where dirty laundry gets hidden. Highlight reels are the norm.

It’s time that we’re going to be more radically honest. More honest about all the things that are not as great as we like people to believe. And then maybe we stop worrying about writing rambling articles like these in our sweatpants.