I have seen a lot of new freelancers or even experienced one that cannot balance their work life and their family and their work. Okay, so this lecture is all about how to balance your life and your work, okay? Now the problem is that your work is mostly at your home. So it is very difficult for you to you know, make them both separate or sometimes give more time to your work and leave out your family matters and everything. So let's see how we can manage all this. Now the first question is that how much time we should allocate to work Okay, so the first thing I tell every Freelancer is that don't try to overwork yourself.

Don't try to use your muscles and your fingers for more than eight hours. Okay, if you ever get into any RSI injury, you will regret your whole life. Okay. I have been through multiple RSI injuries, it's my own life story. So every time I see a youngsters getting some pain back in their shoulders or maybe in the upper back or neck I always advise them okay, you need to manage your time okay? You need to take gaps if you ever get RSI injury, you will regret you your whole life.

Even my whole carrier was you know, shattered when I got RSI injuries for whole one year, I was not able to hold by computer mouse, okay. So take care about this. This is not very light issue, you should take it very serious. I normally recommend that you should not go over six hours work per day and try to take 15 minute gaps after each hour. Okay. Now to effectively manage your time, you can use pomodoro apps it's a technique where we have each task in divided into 25 minutes caps.

Okay, so there are a lot of pomodoro apps, you might find a lot of links of these in my resources to try to use them. Okay, now the main takeaway is that you should not go above eight hours and try to sleep at least eight hours and don't try to run after a lot of jobs or money you need to balance all these things. Now, the second question is that always First, set up your workstation for good posture and try to make your workstation setup more ergonomic. Now first of all, invest in these things, even if they cost you a little much okay. So first try to buy an ergonomic chair and level your chair and desk according to your best posture. Okay, so use mouse pads and mouse and keyboards that really relaxes your arms or your fingers, okay?

Don't try to get a very big mouse or don't try to buy a very small mouse. They are going to put strain on your hands. Second thing is that you need to level your eyes and monitor it is really going to put a lot of strain on your neck okay. So try to balance it that your head should not be tilted forward or move upward Okay, even while you are working, it is human nature or you can say muscle memory that we tend to, you know, move into a position which is not very good for our body or health, okay? So try to tell your wife or your friends or parents or whatever who is around that after 30 minutes, please check on me and see whether I'm sitting straight or I'm leaning forward on my computer desk or whatever. Okay, so make sure others are watching you after maybe 30 minutes or one hour, okay?

Try to take five minute gap after every 30 minutes of work, okay? So don't try to overuse your muscles. Even if you are somewhat in a bad posture. This will protect you Okay, so if you are in a bit little bit of bad posture and your head neck is started hurting start taking gaps in between your work it This can improve your productivity and even in the long run it can save your carriers Okay, so let me share a story of another designer I signed up for his weekly newsletter and then I received his newsletter with this picture and his message let me share with you you can see over here he got carpal tunnel syndrome and that is basically around his wrist. And for I think one two months he was unable to work at all okay, he's also a freelancer and he is also our designer.

And you can see now he is working like this. His whole hand is patched up and I don't recommend that you should work like this or you should ruin your carrier like this guy or like me, okay, so I used to work more than 10 hours, maybe 12 hours sometimes I slept on my desk, okay during my work hours, even at At night and in the in some time I used to play games with my work, okay, so it is like 16 hours sitting on a PC. So make sure you don't waste your time playing games. If you have some habit like that, try to minimize it maybe one hour or 30 or 30 minutes. That said, Don't play overuse your fingers or your wrists. Okay, your health is your first priority.

It should always be keep in mind that your health is your first priority. And then of course is your second priority and family you should balance those work, family and health. Okay, so take care of all these issue, move around, do some exercises of your shoulders and neck, okay, so you can find them a lot on online and maybe on YouTube, okay. Now something about freelance family time. The best part of freelancing is that you are always at your home with your kids, with your family or with your friends. The best part is that When you are at home you should always enjoy every moment of it okay?

So when you are not working you should always try to give a lot of time to your family. Okay, at least three four hours you should dedicate to your family go out with kids have some fun go to supermarket with them go to school with them. You can always have a flexible time schedule as you are a freelancer you can always move your time slot up or down or you don't have to worry about it okay, so work less hours give proper time to your family and don't try to get into any RSI injuries. If you want to know more about RS and G's you can email me or you can ask me questions I can recommend you what setup I'm using I still have got some RSI problems in my upper back in my shoulder blades. I got some trigger points. Okay.

So I searched a lot on this topic RSI injuries if you are facing some you can ask me questions on that. Okay, so this is all about working too much. I have seen a lot of freelancers who are ruining their health by just running after money or jobs. Okay, I have got hundred jobs in this month. Okay? No, the second part is that you are the second side or flipside of that is that you are ruining your health, okay?

So you are all losing the next one year, whole year income and also your health expenses. Okay, so you are losing a lot, okay. So balance your work and life and your health and keep doing some good freelancing. Okay, so, I'm going to end this over here and let's move on to the next lesson.