Many freelancers experience the pull of a sunny day, socializing over a coffee or watching a movie. It is one of the drawbacks in working for yourself, that sometimes you need to keep working to meet your deadlines but you just don’t feel like working. Even when you totally love your freelancing job, there will be times when occasionally your motivation seems to disappear.

Although any work situation can result in higher stress levels, many freelancers feel under a constant level of stress and pressure from running their own businesses. An element stress can be needed to help you focused but excessive stress can cause health issues such as insomnia and depression or other issues such as problems in relationships and irritability. Higher levels of stress can also result in you producing lower quality work at a slower rate.

As Neil Gaiman once said, there are three qualities the ideal collaborator has: he does great work, he does it fast and he’s always a pleasure to talk to. Still, none of us are perfect. That’s why in order to be a good collaborator, you need to only have two of these.