Sneakoffproofitis
There's a great chapter in the book, The Art of Gig that describes the phenomenon of "sneakoffproofitis."
---
"The problem is, as a free agent, you are your own boss, and you’re likely a bad boss, unable to relax, and driven by fretful anxiety about lining up the next gig. That would be bad enough, except that you’re also an omniscient bad boss. You know all your own tricks and nothing is hidden from you. You can’t sneak away from yourself. You have sneakoffproofitis.
Here’s what sneakoffproofitis looks like. Your bank balance looks healthy for the moment. You have enough work lined up so the cash flow looks good for the next few months. You’ve only committed a modest fraction of your hours—say ten a week—to deliver that work. You’re temporarily cash rich and time rich. It’s a sweet situation, right? So why is it so hard to take your time/money surplus and do something interesting with it?
The thing is, fun things are only fun when you sneak off from things that feel like work to do them. There is a certain creative freedom that is unleashed when you’re using up free time that feels like it is stolen from commitments towards necessary work. The courage demanded by the time theft fuels boldness in the sneak-off activity. This is funny because the idea of time theft is only well-defined for robotic labor where you are paid to execute a production algorithm, with a clear relationship between time and output. It is incoherent when applied to knowledge work where there is only a weak correlation between time spent at work and the quality/quantity of output."
Rao, Venkatesh; Witherell, Grace. The Art of Gig, Volume 1: Foundations
---
It's funny that as soon as you have some actual ability to take time off to do fun stuff as a 1099, you don't actually take it.
We've become so conditioned by the oppositional relationship to a boss or employer that we don't know what to do when that relationship is gone.
As a solo 1099 in the government world though, you probably have what looks like a full time job, so you can still trick yourself into thinking that you are stealing time or reveling in some sort of way.
I recommend taking the random Wednesday off or bugging out early on Friday to take a nap.
It may seem silly but it's a small way to enjoy the new work setup you've created for yourself.
You'll get more comfortable with "stealing" time for yourself and be able to focus on more meaningful projects than napping (if you so choose).
So beware of sneakoffproofitis, particularly if you are an anxious ambitious type.
Want the full playbook? Check out Going 1099.