When Your Safety Net Sets on Fire
Heading for the end of October, I realised my new year was looking dry, or more accurate desert-like. Both my current client contracts are due to end mid-December, which is great for my Christmas break, but less good for my bank balance/sanity come January. So, I’d started a more concerted effort to find…
When to Walk Away
In the same way that it’s important to listen when you have a good gut feeling about something, it’s also important to listen when you feel like the red flags are starting to surface. In the last couple of months I’d pursued a few new opportunities, and they looked like great ones– either…
How Not to Be an Employee
After being an employee for 15 years, it’s easy to get stuck in an employee mindset. But freelancing is a very, very different. You need to break out of old habits and set new boundaries. So, what’s different and how do you hold onto not being an employee? It’s a business arrangement First…
Where to Get Work
When people find out I’m a freelancer, one of the first questions every single time is where I get work from. And it makes sense, given I had no either before I started this journey. So, four months in now – where’s the work coming from? Free Freelance Platforms It was the first…
How to do CPD as a Freelancer
One thing I was determined to keep up as a freelancer, if not do more than I did in employment, is invest in my continuing professional development (CPD). But naturally one of the biggest changes is the lack of an organisation behind you providing the funds, and the paid time, to do anything….
Best Online Tools for Freelancers
To balance all the challenges that come with launching yourself into the freelancing world, there’s been a series of little joys along the way. Some of the stand-out ones are finding technology solutions that make life a little easier. So, this week, I wanted to showcase some of the platforms and tools I’ve…
First 90 Days (Actual)
Considering the first 90 days of any new role are heralded as a key period of bedding into a role and laying the foundations for future success, it’s a great opportunity to review progress, consider learnings and celebrate success. I’ve now been freelancing as my sole job for three months now and so,…
Lessons in Online Facilitation
This week I ran an online event for a charity’s board of trustees, supporting them to review how the landscape around them had changed and how they anticipate it will continue to change, in order to refresh their business plan. A typical nearly-post pandemic event, it was via Zoom as the most practical…
Balancing Contracts
The goal when I started this freelancer journey was to try and maintain a maximum three-day week, safeguarding the weekend as well as the two days with my daughter, wherever possible. The second challenge was to try and at least maintain the level of income I’d had in employment. What I’ve found is…
A Day in the Life
I’ve always wondered what working for yourself would be like – I probably had those fairy tale images a lot of people have about easy starts to the day, midday exercise, working in cafes and all this space to fit the extra bits of life into. The reality is a bit different, not…