I wonder if everyone shares the same fear starting out – that the work suddenly dries up? That even if you’ve been successful for months, or even years, that at some point, some day, you face the abyss. With a mortgage payment looming, a nursery bill in your inbox and a red warning…
Tag: Charity
Taking Someone Else On
I’ve started the new year with an interesting conundrum. When, or even if, is it right to take someone else on? Are there ways of partnership, collaboration, subcontracting or just plain asking for help when you’ve got more work than you need? I can’t believe I’m saying that it out loud, but I…
When You Miss the Mark
One of the things I’ve been dreading the most happened this week – I missed the mark. I submitted some work, and it wasn’t right. I’ve never been great at dealing with negative feedback. I have a tendency to take it personally and then spend a lot of time overthinking it. It was…
Overcommitted
So. I admit it. I’ve done it. I’ve overcommitted myself, and its uncomfortable. I now have almost exactly the number of hours contracted work as I have hours available to work. Perfect, right? Wrong! Work doesn’t stay in neat little day boxes, tasks don’t always finish on time and no breathing space means…
Freelancing in a Fug
In the standard rotation that comes having small children, we enjoyed a few solid healthy, productive weeks then we suddenly all came down with the germs again this week. It’s hard deciding whether its better to have a poorly child, so that at least you’re well enough to work where you can around…
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….