October 2009

It's been a while since I've posted a self-serving blog post about my freelancing career, so it's time to change that. 

I've been doing a lot of things right in my career lately, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I've been using social media to get jobs, following up on leads through Craigslist, Twitter and Facebook, staying on top of the leads I get and "closing the deal" as it were. In the same week, I stumbled into the Holy Grail of freelance jobs: CONSISTENT WORK. 

I've been trying to stick to a more normal schedule lately as well, trying to be at my desk and working by 8:30 or so. 

But, I've been making some mistakes too, and they're the ones I've been making since the beginning. I need to keep better boundaries between work time and play time, because all too often that line gets blurred and I find myself working all the time. I need to find the balance between not taking on more than I can chew, but still trying to find jobs while working on current ones. 

At the moment I may be in the "more than I can chew" territory. It all happened so quick, like an avalanche of websites if you can picture that. I find myself spending the majority of my "working hours" answering the phone, replying to email, drawing up contracts and proposals, and sending out invoices. Then my billable work starts at 7 or 8 at night. 

My weekends are usually the time I can play catch-up, but the weekends have been so booked lately I haven't had the chance. I'm thankful that this weekend I can buckle down and get things done. Also, my vacation is coming up! Of course, my vacation is simply camping out on the couch, throwing in a frozen pizza and watching as many horror movies in a 24 hour period as possible. It's my favorite day of the year, and it's coming up in about a week. The only problem I'll have this year is trying not to worry about work and money while I spend the day in the laziest way possible.