Friday, October 12, 2012

On freelancing and multi-jobbing


Elsa Billgren recently did this fantastic post on how she manages her work life as a freelancer. Elsa is definitely what I would call a scanner, she has so many different kind of jobs going on all the time that it sometimes seems hard to keep track.  So it was really interesting to see how she manages her daily work life, keeps her office, organises her ideas etc.  This girl really goes out and lives her dreams and I love that!

Recently, with the likes of a baby on the way especially, I have been trying to focus more on the direction that I want my career to take. Naturally just now as I should be thinking about how I am going to manage everything in the future, my work life has sprung into action!  I am getting more styling work (which I love, love, love), I'm working regularly at my little catering job (which I also really enjoy) and all sorts of other little opportunities keep springing up.  I'm trying to become a YES woman!  I don't want to let these opportunities slip between my fingers because I was too scared to take on the challenge.  This is making one thing very clear to me though, I am in desperate need of structure, time management, and most importantly self- discipline.  I remember somebody once telling me that as a freelancer (or anybody self employed) you need to set yourself very definite hours and you need to be WORKING during that time!  Even if you don't have any jobs on, you still need to be working on future ideas, invoicing clients, cold calling if necessary.  You basically need to constantly be working on generating more work!

I don't intend on becoming a full time stay at home parent (not that I have anything at all against people who do).  Because neither Nic or I work regular 9 -5 jobs we plan to try and juggle our job schedules so that one of us is always home with the kid(s).  That way I can hopefully work a couple of days a week and Nic gets to be a hands on dad.  I guess we'll see how these things pan out.  What I'm trying to say is that in order for these things to flow with any kind of success I need to organise myself very efficiently... and I need to start doing it now!  The first step is to spend this rainy Saturday afternoon sorting out my desktop, photos and documents.

Okay enough procrastinating!  I would love to hear how any of you other mamas juggle work/ children.  What has and hasn't worked for you?
xx

2 comments:

  1. Wow, I work a 9am-5pm that bores me silly, but I would LOVE to do what you do. If I could only pay my credit off... I should really do something about that.

    Do you know this is one of my fav blogs? I'm just catching up on any posts I've missed, now.

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    1. Awww you're so sweet, thank you so much :).
      As for the work thing... I have to say that I am pretty proud of the fact that I am not in debt at all and do manage to get my bills paid on time. On the other hand I have to practise pretty tight money management! I'm also lucky that we currently don't have to pay rent nor have a mortgage. Although I'm thinking that will change in the next couple of years!
      x

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