Self-Employment – Page 11

March 17, 2014Self-Employment Writing

Leash training, freelancing and the art of improvisation

At 10am today, I was congratulating myself for being so on top of things on a Monday morning. Just two hours in, I had one task nearly done, and the rest so carefully planned that I was already reveling in my success. Wee! I’m the best at this!

It’s now 1pm, and, like many Mondays, nothing has gone according to my brilliant plans and I’m failing at everything. Don’t feel too sad for me. This happens all the time, and I (nearly) always pull it all off anyway. That’s what freelancing is: working without a net. Building a parachute on the way down.

March 13, 2014General Life Whatnot Self-Employment

Something Right

Bad decisions seem to travel in packs. Staying up too late to read. Turning off the alarm and sleeping in. Starting work late. Not responding to emails promptly. Ugh. I’m blaming it on the time change. So at least I can trace the inciting bad decision back to Benjamin Franklin. Thanks, Benji.

Eventually the cycle will stop and my ratio of poor decisions to logical ones will start tipping in the right direction. I think. I hope. But here’s something to think about until then:

During the guest lecture Mike and I recently gave at Western Michigan University, I skipped out for a minute to use the bathroom while Mike was speaking. He was giving the students an overview of his cover gigs, and I could hear him play a bit of Drake’s song, “Hold On, We’re Going Home” from the hallway.

As I walked back in he was saying, “You might have noticed I changed the last line of the chorus from ‘I know exactly who you could be’ because, I mean, come on, Drake. Who are you to tell a woman who she should be?”

So I did that right. I married that guy. I can probably manage to replicate that kind of decision making this week. (There’s 1.5 more days to this week left. I can do it.)

March 7, 2014March 7, 2014Self-Employment Writing

Irrational Job Envy: A freelancer’s dilemma

Seventeen.

That’s how many jobs I racked up in my journey to full-time freelancing. At least, that’s how many I can remember at the moment. From the age of 16 to 28, I was nearly constantly in a cycle of becoming dissatisfied with a job, looking for a new one, interviewing, getting hired, loving the new job, doing the best I could there, realizing it wasn’t quite right, becoming dissatisfied with it, etc., etc.