The Freelance Chronicles #3

Three months in and everything is humming! I have managed to secure a handful of new clients, which I am so excited about, and now during any given day I’m subediting, writing, publishing, planning a month’s worth of social media, interviewing interesting people, plus I’m even doing a bit of basic design work, which is something I never thought I’d be doing!

One of the challenges for me over the last month was putting my boundaries in place. I’m such a yes person. I love making people happy and doing ‘the impossible’. However, I also value my own health and wellbeing, and only three months in I knew I wasn’t working as mindfully as I should be. So, I set up a whiteboard of everything I have going on, figured out what was bringing the most stress into my life for little reward, and had to put up my boundaries in those areas.

I do have a lot to work on this month in terms of getting organised. In the early days I could count the tasks I needed to do each day on one hand, but this has increased hugely now, and my hands and feet just don’t cut the mustard any more. I’ve got spreadsheets, diaries, Google calendars, and more, but really I just want one location for everything. So that’s going to be one of February’s missions.

I’ve also decided I need to invest in some sort of social media management tool for Hatchling and Yarns. I’ve been running everything via a spreadsheet and Creator Studio, but, again, that’s not quite doing everything I want it to do. Another task for February is researching social media management tools — even content management tools!