I have successfully concluded my first month as a freelancer, the keyword being successfully. I have been lucky to capture two opportunities at the start itself.
Both opportunities were things I started to work on, (negotiations and interviews) about a month before I was to start. One opportunity was confirmed on a couple of weeks before my official step out and the second one also got confirmed during my first week as a full time freelancer. Work wise also they are the right combination that I was seeking. One is a project with a fixed and the other is a more long term hourly paid collaboration.
The good news is I have been getting work that was keeping me pretty busy. In fact I was crawling to get things done. And the bad news is, I am still trying to get into a proper cycle. I still kind of feel as if I am at home on leave from work. And as a result I am not in my optimum work mode when I am doing work.
I get easily distracted when my kids are playing down stairs and too many a times I have stopped what I have been doing and gone to play with them. There were more times when I ignored their calls for me and continued what I was doing. But what I am saying the distractions are far too many.
And I think my family also doesn’t see a clear separation between my work hours and family time. Since I have to do some work in the night as well to accommodate my US clients, my work seems to be spread out through out the day. This also gives them the feeling that I am working all the time.
So this month I am planning on concentrating on building and internalizing a few rituals in to my work practices. These include me trying to work out practical work hours and also carving out some quality family time. And these are going to be some pretty good learning experiences where I can draw upon the lessons from other veterans in this field. But finally what will work for me would be my unique set of practices. And I will be sharing them through these pages.
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