Lessons Learned in Year One Pt. 1
Danielle McInnes, Unsplash
Lessons Learned in Year One Pt. 1
As the year (and decade!) come to a close I’ve been reflecting a lot about the changes that happened and lessons I learned during this time in my life. Going freelance full-time was probably the hardest but most rewarding thing I've ever done. There’s been lots of highs and a ton of lows. But I’ve learned to embrace this ebb and flow and hopefully ride bigger and badder waves in 2020. Full disclosure, this is a lengthy post so I’m making it a two-part series. Let’s dive in!
It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon
So learn how to rest when the tough gets going - because it will. Success isn’t just about a job well done, more importantly, it’s about how long can you stay in the game.
Get into a routine but keep flexible
Possibly the biggest draw to freelancing is having control of your time. The freedom to do and be as you please is priceless. Now that might seem like the best perk in the world - and it is, but sometimes too much freedom can be extremely paralyzing. Create a routine for yourself, like soft parameters to guide you in your day-to-day but keep a flexible attitude for when random things arise. This will allow you to be productive without ruining your day if you steer off-course.
Win the morning, win the day
I’ll be the first to admit, I was a non-believer of morning routines for a really long time. I told myself I never wanted to be so strict on myself and even poked fun at people who were all about it. But I get it now! What I’ve found is that if I can hit a couple key things in the morning, I’m more equipped to have a successful day. By prioritizing these things for myself early on (hello self care!), I’m more confident and ready to show up for my clients and my community.
Here are my 5 morning non-negotiables:
Enjoy a cup of coffee in silence
Brush my teeth and wash my face, shower if needed
Make my bed
Have breakfast
Journal
Please note that these non-negotiables are put in place to help me win the day. By no means do I have to do them in order, because well, life happens. But as long as I hit them, I build a sense of readiness that I can leverage towards completing my tasks for the day.
Productive procrastination has been my saving grace
Sometimes I just don’t have it. No matter what I do I can’t seem to harness my creativity and get into work mode. And I don’t know about you but the more I force something to happen, the more it doesn’t. What I’ve found that works for me is to stop and do something else. I’ll put on a podcast and start cleaning. Or sometimes it looks more like getting the mail and taking my pups out for a lap. The key is to get out of my own head hopefully to invite new thoughts in until something sparks. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but more often than not, it does! It allows me to move on to something else for now until I can circle back around to it.
Master your cash flow
This was (and is) the biggest lesson for me if I had to pick one. Going into freelancing a second time around, I knew I had to protect myself legally and financially. But it wasn’t until this year where I’m full on managing my personal and professional finances that I realized I could improve the way I was getting paid. In the beginning I charged 50/50 - deposit and then the final within x amount of days after delivery - disaster. Not only was this really hard to enforce, but it gave room for my projects to exceed the time I had originally allotted causing me to invite the feast and famine struggle into my business. Instead, now I work with more flexibility towards my payment schedules and have increased transparency on what I expect from my clients to provide at different stages of the job. It made it a lot easier to navigate through would-be tough conversations on getting paid and hounding someone down for what’s rightfully yours. Long story short, keep both yourself and your client accountable for deliverables, payments and assets.
Are you freelancing (FT / PT) too? What challenges did you experience in year 1 and how did you manage or overcome them? I would love to hear your story below!