I was raised on a farm, a real, working farm with cattle to care for every day of the year and long hard days on a hot and noisy tractor. One of the many things I learned is that when there is work to be done, you do it. You work from sun up to sun down. But when the work was done, you were free to do what you wanted. That meant that there were long winter days without much to do, as well as glorious midsummer with time to enjoy yourself.
Such is the life of the freelancer. Unlike the employee, we can choose to work or not if it makes sense for our clients and ourselves. That means that if I choose to take a three-day weekend, even four days, there’s no boss to say, “no” and there’s no wasted time just sitting at a desk because you’ve got to put in the hours.
I choose to emphasize the “free” part of the word freelancer. I have a lot of work, but I get to choose when to do it. And if I want or need to spend time with a friend or with my family, I can do it, guilt-free. It is a balance to that fear that some have over where the next project and paycheck is coming from. An established freelancer is truly the envy of those ruled by the time clock.
Of course, the flip side of that for freelancers is that any day or time can be filled with work. Such is the life of the free.
If you’ve not read Linchpin by Seth Godin, get yourself a copy. I’ll post a review of it soon, but this is a book that freelancers and employees alike should read and ponder. One of the key points that Godin makes is that almost all of us are going to be living the life of freelancers soon. Why not embrace it now, cut yourself loose from the 40-hour week, and discover what you’ve been missing?
I’d talk now, but it’s Friday and I’m going outside and enjoy myself.
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Oh, the embraceable lifestyle of the freelancer. No time to write more…too much work today, but by all means, Randy, use your day for well-deserved guilt-free pleasure.
The other side of the “free” in freelancing is that we do a lot for free, as in, we do a lot of things that aren’t billable. Marketing, bookkeeping, website tweaking and the like all chew up time from income generating activities.
Just wanted to point that out before you get a ton of hate mail from jealous 9-t0-5-ers!
All of those “overhead” activities are the same things other businesses do as well. As freelancers, we have to look at our selves and what we do as a business, so there are x hours per week spent on non-billible activities. It’s not necessarily fun, but then again, it is necessary.
Thanks for commenting!
Randy
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