Freelancing in Real Life

I usually spend a morning or afternoon here and there each week working from coffee shops, cafes, or anywhere else wifi is available. This week my home office was not an option so I spent three days in a row working elsewhere. Here are three things I noticed about the days spent working in public, plus a bonus tip for coffee lovers at the end.

Lately I’ve been keeping an “I Am/I Am Not” list in the back of my notebook to help determine the skills and services I want to offer to my client base.  This helps me accomplish a few things:

1. It helps me narrow down exactly what my business “does”
2. It helps me determine the things I need to get better at and develop through research, education, and practice
3. It helps me cope when working on things I don’t necessarily love doing

The primary goal of my list is to figure out how I can spend more time doing the things on the “I Am” list (and get paid for them), and how to spend as little time as possible (if any) doing things on the “I Am Not” list.

There is nothing super-revolutionary about this practice, but it’s just a way to keep my mind from getting too cluttered.

How do you make sure you are doing what you WANT to be doing?

Are you motivated today?

Living the Anywhere Lifestyle requires a lot of motivation. We don’t have managers literally looking over our shoulders to keep us on task like we did in days at a corporate office. 

As a freelancer, it’s basically just me and my clients. While client deadlines and payments on invoices are often incentive enough, it still takes motivation to put the time in on my in-house projects, bookkeeping, self-education, blogging, and planning out the direction of my business.  Nobody is there to do these things for me or cover for me if I take time off. It’s all my responsibility.

A few weeks ago I watched an excellent clip by one of my favorite personalities, Gary Vaynerchuk.  In the segment he discussed his belief that enourmous talent is not enough.  He believes that hard work and “hustle” can be  just as important as your talent level. In addition to having the talent, you need to have the attitude and drive of a winner.

I love hearing this stuff. It gets me pumped up. In fact, I’ve heard someone else say something very similar. Who else could it be but the original Gary V…

Ted Nugent.

(Please stay with me here)

Some of you know that I play guitar. I even played in a few bands back in the day. I taught myself how to play electric guitar by listening to classic rock albums, reading guitar magazines, and watching instructional videos. The best instructional video I’ve ever seen was by Ted Nugent. It contained a valuable piece of rock and roll guitar-playing advice I have never forgotten:

While skill, nice guitars, and loud amps are nice, it’s all about attitude.

(Really it is – if you’re a guitarist, go pick up that thing and pretend you’re a hyper-macho Ted Nugent clone. You’ll be an instantly better guitarist.)

In the video, Ted shreds through some mean riffs and then goes on to talk about just returning from 39 days in the swamp, not having touched a guitar that entire time.  He talks about “diversionary tactics” and escaping once in a while to “re-align the attitude.”  Basically, to Ted, attitude is every bit as important as skill and talent.

See, when you look at it that way, it sounds like Vaynerchuk, doesn’t it?  

I agree with both of these guys.  From a freelancer’s standpoint, I do my best work when I have a driving attitude.  If that starts to slip, sometimes you can just keep going with what you are doing and it’ll come back. But, like Ted says, sometimes it’s good to try some diversionary tactics.

If I’m working on multiple projects at once, I’ll step aside from my current project and go take a look at another.  If my schedule is dominated by one major project, a lot of times I’ll step back for an hour or two and just plan on putting in some time after my kids are in bed that night.  (and actually I find this is when I do my best work) Even music can be a good tactic. What pumps you up or gets you in the zone? Fire it up in iTunes!

Evaluate your attitude today. If you find it starting to slip, experiment with different ways to get re-charged.

Talent is important. Tools are important.

Attitude is essential.

PS – I did manage to find the most valuable five minutes of Ted’s video on YouTube. Entertainment, hustle, and motivation at it’s finest.

 

One of my daughters is busy making "crafts" in our living room right now. By that I mean there is a mess of stamps, stickers, paper, tape, pencils, and crayons dominating the layout of our table. She loves her craft time. Who knows what she’ll create today? It’s always something exciting…to a parent at least.

She just walked up and showed me her latest creation: a paper moon with tape hanging all over it.  It was…well…what you’d expect a four year old to make when given the previously mentioned tools and materials.  As she handed the creation over, she asked me if I thought she had done a good job.

Of course I answered, "Yes."

But then I felt inclined to ask her if she enjoyed making her latest craft.  She said she did, and I reminded her that is what’s important when she’s working on these things. It’s not always how good her artistic creations are, but if she’s enjoying herself, that will lead to good things.

It’s been said before, and it sounds so simple and stupid, but that totally applies to my lifestyle as a freelancer. It’s good to ask, "Am I enjoying myself?" on a regular basis. Sure, there are many tasks in our careers that we need to suck up and just deal with, but if in our career as a whole we answer that question with a "No", then it’s time to consider our options.

This is exactly what led me from a regular job to a telework opportunity, and later from that opportunity to taking the leap of running my own freelance business full-time.  In fact, I still ask myself that question almost daily, and it helps me focus on the direction I want to take my business.

Are you enjoying yourself?

I posted this quote by Epictetus on my Twitter account today just as a reminder of how so much of life is how we react and adapt to the situations thrown at us.  The more I think about it, the more I see this can really be applied to our lives as Anywhere People as well. 

In these days of crappy economies, bailouts, and layoffs (in the USA at least), many people are being thrown into situations where they are out of a job and are forced to do what they can to pay their bills and earn a living.  I agree with what the folks at Outright call it on one of their blogs: “Unintentional Entrepreneur”.  That about sums it up perfectly!

Many people out there are without jobs right now. As a freelancer, I often feel as if I have to find a new “job” every month in the form of a new project or new client.  But getting discouraged NEVER does any good. Sure, millions of people are totally getting the short end of the stick right now, and we should voice our displeasure with these things. However, look forward: You STILL have abilities, skills, talents, aptitudes, creativity, etc. 

I honestly believe that the best kind of innovation comes in the form of grass-roots entrepreneurial movements.  Focus! Innovate! Create! Do what you do best, do it some more, and you’ll figure out how to make money doing it.

I echo Gary Vaynerchuk’s sentiments exactly: Wipe the tears away, get out there, and Crush It!

Let’s make the move from corporate-driven back to entrepreneur-driven economies.