Are you happy with your current work?

Its all still too new, even after almost a year, to say that I am happy. So much changes in recent months have all made it a bit hard to digest, but its all for the best , I believe

Its all still in the making. the transition from hired employee to freelancer is  not simple.

In many ways I am still a hired employee. I go to the office and need to deliver at certain times, but I no longer have the salary rather I need to submit an invoice.

The disadvantages:

I have more than one client, so I have more than one boss.

Everything in the business depends on me, so if I am sick, I do not get paid and the work does not get done.

I am limited as to how much work I can take on, the business is not yet stable enough to take on an employee.

The advantages:

I work mostly from home and my hours are more flexible.

I can be near my kids and not in a remote office all day.

I get some tax benefits because I now submit invoices (e.g. deduct home expenses to some extent).

I can raise my hourly wage.

I can work from anywhere! A laptop, Wifi Internet and a power extension is all I need.



I am still at the beginning of a log road. Its a wide wide way...

Ofra

Talk about your motivation these days. High? Low? Where's most of your energy being directed these days?

Starting an independant business is a p rocess that takes up a lot of energy.

If until now all I had to do is get up and got to work (after getting the kids rady for school), now I have to get up and think about what task needs to be taken care of today, which clients to talk to and what are the tasks that can be postponed, and then to when to push them.

But on top of all that I need to think what kind of a business I am trying ot put together, what are my goals and what steps I hve to take to get there. the thinking an dplanning of this business is the hard part.

Afterall, task management is something that I also did when I was a hired employee. And I did sometimes begin to organize my day before I got to the office. The thing is, that I has a clear separation between working time and free or familt time and now those barriers have become fuzzy.

With the freedom to mange  my own hours and the natural tentency towards taking care of  the quick and mundane tasks, comes the challenge of truely manging my own time in the most efficient way, so that I do not find myself pushing work into the hours that should be dedicated to my family, just because a client called and I just have to get things done.

This reorganisation and developing time management habits, combined with the thinking process of planning a new business of m y own is taking up my energy and motivation. But its a rich man;s problem, I have set to help myself, so the universe will help me and I am sure that my business will happen!

Good luck to all the self employed people, and happy holidays

Ofra

Think about your days. Where are you wasting the most time?

I have recently started working from home as a freelancing contractor. The easiest way to waste time when you are working from home is hopping from one task to another and not working methodically on a task. Its just so easy to get up and fold clothes from the dryer instead of sitting and getting mundane daily tasks done and out of the way on your computer.

Emails are also a time waster, your email can truly control you day and suddenly you look at  the clock ad ooops, 3 hours have slipped you by.

So how can this be avoided? Run a strict calendar. We all have electronic calendars at the tip of our fingers.

Set a time for looking at and organizing your emails. set another time for answering emails, set time for folding dry clothes. some people even set time for having sex...we are all sooo busy all the time, a schedule is of the highest importance. But only discipline in managing and adhering to a schedule will make that schedule work for you.

I don't always manage to practice what I preach 100%, but I do my best every day.

 Hope this is helpful

Ofra - MarCom4all