Freelancer. To work autonomously. To work for yourself. Workers that guide their own work through projects, working for different companies/clients. Working per hour, per project, per day, instead of working for the same company with a fixed budget.
There are a lot of people with this lifestyle, and the number is growing every day. A way of living with its peculiarities and ways of questioning the obvious in more or less everything.
And within this world, just like the world of those who work for someone else, there are as many ways as there are people, as many styles as there are personalities.
Today, in a coffee place in Porto, between projects, between coffee and lunch, in a place where the time is mine – because all the time is personal, working like this – I write about what is characteristic about this way of living. A specific case, one of many possible perspectives. Features of a particular freelancer’s world, that of someone who has lived for the last 10 years with a backpack holding all her work.
Leaving it open to the comments of other freelancers, to get to know the differences, and of other professionals that so many times ask about this world that seems timeless but with a lot of hours in it, here are some pieces of this freelancer world:
There are a lot of people with this lifestyle, and the number is growing every day. A way of living with its peculiarities and ways of questioning the obvious in more or less everything.
And within this world, just like the world of those who work for someone else, there are as many ways as there are people, as many styles as there are personalities.
Today, in a coffee place in Porto, between projects, between coffee and lunch, in a place where the time is mine – because all the time is personal, working like this – I write about what is characteristic about this way of living. A specific case, one of many possible perspectives. Features of a particular freelancer’s world, that of someone who has lived for the last 10 years with a backpack holding all her work.
Leaving it open to the comments of other freelancers, to get to know the differences, and of other professionals that so many times ask about this world that seems timeless but with a lot of hours in it, here are some pieces of this freelancer world:
#1 – Coffices (Coffee + Office) – An expression well-known in the freelancer world to talk about offices that are coffee places, or about coffee places that suddenly become offices. I don’t have a physical office. I never did, I don’t think about having one. Even though ours or somebody else’s home, in Portugal or in any other place in the world, can be a good office for some moments of the day, I prefer the cafés. The different smells, the people, the environments, the atmospheres. Movement, interaction, action. The coming and going, people entering and leaving, the feeling that the world exists there, along with the passing hours, around us. Meeting with people that come to sit with us and share a tea, a pastry, an orange juice. Peculiar tables, different decors, in different places and neighbourhoods, the always needed internet.
For every day or type of work, a different choice. There are ones good for meetings, the ones that allow speaking on Skype, the ones that inspire just by being there, the ones that are better for stressful moments or the ones good for sunny or rainy days.
Because the environment is everything, the possibility to choose a Coffice every day is one of the things that I give most value to in this type of work. The feeling of movement with the choice in our hands.
For every day or type of work, a different choice. There are ones good for meetings, the ones that allow speaking on Skype, the ones that inspire just by being there, the ones that are better for stressful moments or the ones good for sunny or rainy days.
Because the environment is everything, the possibility to choose a Coffice every day is one of the things that I give most value to in this type of work. The feeling of movement with the choice in our hands.
#2 – Walk & Talk (walking meetings) – A job that demands so many hours in front of the computer and books also asks for movement to maintain the balance. Asks for movement, action, fresh air and physical energy.
Therefore, along the day, we never let pass any opportunity for a walk. A half an hour phone call? A walk along the neighbourhood with the mobile phone. A team meeting to settle some details, debate some ideas or define projects? A long walk. Need to systematize a training that has just finished, at the end of a tiring day? A timeless walk. Need inspiration for a new project or a new idea or an alternative solution? Walk, walk, walk! On a sunny day, a rainy one or even with snow (in this case, a good beanie is more than welcome as a company!).
Health, Creativity, Inspiration, new Perspective are all good reasons to stand up and leave for 20 minutes.
The extremely strong impact of the body movement as a creativity boost is very well known. Think with the body. And release it so that the thoughts can flow in an easier way.
The body is wise and asks us, more than we sometimes allow ourselves to hear, for the movement to be integrated among ideas and thoughts. To be aware of that has been an important learning.
Therefore, along the day, we never let pass any opportunity for a walk. A half an hour phone call? A walk along the neighbourhood with the mobile phone. A team meeting to settle some details, debate some ideas or define projects? A long walk. Need to systematize a training that has just finished, at the end of a tiring day? A timeless walk. Need inspiration for a new project or a new idea or an alternative solution? Walk, walk, walk! On a sunny day, a rainy one or even with snow (in this case, a good beanie is more than welcome as a company!).
Health, Creativity, Inspiration, new Perspective are all good reasons to stand up and leave for 20 minutes.
The extremely strong impact of the body movement as a creativity boost is very well known. Think with the body. And release it so that the thoughts can flow in an easier way.
The body is wise and asks us, more than we sometimes allow ourselves to hear, for the movement to be integrated among ideas and thoughts. To be aware of that has been an important learning.
#3 – A coffee with… - Other people matter. That is it. Because projects can stop coming, work can become bored, clients may not pay. But “others” will always be “Others”, with all the relevance they have in our personal world.
“Others” can be a friend that needs to be heard, a colleague that needs ideas, a stranger that needs attention, people that only know us through the work we do and need inspiration. “Others” are the people that make our life, in a closer or less close way. But when someone asks for “time”, to give it is all I can do. That is why we should keep the doors open to let inspiration in, to hear and talk, to learn and share. Planned encounters or casual ones, which allows us to get out of our normal shell and allow us to think differently, because the other person is different. And at the end of the meeting, when you get back to work, the mental richness is so much bigger than before, it overcomes all the dispersion that happened in the middle and sometimes shortens the time spent searching for ideas for whatever it was you were doing. When we notice, the ideas are already there, put by invisible hands that make their magic during the talking.
“Others” can be a friend that needs to be heard, a colleague that needs ideas, a stranger that needs attention, people that only know us through the work we do and need inspiration. “Others” are the people that make our life, in a closer or less close way. But when someone asks for “time”, to give it is all I can do. That is why we should keep the doors open to let inspiration in, to hear and talk, to learn and share. Planned encounters or casual ones, which allows us to get out of our normal shell and allow us to think differently, because the other person is different. And at the end of the meeting, when you get back to work, the mental richness is so much bigger than before, it overcomes all the dispersion that happened in the middle and sometimes shortens the time spent searching for ideas for whatever it was you were doing. When we notice, the ideas are already there, put by invisible hands that make their magic during the talking.
#4 – A time that stretches – Obviously the possibility to stop to do other activities has in its base and as a consequence the same thing: time has to stretch constantly. Thus, days can finish much later than dinner time and begin when the early bird joggers are on the streets.
When the morning was spent hearing a friend, or the afternoon spent in the post office buying stamps to send a letter to a friend that lives far away, the common consequence is to finish the PowerPoint presentation locked in my room at the time when all the other conference presenters are at the bar drinking a glass of wine before going to sleep.
But on the other hand, it is exactly this possibility to spend time hearing that friend or buying those stamps that makes time feel so precious.
It is not always easy. And I have to recognize that the demand is huge. It is difficult to manage all the work that has to be done and the time of a normal day routine of 24 physical hours. It is difficult to be focused and get back to the task we had to interrupt. It is difficult to rearrange the agenda several times per day. And it is difficult to feel that, even so, there are things left behind.
But it is for sure a time more adapted to each person, more according to their own rhythm and more adequate to what I want my life hours to be.
When the morning was spent hearing a friend, or the afternoon spent in the post office buying stamps to send a letter to a friend that lives far away, the common consequence is to finish the PowerPoint presentation locked in my room at the time when all the other conference presenters are at the bar drinking a glass of wine before going to sleep.
But on the other hand, it is exactly this possibility to spend time hearing that friend or buying those stamps that makes time feel so precious.
It is not always easy. And I have to recognize that the demand is huge. It is difficult to manage all the work that has to be done and the time of a normal day routine of 24 physical hours. It is difficult to be focused and get back to the task we had to interrupt. It is difficult to rearrange the agenda several times per day. And it is difficult to feel that, even so, there are things left behind.
But it is for sure a time more adapted to each person, more according to their own rhythm and more adequate to what I want my life hours to be.
#5 – Constant Multitasking – To work as a freelancer and as a personal company demands for knowledge and activities not to be as dispersed as they could be. They are actually always growing and amplifying as much as possible.
There is no Marketing department, or any Accounting service, not even Communication service or Social Media Management, or the Business management that takes care of all the calls, books rooms in hotels and buys the airline tickets.
There is just one person with multiple arms, hawk-eyed and an amazing ability to switch tasks between a Googlemaps search to know how to get to the meeting with the client, and the summary of the last theory that you have just read on that author’s last book. All this after scheduling social media publications for the next 4 days, sending an email written in English, making a call in Spanish and asking for a tea in Portuguese, or before getting that receipt from the last training, the one that was tax free. Or was it?
It is tough. But with all the flexibility you are demanding from your brain so you can be as good leading a meeting as you are preparing a catchy PowerPoint and getting the taxes correctly, at least we can hope that Alzheimer will take longer to show up.
There is no Marketing department, or any Accounting service, not even Communication service or Social Media Management, or the Business management that takes care of all the calls, books rooms in hotels and buys the airline tickets.
There is just one person with multiple arms, hawk-eyed and an amazing ability to switch tasks between a Googlemaps search to know how to get to the meeting with the client, and the summary of the last theory that you have just read on that author’s last book. All this after scheduling social media publications for the next 4 days, sending an email written in English, making a call in Spanish and asking for a tea in Portuguese, or before getting that receipt from the last training, the one that was tax free. Or was it?
It is tough. But with all the flexibility you are demanding from your brain so you can be as good leading a meeting as you are preparing a catchy PowerPoint and getting the taxes correctly, at least we can hope that Alzheimer will take longer to show up.
#6 – To learn constantly – The possibility of managing each project and the way you are organizing it, allows you to follow your curiosity in a productive and constructive way. Therefore, to give it time allows for constant learning.
This applies in a way directly related with the previous point [#5], in demanding permanent learning about different subjects and tasks, but also to the knowledge that comes from natural curiosity produced by new things. What does this word mean? How does this program work? Where does this expression come from? Who is this author? Why do you use this expression in this context? All you need is to stop and go after the answers. To learn by following your will, following the line of what happens in your day that makes us bump into certain aspects you had never thought about before. To learn by following curiosity and to fulfil that need along the way without any external pressure.
At the end of the day it is very much the feeling of having the possibility to manage the work’s rhythm, allowing myself to stop and learn something new what makes it something more than the day before. And makes me a richer person.
This applies in a way directly related with the previous point [#5], in demanding permanent learning about different subjects and tasks, but also to the knowledge that comes from natural curiosity produced by new things. What does this word mean? How does this program work? Where does this expression come from? Who is this author? Why do you use this expression in this context? All you need is to stop and go after the answers. To learn by following your will, following the line of what happens in your day that makes us bump into certain aspects you had never thought about before. To learn by following curiosity and to fulfil that need along the way without any external pressure.
At the end of the day it is very much the feeling of having the possibility to manage the work’s rhythm, allowing myself to stop and learn something new what makes it something more than the day before. And makes me a richer person.
#7 – Differ, digress, disperse – I consider as part of my daily working routine the things that I would otherwise call “hobbies”, “waste of time” and other similar obstacles to the time that we so many times consider to be tight. As part of the rules of Creativity there is also this permission to differ and disperse, to focus on different things. The mental richness you get from apparently non-related activities is huge. It demands attention for refocusing easily, implies the use of both hemispheres, and allows the feeling of a daily life where you can use most of yourself. The “Me at work” and the “Me in my personal life” become closer.
Therefore, if I’m stuck on an idea, or if I feel that impulse during the day, I stop to photograph if the inspiration comes, I stop to write if there is the need, I stop to observe if the moment happens.
I include each of those things in my “working time”, because those things also contribute to a more open attitude, a less rusty reasoning, a more agile body, a more open mind. And all that contributes to the creative process, to mental agility, to ability of holding on as long as needed to have that problem fixed or to find the solution.
Those moments of “differed and disperse digression” is when we often reach the solution for a project, or find the main subject for a conference. Several of my conferences’ themes arose from moments when I was holding a camera or a pen. From then on, I just need to grab my notebook that usually comes along and write down the idea that popped-up.
Therefore, if I’m stuck on an idea, or if I feel that impulse during the day, I stop to photograph if the inspiration comes, I stop to write if there is the need, I stop to observe if the moment happens.
I include each of those things in my “working time”, because those things also contribute to a more open attitude, a less rusty reasoning, a more agile body, a more open mind. And all that contributes to the creative process, to mental agility, to ability of holding on as long as needed to have that problem fixed or to find the solution.
Those moments of “differed and disperse digression” is when we often reach the solution for a project, or find the main subject for a conference. Several of my conferences’ themes arose from moments when I was holding a camera or a pen. From then on, I just need to grab my notebook that usually comes along and write down the idea that popped-up.
#8 – Self-management, requirement, and celebration – To be the owner of your time and owner of your own way of working also implies being your own boss, our own employee and self-co-worker. To know when to quit, to know how much you can demand and how important it is to stop for a rewarding becomes essential in every day.
To be a good boss of my self implies learning how to not punish myself if things do not go as planned, and to recognize in a clear way when something was great. To be my own co-worker implies to be aware and self-suggest a walk or some of the activities referred in point [#7] when the moment is stuck. To be a good employee demands the best of my capabilities, to give myself the best I can do in every moment, trying to be more in every project.
And the balance for all of this demands some base. Demands the notion of work joy and pleasure. To assume all the difficulties and requirement that every day brings with it, but to be able to stop and self-recognize and self-celebrate the walked steps. Thus, the moments of toasting are meaningful, even though in the middle of the afternoon the cups have to be filled with tea. And the photos of the team jumping celebrating a great project are worth it. Because each “Well done” needs to be self-whispered in your own ear. And every blink of an eye or every encouraging word must come from the same body that will see it or listen to it.
These are only little pieces of one reality of the life of one freelancer that looks for meaningful days and a job that can she adapt to herself.
Peculiarities of one person, with features surely shared among other people and with as many differences as there are professionals doing the same.
How about you? How do you create your daily life and how many differences and similarities are there with this?
(Text originally written in Portuguese and published at Fenther.net)
To be a good boss of my self implies learning how to not punish myself if things do not go as planned, and to recognize in a clear way when something was great. To be my own co-worker implies to be aware and self-suggest a walk or some of the activities referred in point [#7] when the moment is stuck. To be a good employee demands the best of my capabilities, to give myself the best I can do in every moment, trying to be more in every project.
And the balance for all of this demands some base. Demands the notion of work joy and pleasure. To assume all the difficulties and requirement that every day brings with it, but to be able to stop and self-recognize and self-celebrate the walked steps. Thus, the moments of toasting are meaningful, even though in the middle of the afternoon the cups have to be filled with tea. And the photos of the team jumping celebrating a great project are worth it. Because each “Well done” needs to be self-whispered in your own ear. And every blink of an eye or every encouraging word must come from the same body that will see it or listen to it.
These are only little pieces of one reality of the life of one freelancer that looks for meaningful days and a job that can she adapt to herself.
Peculiarities of one person, with features surely shared among other people and with as many differences as there are professionals doing the same.
How about you? How do you create your daily life and how many differences and similarities are there with this?
(Text originally written in Portuguese and published at Fenther.net)
RSS Feed