Swimming with the current

During my first few months since leaving office life to become a freelance writer, I’ve realised how important it is swim with the current – you can go with the flow, but you still have to work to stay on course. It’s a challenge that’s immensely enjoyable.

One of the beauties of a freelance writing career is that, in theory, you can go at your own pace. Ideally, you have a steady flow of jobs and you know how to manage your time, so you can fit the work around your other interests and responsibilities in a tidy pattern. In practice, that ideal world is rarely glimpsed, especially when you’re in the process of establishing yourself. There are times when you’re snowed under with work and you have to put in the extra hours to meet client deadlines. Some clients will show an interest or even approve your quote for a job, but then hesitate for a while before giving the final go-ahead, and you have to be ready to get to work when they do. At other times, the flow of work slows down and your focus turns to lining up jobs for the future.

It’s important to remember that a large chunk of this type of work is unpaid – you’re establishing a business and you have to put the effort into researching the market, coming up with ideas and promoting your services. Any time that isn’t spent earning money needs to be spent figuring out how and where to earn it. For me, that’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the job because it gives me room to explore.

For me, a full working day is essential, even if it’s less rigidly structured than a nine-to-five office job. My day used to include dog-walking in the morning before setting off for the half-hour journey to the office. Now I can use that time for work, start early in the morning and then take a long break mid-morning to give the dogs a good walk when the park is less busy. Once I’ve done a full working day, and if I have nothing urgent to finish, I might knock-off during the late afternoon. But I’ll still put in a full day’s work whether it’s on delivering projects for clients or looking for new jobs.

So here are my tips for directing your workflow:

·         Work a full day, even if you don’t keep to strict office hours

·         Keep a list of jobs you can do during quiet work periods – these could pay dividends in building up future business

·         Swim with the current – be ready to work flat-out one minute and then at a more measured pace the next. As long as you keep at it, it should balance out.