Week 336

As work on Misfits eases off — I’ve been doing about three days a week recently, and it’ll be over completely within a couple of weeks — I’m looking toward what’s next. Which, as usual, is no work.

That’s not a terrible thing — time “off” to do other things is a benefit of freelancing — but keeping the pipeline flowing is something I’m not good at, for several reasons.

First, when you work alone and are busy on a project full-time for a couple of months, it can be hard to make head space or plans for future work.

Second, after a big chunk of solid work I look forward to catching up on my own projects. Client work pays for what I would do if I didn’t have to work at all: learning and making things. Hopefully, these things will also attract future work.

Third, I’m bad at marketing myself and generating new work. I need to get much better at knowing what kinds of work I want and talking to the right people to get it.

In the meantime I’m starting the “learning and making things” phase by getting in to Django. Again. I’ve already started twice this year and been distracted by work before the knowledge stuck. After ten years of PHP I’m eager for a framework that will help me knock up sites more efficiently.

Commenting is disabled on posts once they’re 30 days old.

24 Nov 2009 at Twitter

  • 4:52pm: @plasticbagUK The longer you leave it, the harder it will get to change, and the more you'll regret not doing it now.

24 Nov 2009 in Links