In this post I described how I had reduced my hours to a 4-day week, to allow me to have a day a week in which to pursue various projects, paid or otherwise. I haven’t been quite as productive as I would have hoped, but it is still early days. My major accomplishment so far has been a sudden dollop of self-knowledge.
I consider myself a reliable person. At university, I always got work in on time and to an appropriate standard (not always great, but good enough). My salaried work is in project-based consultancy – specific deliverables by a specific deadline. Sure, things get held up sometimes, but that is just the way it goes.
I thought that this would stand me in good stead for working independently. So far it hasn’t worked out quite as well as I would have hoped but I have worked out why.
I am reliable when other people rely on me. If I haven’t made a promise to someone else, it may well not get done.
This isn’t as bad as it sounds for someone with aspirations to work independently. Firstly, if I have clients then they are relying on me so that is not a problem. It gets tricky around “development” projects, when I am doing something for its own sake or with an indeterminate timescale or uncertain pay-off. Like this blog! Now that I have realised this about myself, how do I respond to this new information? I need a strategy that goes with the grain of my character. Thinking to myself “Just get on with it” doesn’t work. I need to make rash promises and commitments to as many people as possible, so that I feel that I would be letting them down (or at least making myself look stupid) if I didn’t deliver.
To this end I promise you, dear reader, to post three times a week here. If I don’t, tell me how disappointed you are…
