Freelance Diary

Weekly update - 29th July to 4th August

• Posted by Mike on August 4th, 2008 filed in Diary Entries

Wow, this has been quite a busy week indeed - you know what they say, “When it rains, it pours!”.

My week started off with an email from a previous client.  He had a product which had attracted a sudden flurry of publicity, so called me in panic-stricken to do something about his website.  At the time we had discussed a “phase two” once the initial revamp was completed, and three months later, he asked me over to his office to get to work on the next step.

Turns out that since we last spoke, a lot had happened with his business, and he needed much more than we had originally discussed.  After a bum-numbing 5 hour long meeting, he signed off on what, to date, is my biggest and most lucractive job.

On the way back home I was called by another guy who is just starting his business and found me through my portfolio site.  After squeezing in a meeting the next day, we’re about to get started on his website - although that wasn’t the best part of the meeting… turns out that his business is in need of a commercial product similar to something myself and a close friend developed for fun a while back.  We’d always known that if we wanted we could sell this software en masse, but as we’d just developed it for a personal side project nothing ever came of it.  After throwing around ideas and numbers with this new client during our meeting, we could very well end up commercialising this software and using it as a nice little source of passive income - which is something I’ve been striving for.

The rest of the week was cram-packed too; I finished up one site, worked my ass off on another, quickly started and finished a quick one-page job for a member of my BNI chapter, and also somehow found time to plan my entire marketing campaign for the next 6 months.  I’ve decided that I’m going to give both newspaper advertising and mailing campaigns a shot, and have started putting the wheels in motion.  I know that there is debate as to the success of these promotional methods, but I guess I’m going by the old saying “nothing ventured, nothing gained”.  At the very least I can say I’ve tried it.

To my surprise I’m still managing to stick relatively closely to the weekly schedule I assigned myself; although I know it is far from perfect.  Despite this, I still feel somewhat unorganised - I dunno, I guess I feel as though I should be using all these different programs for CRM, time tracking, accounting etc; and since I’m not I almost feel like I’m just winging it - but I suppose the key is to stick to whatever methods work for you, and so far I’m doing okay.  I still have “Getting Things Done” - a bible to some - to read, and knowing the type of person I am, and judging from what others have said, I’ll no doubt come away from a million and one ideas for my day to day routines.

I’ve also started summarising my days again - this is something I used to do a while back, and basically involves me making a list of everything I have done, every task I’ve completed, and every goal I’ve achieved for each day.  I find this somewhat therapeutic, and it certainly helps get rid of the “niggles” that can build up from time to time (for which I also have a seperate book)… its kind of like a diary for “professionals”…

Despite this, I still find myself with a boatload of ideas, concerns and to-do lists rattling around my head… my biggest right now is the need for passive income, improved processes within the business,  and a desire to focus on side/personal projects - but at the minute I’m far too busy to concentrate on them… still, I can’t really complain about that now can I?!