I am taking the day off. It's my birthday; I will not work today. Oh sure, I've made myself available to clients every night, weekend, sick day, vacation day and holiday for the last three years, but not today. Today I will spend the entire day doing what I want to do. I will run in the morning. I ...
Tag Archive: work
The 3rd 40: Days 29-32
It has been an unusual week. I don't know when the professional karma pendulum swung my way, but I received more requests for proposals in the past week than I did in the six months prior. And these aren't just returning clients; a full two-thirds of them are new clients referred by existing clients. I'm ...
The 3rd 40: Days 25 and 26
The weather in California has been less than stellar this winter. Yes, I know, boo-hoo; tell that sob story to the east coasters who endured multiple blizzards. And yet, I can't recall more consistent rain in the 11 years that we've lived here. So the weekend weather forecast -- mid-70s and sunny -- had me ...
The 3rd 40: Days 21-24
I haven't been the best at updating this, have I? I've turned a corner with kickboxing. I went on Tuesday and even though I could feel the exertion in my muscles, I never actually hurt. I went back this morning and felt like I was in a really good groove. I'm far from the best in ...
The 3rd 40: Days 7 and 8
I haven't exactly hit the ground running with the Big Project yet. We're still haggling over indemnification clauses in the master agreement, so even though I've done some work already (always a bad idea without signed paperwork), there's a chance that they just might cut me loose for trying to protect myself. And if that's ...
The 3rd 40: Day 4, 5 and 6
I am sore. I started Thursday's kickboxing class still sore from Tuesday's. Adding another major workout only managed to highlight some additional muscles that I didn't previously know that I'd had. I tried to counteract that with some yoga and stretching, which was a good decision, considering that I was still able to move on Saturday ...
All or Nothing
Freelance work is inherently cyclical. Colleagues in corporate jobs often ask if the cycles make me crazy. The answer is no, but that answer has come with time and experience. Rather than fight the cycles and worry about when they will start or end, I've learned to relax and ride it out. January is a mad ...
Fast, Good, Cheap: Pick Two
There's the old saying that you have to pick two of these three choices: fast, good or cheap. With the economy being in the state that it is, it's no surprise that "cheap" is high on most people's lists. What has been surprising is that they seem to have less interest in "fast" or "good," ...
Summer Doldrums
It doesn't matter if you work on-staff or if you work as a freelancer, summer is the slow time. Just try to find all four people that need to review and approve your project once their kids are out of school for the summer. Things languish in review for weeks, if not months, ...
It Takes Focus to Fix It
I had an interesting call with a potential new client today. This director of sales and marketing discovered me through LinkedIn and told me that he wanted to speak with me about some projects. When pressed for detail, he declined to go into specifics, so I went into this meeting only knowing the ...