Freelance Life
Well, another week has gone by. It’s amazing how short my days seem now that I’m a full time freelancer. I can’t say that I miss the aspects about my past life but it’s funny how I now lament that the weekend has arrived (instead of counting the days). Working from home for oneself is so different from going into an office and having a set of daily tasks. All my days are different. I never have the same things to do. I also find my days so short I wish I had a few more hours available to draw from.
My days go somewhat like this: I usually wake up around 5:30 and get my kids’ lunches and breakfasts ready. Then I wake them up and get them ready for school. Hubby takes my son to preschool and I usually wake my daughter after they leave (if she hasn’t gotten up already). I’ll take my daughter to school and get home by around 8am. I then have a good 5 and a half hours to work until it’s time to head on out to pick her up. Most days (with the exceptions of Wednesdays) my daughter has Japanese lessons so we head on over there right after i pick her up from school. We usually get home around 4:15 and then we work on her homework and I start dinner around 5:30. The kids go to bed around 8 and that’s when I can start working again. If you do the math you can probably tell I don’t put in full 8 hour days during the week so I usually use the weekends to make up time.
It’s not easy but I really enjoy working from home. I put in so much more time, especially on nights and weekends, get paid less than I was in the office, have more responsibilities for my own business (like accounting, billing and admin stuff), but I still really enjoy what I do.
I still feel like I’m treading water, not really making any headway in my career but I feel I have to remain positive. I know that I have what it takes to be successful and as long as I continue working hard, my big break will come my way eventually.
Currently, I'm trying to think about how I can make this blog more valuable to readers. I know that people really enjoy reading my Net Picks posts but that seems about it. In addition to my freelance work I'm currently working on passive streams of income (or ways to make money where I'm not doing active work). So far, my Redbubble shop is my most successful stream of passive income but I'm also creating new things to sell in my new Creative Market shop. I'm really happy to have been selected to have a shop on Creative Market since they do review your work before accepting you. I'll be selling digital products like printable, stock illustrations, brushes for Illustrator amongst other things. I'll add posts on how I use my products in my own artwork in semi-tutorials.