Going Independent – Week Four & Five Check in

Wow, five weeks already? I missed one so this is a roundup of the last two weeks. Here’s week 1, week 2, and week 3 if you’re interested. Let’s dive in!

What Happened the Last Two Weeks#anchor

• I agonized over a potential opportunity to take on a long term contract at a fairly large financial services platform, even pulled out the old pro/con list trick to help me decide. After days of mulling it over I decided not to apply. I knew that the benefits of regular income and some project stability were going to be overshadowed by my lack of time making my own consulting practice a reality and I’m still deeply committed to making this work.
• Four virtual meetings, two were follow-ups from prior chats with other freelancers/entrepreneurs, one was with a branding and copywriter that helped me with some wonderful ideas, and the last was a potential lead with a really nice small web dev agency.
• Several (sorry, I didn’t keep detailed track of how many) follow up emails with connections, potential leads, and ongoing opportunities.
• Took a few weekdays off right in the middle of these two weeks for a family road trip (part of the reason this is a two week roundup). I’ll admit it was difficult at first as I was concerned about losing any momentum I’ve built up, but it really did me some good to unplug for a while and just be.
• I teased last time about some progress on the 11ty style guide generator, I was able to get a first iteration of it complete enough to mark off my list. Before releasing, however, I wanted to use it on a real project of my own to work out any initial bugs so…
• First semi-complete iteration for my dad’s website was pushed online using the style guide generator, sent it over for initial feedback. I did end up finding a few things that needed to be adjusted in that generator so I’m glad I did this first. Sorry that took so long dad!
• I spent half a day working with a trusted friend, we shared some things that we’ve been working on and looking for ways to help each other. One big takeaway for me is to put more effort towards analyzing data from my outreach efforts, basically a sales retro.

What’s Coming Up This Week#anchor

• I’m going to set up a homemade CRM to keep myself more organized. I’m not ready to purchase one yet so I’m going to use Google Sheets for now. The sales retro conversation last week made me realize that, while I have some pretty good notes and a little system for reminding myself to follow up with folks, I have missed some opportunities to follow up with people and don’t want to continue that trend.
• Finishing touches on the 11ty style guide generator and share it in another post, if you’re interested stay tuned!
• Finalize the website for my dad and hopefully launching it this week.
• Collect all the actionable bits from my personal musings, ideas, and meeting notes. Then parse through it all and prioritize. I haven’t done this in a few weeks and am already noticing I’ve become less focused and more confused about what’s important now. When that happens, I tend to fixate on one or two things that catch my attention instead.

I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot more added to this list, especially after I’ve completed that last line item, so stay tuned for the update next week to see how far I get with all this.

Should I keep going?#anchor

I’m starting to think the weekly check ins have run its course and am considering stopping after week 8, two full months feels like as good a place as any.

If you have strong feelings about me keeping this going, any feedback, or good vibes, reach out and let me know.

Thanks again for reading, onward and upward! 🚀