I registered for the South By SouthWest Intercative (SXSWi) festival last week. It was a bit difficult to plop down $400+ to basically see what other people are doing, and yes, I do see the benefits or I would not have registered; its still difficult. So what exactly do I hope to get out of it? This may be a good exercise for myself: creating a list of what I hope to get out of conferences in general (or this one specifically) and make sure that whatever I do attend fulfills those goals...
There was a great post by Aaron Hillegass back in December about his choice to start his own business, and how that led to failure (and what he thinks about it). Go read it, then come back and I'll give you my thoughts...
... well go on.
I completely agree that we get too complacent in that upper success range, although I would set the upper limit lower, closer to 85%. I haven't been able to put my finger directly on why I left my steady, well-paying job to do this...
I realized over the last couple of weeks that the holidays mean much less to the freelancer than to the regular working stiff. I had already experienced the differences with "sick" time, and had applied that to "vacation" days as well, but this was different. My wife would be home, family and friends would be off of work, and there would be things to do, right? Well, in a sense, yes... there was plenty to do.
My upcoming deadlines - looming ever larger - pushed...
Last week was not the best in terms of tasks accomplished (work tasks anyway). I did get some things done on a couple of projects, but there were distractions all around. I spent a lot fo time doing house work (cleaning, fixing up a guest room, etc.) in preparation for a visit from my dad, who lives out of state and thus I don't get to see him often. I also needed to run some errands out of the house.
A lot of these things could have been done after "work hours", but I...
Well, I've made it through one weekof this new adventure, and I'm enjoying it immensely. I find that my personal style of work lends itself well to bursts of highly focused and concentrated tasks, followed by large breaks that let me cool down.
For most of the week I've started my day rather lazily (I guess that new-job smell is still around), but once I start working, I'll do so for 3 hours or so until I reach a good stopping point. After that I'll take a solid...