I am at an interesting point in my solo journey which started just around two years ago. I am winding down on 1 or two projects and have no future projects schedule at this point, something that has not happened during my entire two year freelance career. I believe it is partly by design but entirely my fault. Regardless I am embracing it, looking forward to it and planning to take advantage of it by creating a fork in the road.
You see I have spent the better part of the last two years working non-stop, I just mentioned the other day that I even managed to squeeze in some work time on Christmas day of all days. Any personal projects have been late night endeavors and while I have released on of them (Charlene theme for WordPress), I haven’t really made anything substantial of it.
Two years of non-stop work coupled with a few recent project related events has left me feeling a bit burnt on the situation. As a matter of fact in the weeks past I have more than once contemplated making a drastic career move.
Having gathered my wits I realized that may not be necessary. Instead I am going to enter a short (possibly extended) period that I have jokingly referred to semi-retirement in which I will try to explore new avenues and opportunities.
I am not, at this point, exactly sure how long this “semi-retirement” will last. I will continue to support my current clients and if a really interesting project comes along I will more than likely jump at the opportunity but for now I will be concentrating elsewhere.
My first focus. I will be spending the better part of at least the first week digging deeper into WordPress. WordPress a platform that I have used almost daily for the better part of the last 4 years is something that interests me greatly. (It does account for about 95% of my client work). Themes, articles, snippets, you name it I will be working on it.
The utimate goal is to begin creating an income that allows me more time to spend with my son, more time to explore a life outside of work and some much needed time to dive into the remodel of an old farm house.
Should be a fun ride!
If it’s for a remodeling of an old farm house, it’s definitely needed! But then again, I’m a country boy at heart so I guess it’s all subjective to who’s reading this haha
Either way, enjoy it man. It’s definitely needed – I’m actually slower than ever with client work and focusing on a couple personal things that are going to (hopefully) cancel out client work altogether. Will be interesting to see which of us can do it first
Thanks for the comment Mike, first one on this new blog. Yeah the farm house project has got me super motivated, definitely something I wouldn’t have imagined for myself a year or two ago.
I’m with you, pretty slow myself. As I mentioned I think it is partly by design. I started to get pretty burnt out and just sort of slowed my marketing efforts hoping to catch a break and work on a few of those personal projects myself. I am really looking for the same thing at this point, although I think you may be a bit further ahead on this one, I know you have been putting some time into this for awhile. Like I said I wish you the best of luck on this one and will definitely help promote your efforts!