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!