There are some days when I think that I have “weirdos apply here” tattooed on my forehead. It might just be me, but I do seem to attract the eccentric and barmy clients and tasks on occasion. I blame myself for the most recent one. I put an advert in my local village newsletter, mainly to support it because it’s cute and I think it’s important to keep these local things going. My little ad next to the latest news and views from the WI, the vicar and the Horticultural Society’

So then. After all that is miserable and awful about freelancing, let’s look at the good bits! Because there are many. I can pick my hours. Yup, if I want to start work at 10AM every day I can. If I only want to work 3 days a week that is my choice. If I fancy getting started at 6AM so I can have a POETS day of a Friday, no one to stop me. In fact, I can have one anyway, just because I say so! It is my choice how and when I work. Clearly, if I only want to work Tuesdays and W

I have a confession to make. I hate new clients. Or at least have hated them at some point. My clients are remarkable, intelligent and kind people to man (& woman) but I do have a problem with almost all of them. For the first 3-6 months of working with almost any new client I live life in terror. It doesn’t matter how nice they are. Why? Well, because they are new! And I have to learn new ways of working and get to grips with their business, their systems, new software pot

This is a ranty blog. An “I’ve had it up to fucking here” blog. Sometimes, being your own boss sucks. It just does. Most of the time it doesn’t but there are days when you just want to say “bollocks to this” and go work on a checkout in Tesco. Then you remember all the really annoying people and their even more annoying screeching children in Tesco and backtrack wildly. But you could. It could push you that far. The roller coaster of finding and managing your own work is a bi

“Er, you do this stuff all the time don’t you? Can you just show me how to set up Mailchimp / Hootsuit / Infusionsoft / Capsule / Dropbox /Outlook / the entire inner workings of the White House staff office”. A freebie no less. Of course, we’ve all done it. The mate that is handy with a drill that just happens to be invited round for coffee when your shower screen is hanging on with nothing but duct tape and fervent prayers. The neighbour that you casually run into on the str

Everyone loves a bargain. Of course they do. But beware penny pinching behaviour because it will make life really awkward, These ones quite often self-filter I find. They get in touch, we talk, I give them prices, they run away. Job done. If I have suspicions, then I give them higher prices – you can always negotiate down but getting prices back up is a real challenge. It’s usually not the ones that can’t afford it that are the problem, it’s the ones that can afford it but j

Lots of people in the PA world at the moment are thinking of making the move to being a VA. I love it and would genuinely recommend it if you think you have the right skills and mindset. But it may not be what you expect…. When I decided, more or less on a whim, to try this VA malarkey, I really thought that as a PA it was just a matter of working in a different way, freelancing instead of being employed. And on paper this is entirely the case. However, the reality is that I

Everyone needs to network, including VAs and sometimes we have to put on actual clothes and go out in the world to do it. #shudder If you’ve never done this before, here’s some things probably not to do. So what to wear? It is never an easy call this one. You need to feel comfortable but mostly arriving in PJs is considered a bit off. The key thing is to have somewhere for your business cards if it's a stand and mingle event. The misery of trying to juggle wine, canapés, card

Left to my own devices, I am very good at being organised, hitting my billable hours target (that’s a whole other blog) and generally being the efficient and calm human I can be. But what can throw a spanner in these works is other people. And more specifically, what other people think working at home means. People think that because you are at home you are available, probably watching This Morning and drinking pots of tea. I’m not really talking about clients although goodne

To the uninitiated, Minute Dock is my current time recording software. There are many others. I like Minute Dock, they are Kiwis and will gently abuse you if you don’t record any time during any given day. I like software that amuses me. And it has lots of reporting elements to feed into my obsessive data need. I was thinking of moving to a new accounting system with built in timesheets and got very excited – right up to the point where I looked at the timesheet element and s