Sunny Freelancing!

Sometimes it is really easy to focus on the negatives of running your own business. Having to chase clients for money, wild rollercoasters of not enough work / too much work and constantly marketing and networking to keep your pipeline looking plump. It can feel all too much frankly.

And then the sun shines!

It is at this moment that all freelancers over the country stick a metaphorical tongue out to all their friends in “proper jobs”. “Ha ha, suckers! Look at you in your sweaty suit, in your stuffy office then dying the death of the BO armpit on the Central Line. Ha!”.

For smug freelancers, Instagram is full of “working in the garden” photos. Laptops on blankets, laptops on patios, laptops in café courtyards. Visions of lush lawns, cool drinks and sunglasses are everywhere #freelancelife abounds.

I am of course making the most of the weather because I am a sun-worshipper to my core. In fact, my friends know that I am perfectly capable of cancelling indoor plans if the sun suddenly shines. I am basically a skin-covered lizard. “The cinema?! What? The sun is shining, I can’t sit in the dark for 2 hours! Go without me”.

Personally, I really struggle with laptops in the garden. Apart from having to line myself up with the Wi-Fi it is also quite a challenge getting the right amount of shade to be able to see your screen. Plus, once I am in the garden, the urge to stop working and just have a little lie down with the factor 15 and a book comes upon me more or less instantly which makes it less than productive. I will take reading matter outside or things to proof. Sitting up!

So, what I have been doing is changing my working hours around so I get some decent daylight hours outside. I’ve been at my desk at 6.30 a few mornings and I usually try and avoid working in the evenings, but I have been this week so that I can get outside in the day more. It is cooler in the evening to be at my desk and I feel like I have got my sun quota for the day so don’t mind knuckling down for a few hours. Breakfast and lunch are now both garden affairs with a book. A friend and I took a Tuesday morning and went for a long walk through the bluebells. This is the kind of thing you can do when you are the master of your own time.

So, hurrah for freelancing on sunny days. Long may it last!