Читать книгу Start & Run a Creative Services Business - Susan Kirkland - Страница 32

Decide if you want to treat your work as a hobby or pursue business with the intent of building either a steady income or a major conglomerate. This decision will help you structure your day. If you like to get up around noon and enjoy life, you may need a loving, fully employed spouse to generate income that pays the bills. Being self-employed requires strict discipline when it comes to establishing regular operating hours, being accessible to your clients, managing time to accommodate finding new business, and finishing up the paperwork necessary for billing and payables. After you do all that, don’t forget to make time for the actual creative work. And you thought self-employment meant unfettered creative pursuit. It does; just think of it as creative multitasking.

Choose your work hours, knowing you have the freedom to extend or delay them as deadlines loom or family vacations take center stage. This is the true freedom of running a business, and you can manage it if you don’t abuse it. Don’t wait for your bank account to dictate when to get back to work. Let your clients know when they can reach you as well as when they can’t. Set firm boundaries on this issue if you must. If you have a client who persists in calling you at all hours of the night just to touch base, put your foot down, but do it politely. Freelancing shouldn’t mean you become a slave to the telephone. Tell your family when your time is off limits and make sure the boundary is clear. If there is no current project, don’t go off for a week’s worth of golf. Spend at least part of your time cultivating new business. You’ll feel much better about time spent looking for your next job than you will about perfecting your swing (and guilt will always yield a YIP!). Of course it’s more fun to curl up with a bowl of popcorn in the middle of the afternoon and watch a Cubs game, but that won’t make the car payments. Have a plan and stick to it. You’ll reap the rewards of good work habits: an abundant project list, loyal clients, and a healthy bank balance.