Flexible Working Life

Photo byMuha

As a freelancer working from home, it can be hard, if not impossible to take a holiday.

Firstly, there’s the financial side of it; when you’re on holiday you’re not working and therefore not making any money. And then there’s also the mental side – the guilt and that frustrated feeling you get.
It’s so tricky. You can take your computer with you, check in at Internet cafes, but then is it really a holiday if you are checking email and work all the time? But then, if you don’t take your computer, will you go crazy from the frustration of total Internet absence?

I think you have to make a firm decision and stick to it, one way or the other. But there is another option: take a working holiday.
Okay, if to you a holiday is lying on a beach all day and only moving for food and drink, then this idea probably sounds like lunacy. But, taking a working holiday gives you the chance to travel as well as earning some money, experience new things and not worry about the bills when your holiday ends.
If you’re a student, Global Choices offers working holiday job programmes which allow you to work for up to four months in your university vacation. And Anywork Anywhere offers some great jobs in some great locations.
I just went on the reviews site and read some of the travel and working experiences and they sound great. Seems there’s all kinds of stuff on there from fruit picking in Kent, to being a conservation research assistant in Kilombero Valley in Tazania. Hmmm, I know which one I’d prefer…

Photo byMeanest Indian

Since freelancing, I’ve noticed that work-wise, it’s either all or nothing.

When thinking about my work load, a variety of clichés come to mind – ‘It never rains it pours,’ ‘You wait all day for a bus, then three come along at once,’ (that particular cliché may just be applicable to my part of the county), ‘Feast or famine,’ you know the ones.

It seems I either have too much work, or not enough, and I’m finding it hard to keep the balance.

However, when I’m in the famine is when I have my best ideas, it’s when I pitch like crazy to editors, resulting in work flooding in (yay!) only to leave me a little overwhelmed and panicking that I won’t get it all done.

I’m not complaining – I love this job,  but there must be a way to generate the freelance work at a nice steady pace?  Yes?

So here’s what I’ve learned and found so far as ways to avoid the famine and generate freelance work:

Keep looking for gigs

Even when you have loads of work.  [Read more]

Photo byjunkmonkey

I got an email this week from Retail-Eyes asking if I would like to go to a hotel and get paid for it. 
Naturally, I said yes, then I remembered that I hadn’t done any mystery shopping in ages.  In my last post, I listed some of  the companies that take on mystery shoppers, so I thought I’d have another go. 
I remember being offered some great assignments when I was last with the companies, I got paid to have my hair cut, stop in a hotel, eat at restaurants and I even got paid to drink wine! On most assignments I could take my son and it became a fantastic game where we pretended we were secret agents.
So, after quickly logging my interest and imagining all the 5 star hotels that I would be offered to assess, I excitedly went to the ‘view assignments’ pages [Read more]