Weeknote 17 – Deciding how much to work

I’m in the privileged position to be able to say no to offers of work. I’m purposefully avoiding using the word ‘lucky’ here because I have worked hard to get to where I am. However I do recognise not everyone can turn down work.

Personally I find it empowering to say no. I’m trying to be led by my feelings when I choose what work I take on. Invariably there will be an introductory chat where someone tells you about the project. I like to use this time to assess how I’m feeling about the work. Am I excited about it? Will I enjoy it?

If the answer to one/both of these questions is yes — then that’s great. If it’s not an immediate yes then I think about other things I’ll gain from doing the work, like testing out a new working relationship, learning, impact or good rates of pay.

The difficult thing comes when I have a great piece of work on the table but not enough capacity to fit it into my schedule. Do I say yes and hope I can squeeze it in? Am I ok to work weekends/evenings if I need to? I’m still figuring out what my boundaries are here.

Managing my own capacity is something I’m still learning how to do well. I had a great chat with Lilli Graf last week and she showed me how she uses Notion to track her own pipeline which is very smart. I use my head — which is not so smart!

What I’m finding challenging about scheduling is when projects don’t go to plan. When everything runs smoothly I can just about get away with using my brain as my time tracking software! However, if something shifts unexpectedly or something takes longer than expected, like is happening to me now, things get trickier to predict.

I currently have 5 projects on — that’s too many! I’m having flashbacks to my agency days when it comes to context switching and the challenges around that. I’ve also made weekly commitments to writing and promoting the business alongside starting a writing course.

I’m currently wondering if the answer to a busy start to the year is to take April off. Most of my current projects will finish towards the end of March so this could work. I’d love to spend some time overseas in April and honour my promise to myself to go away more this year. I’d like to use that time to work on the business, to write and get my garden ready for summer. I’d also like to give some space and time to new business conversations so I can curate my next phase of work this year and ensure I get the mix and balance right.

But there is one problem with this — cashflow. Getting my head around this is an ongoing challenge for me. Numbers are my weakness.

In the past I’ve had a tendency to predict the quiet periods and line things up ahead of time to ensure I always have work and consequently always have money. I really want to try and panic less about this as I move forwards with the business and get smarter about taking time off.

If anyone has any advice, software, etc to help manage cashflow and understand how and when to take time off as a freelancer then please do let me know. I’ll all ears!