Workflow

I'm sure there's a rule somewhere that says you shouldn't blog when you're bored and possibly another about whinging blog posts, but I'm afraid I'm going to break both this morning ... I'm bored! I finished and sent off a bit of work on Tuesday afternoon and have had nothing to do since. I did a few admin bits and pieces, caught up on some emails and vaguely tidied my desk and now I just really want some work to get on with. It's not that I don't have any work on my schedule, I've got a couple of projects on the go, but I'm just waiting on in-house people to pass on the next thing for me to do.

Keeping a steady flow of work is always a problem for freelancers. You try and take on jobs that will give you a constant flow, but there are always delays and changes that are outside your control. Up until recently, I'd handled this, like most freelancers, by just taking on lots and juggling it somehow. That meant that I always had something to get on with, but frequently had patches of too much. And that, of course, was one of the reasons for my RSI flaring up so badly last year. This year I've been more strict about only taking on what I can manage and turning stuff down when it looks like I could become overloaded. That means though that I'm now much more vulnerable to those delays. When I'm waiting on one thing, I can't just pick up something something else to fill in. And of course, you never know how long you're going to be waiting - something might pop into your inbox any minute or it might be a few days, so you don't feel like you can go off and do other stuff instead. So far this year already, I've had 14 days of waiting around, twiddling my thumbs and checking my email. That's a whole fortnight's holiday I now can't afford to take this year! ... hmm, maybe I'd better stop here before this turns into a rant!