Freelancing series

One month in... my first impressions

As promised in my last article, here's how it is going after a month of working as freelance translator: I AM LOVING IT, mainly because as far as I am polite and I do my job well, as I always try to, I don't have to ask permission to do anything to anyone - SO LIBERATING!

Going back to business, here below you'll see some of the aspects that have been challenging/new to me.

Managing expectations
Of course, before starting, I knew that I shouldn't have expected that all agencies would have just wanted to wait for me and be super kind and interested in working with me. In my mind I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn't expect people to actually dislike me. I won't go too much into detail, but I thought that if you are fair to someone they will treat you in the same way: well, that's very wrong! Sometimes people won't like you, no matter what you do, and you know what? That's fine by me!

Manage my day
​This may sound cliché, however when I was working as project manager, I barely could organise my day. I was so busy with incoming projects that sometimes I had to stop to understand what I was doing... ahah the good old days... now, at times, I almost find it unsettling to have a couple of hours in which I can fit in activities that are not strictly related to what I do for living, e.g. writing a blog post, check LinkedIn for any interesting articles, check proz for jobs etc. Now I can actually organise my days without having to throw away my list because it has become useless the minute I wrote it.

Work alone
This is the beast that most people are scared of when talking about freelancing. Personally I thought that I wouldn't have minded a bit of loneliness, and actually I don't: I like working in bed, I truly enjoy my own company, however sometimes I do miss my ex-colleagues and their coffees (in case you are reading, maybe not, but anyway, I am talking to you Amy!). With this I am not saying I would like to go back to work in an office, but I am simply pointing out that even if you think that you are the strongest person in the world, things may change as you experience new options.

Money!
So far so good on this subject, thanks to networking and lovely friends I managed to be covered for the month of July and this makes me very happy, not only because I am not living under a bridge yet, but also because it means that people trust me and trust my work and this is very rewarding!

Projects folders
This bit can go crazy at any moment if you don't organise your folders and computer well enough. I have written some guidelines in this article, but as I said before you really need to be on top of everything otherwise you will lose hours of your own work very easily.

As you may have gathered, I am very very HAPPY. For now, I believe it's the right choice for me, but I will check in again in a couple of months!
Wish me luck! :)