It’s so easy to get lost when you seem to have every inch of your life at your hands. But as we all know, that is an illusion.  A day in the life of a freelancer isn’t all freedom at all. Far from it. Take my situation. I’ve been at home working for barely two weeks now and what have I accomplished? Not much I fear.

Yes, I managed to edit the main page of  Subersibo.net, had started the planned mascot page studying jquery at the same time to be applied to that page. I’ve managed to start with WordPress again, creating  a template, playing with some widgets and plugins andfound out I still love WordPress. I’ve scored some design gigs as well, and currently working with my client from Australia. Don’t get me started on earnings and my per hour rate, please.

But i feel there’s soooo much I have to do and want to do. I absolutely feel that I’ve wasted so much time as well. Also, ever since I stayed at home, people think I’m some sort of bum, ready errand girl just sitting in front of the PC. Sigh. I’m basically running my own business here… hellooo..

When you’re a freelancer, you’re everything. You’re basically a whole company – boss,  employee, marketing dept, accounting dept, maintainance personnel. Do you have any idea how challenging it is to be organized for all these?

Anyhow, I try not to care too much. It sucks they think that way but I know better. Freelance freedom is indeed a struggle for you create your own perks along with the hard work you put in any gig you get. And I love that. I love that I call the shots on how I work, what I work in and who I work with. Right now, the comfort such good efforts result to is priceless.

So, to make things more efficient. We should put some ground rules -

1. Working Hours – since this is always based on job at hand, I will make my working hours as flexible as I can for clients but allotting much of my silent, peaceful nights for work. I love working when all I can hear is my music and my keyboard clicking. Aim to work by 11PM and let no one bother me. Major DND.

2. Study – always, always allot time for learning. Attend to my  RSS Feeds daily before working. Focus on the web dev stuff I absolutely need like scripting and database. Try a new image editor – accept that Photoshop is not enough. Limit it as is for now but not for too long. Freelancers earn more when they have flexible skills. And I want that.

3.  Study Japanese – allot at least an hour for learning Japanese. A kanji or two a day willbe nice. I absolutely do not want to forget what I know so I should learn. And try to get my hands around Korean, too. This is my peaceful, destressing hours.

4. Errands – errands are to be done by dinner 5PM – bills, groceries, favors and ramdom evil errands from people who don’t get it.  I shall hide if I must!

5. Gym – health. I resigned because I got sick so I better take care of my health. An hour at the gym just to sweat it out would do. (I went today, and the gym manongs are as nice as ever even without my bro around so I guess I’m still welcome at the neighborhood gym. Place isn’t fancy, kinda hardcore pa nga e hahaha… )

6.  Fangirl just enough – the insanity of it all keeps me sane. A happy freelancer must be inspired to work and nothing like a good dose of fangirling keeps me going. Yes, it must sound shallow to some but I guess this is the [less] serious side of me – I am a serious fangirl. But I must not get lost with this. I really shouldn’t. I musn’t let it get too much of my time.

7. Torrents – aahhh excuse for not watching TV. Seriously it is. I don’t watch TV but I have tons of torrents so it’s the same – time in front of the screen just watching. So this will have a schedule. I should watch during meal time only, that’s what I used to do and it worked just fine back then. Torrents for rest, that’s what it is.

8. Focus more – zen mode harataki man working bee whatever you want to call it. I must get up and get a move on.

9. Meet my friends! Errand hours can also be excuse to get out of the cave and see my favorite people. I can’t do this if I’m  in an office!

This freedom will not be lost and wasted. I’m on a road less traveled~. Game on.