October 24th 2014 is the day I walked out of Google into the crisp autumn air of freedom. Which means today is four years self employed!
Editors note: ahem. You might notice that today is in fact the 25th of October. Well, due to a tinyletter snaffu I tried to send this yesterday with no luck. So here's to 4.0027 days on the road!
Every year I like to reflect on a mixture of personal and professional things that happened. I missed the first year (I'm not sure I realized I was in it for the long haul at that point!) but I've done it the years since.
Here's the latest installment:
https://tomcritchlow.com/2018/10/24/four-years/
This one ended up being quite long and meandering but the biggest revelation is basically this graph which shows the client work I've done over the past four years:
That cyclic boom/bust of client work is inevitable and actually a feature not a bug - it's what gives me perspective to reflect on work. It's the freedom to take holidays in the slow times. But it's also the fact that allows me to dive head-first into more-than-full-time work when the client work is flowing and well paid and interesting.
The best advice I ever received starting out was to embrace the busy times and the slow times and I've done both this year - from a relaxed vacation in Uruguay at the start of the year to working nights and weekends over the summer.
Anyway - I'd hope perhaps there's some useful nuggets for folks thinking of carving their own independent path.
Much love and thanks for coming on this journey with me.
Tom x
PS - my wonderful partner Erin is in the middle of writing and illustrating a kids book. If anyone on this email list knows people in the kid's book publishing world I'd love an intro! Thanks. More info on the book with some images here: https://tomcritchlow.com/2018/10/16/journey-to-the-end-of-the-night/
Editors note: ahem. You might notice that today is in fact the 25th of October. Well, due to a tinyletter snaffu I tried to send this yesterday with no luck. So here's to 4.0027 days on the road!
Every year I like to reflect on a mixture of personal and professional things that happened. I missed the first year (I'm not sure I realized I was in it for the long haul at that point!) but I've done it the years since.
Here's the latest installment:
https://tomcritchlow.com/2018/10/24/four-years/
This one ended up being quite long and meandering but the biggest revelation is basically this graph which shows the client work I've done over the past four years:
That cyclic boom/bust of client work is inevitable and actually a feature not a bug - it's what gives me perspective to reflect on work. It's the freedom to take holidays in the slow times. But it's also the fact that allows me to dive head-first into more-than-full-time work when the client work is flowing and well paid and interesting.
The best advice I ever received starting out was to embrace the busy times and the slow times and I've done both this year - from a relaxed vacation in Uruguay at the start of the year to working nights and weekends over the summer.
Anyway - I'd hope perhaps there's some useful nuggets for folks thinking of carving their own independent path.
Much love and thanks for coming on this journey with me.
Tom x
PS - my wonderful partner Erin is in the middle of writing and illustrating a kids book. If anyone on this email list knows people in the kid's book publishing world I'd love an intro! Thanks. More info on the book with some images here: https://tomcritchlow.com/2018/10/16/journey-to-the-end-of-the-night/