Heather Flyte

I’ve paused my reading (read: listening) to Salem’s Lot to say Hello. I find myself busier on the weekends than during the week, since a full work day leaves me somewhat tired for freelance work. I’m still trying on different schedules to discover how I can maximize my awake time, meet deadlines, and still have some spare daylight for a sliver of a life. It’s not easy. While I’m a natural homebody, I struggle with motivation and discipline, and while those two things pal around with me while I’m working with other people, at home, it’s too relaxing. Any dreams I have of being able to work 100% from home may fall by the wayside if I can’t beat back these demons.

I’m currently working on various project: Two websites for clients (one artist portfolio site and a travel site), editing text for a friend’s media site and three sites of my own (a writer’s community site and two design blogs). I have several other ideas in development, but have decided not to put any effort into them at the present. Plenty of irons in the fire may be good for some, but trying to pull just one of them out neatly can cause a girl to get a lap full of ashes.

I read plenty of small business, freelance and “blogging” blogs to give me inspiration and tools to get the mojo going during the week, but I still find myself languishing in an after-work funk that leaves me little energy for email, let alone full on development.

How do I cure this? It’s not a question of not wanting it more. In the great words of Amy Poehler “yes, if only I had wanted it more!” No, it’s a deep seeded “procrastinative” future casting that blocks me. The “there’s time tomorrow” that stops my motivation in its tracks and sends me on the Magic Couch to see what’s being served up currently on my DVR.

Shameful, yet not. While bound and determined not to beat myself up over this lack of keenness, I’m blown if I can find a simple strategy out of it. I can surround myself with schedules, to-do-lists, deadlines, affirmations etc, but I’m such a con artist that I can outfox even myself. Being good at pulling amazing things out of thin air does not make for a disciplined craftsman, it makes for a ner-do-well jack of all trades. Heavy on the “jack”.

I’ve put off reading “Getting Things Done” because, well, it’s a rather small book and I can read it quickly later.

See? I’m hopeless. I shall continue my question for the magical key (or rune or phrase) that will quickly pull me up from “wanting to” to “doing it” and hope that in my search, this one post doesn’t ruin my future search for freelance work. (Note: I respond well to haranguing.)

Ah well, back to it then.

Tags: being stupid, freelance, motivation

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at 5:08 pm and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.