What is this
I’m going to try to write, and film, one of these every week. It’s a short log of what it’s like to leave a job and build something on my own. I am treating this as a “documenting” style but will try to make it as coherent as possible.
I think this journey of mine is going to be interesting, so I want to share it with everyone but I also didn’t want to disrupt my current newsletter. So, I create a new “section” on Substack.
And if you don’t want to follow along or read this, no problems, you can always unsubscribe to this section at the bottom while still getting the normal CodedShapes issues every week.
Rules
I adding this to my already pretty long things to do weekly, so I made some rules to prevent this from sucking up too much of my time.
Writing and editing, can only take 1 hour
Filming and editing, can only take 1 hour
During filming, no more than 5 re-takes.
Publishing (in all it’s nitty gritty), can only take 30 minutes
I am going to set a time for each and when the time is up, I’ll wrap up and publish. The whole point is for this to be rough and it’s a log, not “content”.
Week 1
It’s the end of week 1 of going independent for me.
And if I could sum it up in two words, it would be: freeing and exhausting.
Like the start of most journeys, I’m find myself wanting to do many things. Filled with excitement and busier than ever.
I got more done than I had in weeks.
Just as a summary,
I got the company setup and all its accounting logistics and tax implications
I got the CodedConstructs site up and running
I have been doing some outreach every day
I had some meetings with new people (Just meeting interesting people)
I had some discussions about new projects to collaborate
I have been doing some product development too
Every evening, I am exhausted. But there’s a strong sense of accomplishment each day. There’s just something about being able to own the end-to-end process that makes working on it, so great. Maybe it’s the control and also the fact that I am able to execute on my “vision” for what digital work looks like.
It’s also the small things too. Like being able to go to the gym before lunch instead of “slumming” it with the after work crowd. Or meeting people and not worrying about my lunch break ending and having to rush the end of a great conversation. Since, I just started being able to work from my “office” at home is way better than the pressure of needing to go to the an office (although I imagine, this will get lonely soon).
All of this in the first week has made imagine going back to a full time job unimaginable.
As Naval once said:
But it’s not all glorious.
The elephant in the room here is that at some point, all of this has to make money.
Freedom is great and all but so is being able to pay the bills.
And it’s a sneaky one. Because now that I am alone and every decision is on me. Which leaves room for a lot of doubt and questions. No more manager or “management” to blame. Everything is on me.
Which when I am tired, can feel overwhelming.
It’s a strange to feel so free and also feel that time is running out at the same time.
It’s led me to understand burnout better now than I ever did on a salary. Because there is just an infinite things to work on at a given time. There’s just always more to do.
Actually, the hardest part might even be to trust myself more. Because well I making decisions that need to have a positive and monetary impact and a lot of that is trusting my own instincts and processes.
In a few moments of weakness I have thought of reaching out to the less savoury kind of people ~asking~ begging for a project just because it seemed easier than to stand my ground. But I’m hoping I never go through with that.
That’s week one in a nutshell.
I am going to try and keep these up each week because I find it interesting to see how this unfolds.
Thanks for reading.
If you’re thinking about bringing computational design into a project, I’m happy to talk through how you’re framing the problem and if it’s the right solution.