If week 1 was fast, week 2 was a blink.
Holy shit, it went quick.
I think it’s because I’m juggling too much now. Right now that’s:
Daily outreach
Meeting new people
Writing a new newsletter issue
Editing next week’s newsletter issue
Creating and editing 5x LinkedIn posts
Making the paid newsletter issue
Building a few software products
Building a new community (more on this soon)
Writing and assessing proposals
And there’s actually no client work in there yet, which is crazy to even think about right now. But what actually ate my time was meeting people and prepping a proposal. Which I guess always take longer than I think.
I know it looks like too much, and it feels like it too. But it’s all work I care about, so the skill I need is triaging, instead of cutting things out. I know that everything isn’t urgent and not everything needs my best energy. So, I have to get better at protecting specific times for specific things.
This week, I moved outreach to the afternoons. The quality holds up fine at moderate energy, and it frees my mornings for the harder stuff. I also made a rule not to take meetings in the morning, unless there’s really no choice, like people in the EST timezone.
So, really, this week has been a big lesson in figuring out how to best plan and use my time effectively.
My first proposal since going full-time
Some of the outreach is bearing fruit, and it left me writing my first proposal since going full-time.
Compared to when I did this part-time, the stakes here feel higher. Like I don’t want to mess things up. I didn’t have to re-write a new one but I did take some time to compile and cherry pick the best bits from my old proposals into this new one.
That part was fine, the part that actually took more time was the classic problem of scoping the work and pricing it.
My first instinct was to give this new potential client choices. Because who doesn’t love choices? It was going to be a base build, then modules on top of that, each priced separately: base + A, B, C. Where the more modules he took, the bigger the bundled discount.
I was ready to hit send when I realized it was way too many choices. We are talking like 9 choices to make.
I think it was because I was scared. I wanted to hand the decision to the client instead of asserting what I thought was best. I mean who am I to assume what is best for him right ?
But I reminded myself that I know what I am doing and I should offer my opinion. Even if it’s wrong at least, I am providing some direction instead of pilling on more uncertainty.
So, I gutted the whole thing and started again. This time, no modules, just offering what I thought was the best for his situation.
I hope I’m right and but we’ll see.
Making that call felt like maturing, and it gave me more confidence to act on what I think instead of trying to please people by giving them options.
Co-working
The other thing I did a lot more of this week was co-working with a friend. We jumped on a call, chat a bit and got straight to work.
We did two 50-minute pomodoros each time. Did this for 3 days.
It’s been great because one thing about starting out on my own is that I don’t get to talk about the work I do as much. I mean I meet people but those are potential clients and that’s different from just working with someone.
Subscribe to follow along for the journey!
Work with me: https://codedconstructs.com/contact/
Resources on Computational Design: https://www.codedshapes.com/p/scripository