The Fighting Freelancer Battle with Structure and Order on a Daily Basis.

trust me, working for yourself is harder than working for the man. working for the man has some perks, regular pay cheque, often fixed hours, health care covered, things like that. the downsides are often hours over what you agreed often are unpaid, the work can be soul crushing, the people you work with dicks and the boss a nightmare. after a while it gets inside of your head and you wonder what the actual fuck you are doing with your life.

the battle i have everyday is with myself, the boss i guess. you see in this journey to be location and financial independent i’ve realised that you have to tackle a bunch of hurdles that can come all at once. the biggest one i have at the moment which i fight with everyday is food. food has become a real challenge that i battle with everyday, for the last hour i’ve been looking at the weather reports and almost convinced by myself to take the walk out before lunch time when we have rain and after that thunder.

i was going to take that nice walk, grab a lunchtime sandwich deal and head back, convincing myself that i would get straight back to the computer after it and crack on with my course. that’s not happened in the last day and it’s certainly not been the case of the last few months, if anything, the food always leads me to comfort and apathy. it’s the hardest hack i have to put in place everyday. everything is sweet. i’ve got my FOCUS war scent on and i’ve done all my web checks, checked the state of this hard fork (seems bitcoin is heading to $3k at the moment at least) on bitcoin, websites, stats, mining, the usual stuff, all done in thirty minutes.

so i’m clear, i’ve got the day ahead and i’ve got OBS open, the site is a little less loaded up with people today so i presume they are going to cut grass today too so i’ve gotta work it around that, i can’t believe i allowed the keynote to restrict recording last week, i can literally record those bits at anytime but i had always put them mentally first like i could not start the rest of it until they were done, that’s royally stupid. if anything the momentum of getting the other sections done KNOWING i have only a few bits to record to get them live would be better.

don’t get me wrong, i would not switch this working life for anything, working on the stuff i love to make, seeing figures and numbers heading upwards rather than stagnation, it makes me smile and feels like progress, i do have an order to my day but i find you have to be careful not to repeat those creature comforts too much — i didn’t like the mental trickery this morning of my head say ‘go on the walk, do some exercise’ when i know the exercise is only to get my need for food from the shop — when really i can go later on tonight when the discount section is full and get three days worth of meals for the same amount as my meal deal lunch.

it was harder when i lived in the city, people i loved to see each day, it became part of the story, the narrative if you will of the commute and the digital worker day, i’d go to the same cafe, near enough have the same damn thing to eat, grab take our coffee in a bad for the planet cup and go to the first coffee shop, grind for an hour, have more coffee and then cake, then a meeting, then lunch, then if i had a good day and managed to get a new client or finish up on some of the work have a beer around 5pm, that was my life, day in day out - sure, it was great in a lot of perspectives but it was kinda linear and it was me that was putting the creature comforts in.

i’m not saying you can’t have creature comforts as a freelancer i just think it’s much harder to be accountable, maybe it’s because i have more time to think when it’s just me most of the time until i see ella at the weekend, maybe these four days at the moment of not physically seeing another human people in close proximity give me more time to be reflective of what’s going on, where i want to be but i do know i WON the battle against the food today, that today will now be a productive day because i will eat LIGHT and i will go at the END of the working day rather than treat myself before i even start.

i’ve been much better with my food since the beginning of the year, i’d constantly have like two breakfast of champions uk style each week and sometimes buy additional bacon, sausage and all that stuff. since dayle switched it up to a vegan diet and decided to adjust my food intake as well i can see i’m much better for it. i just have so much more clarity and it’s helped my mental health wonders - just the old boy routines need a little longer to fix, when you’ve been impulsive all your life for your comfort foods it’s hard to put the breaks on to stop, pulling up short and saying ‘do i want that, what if XYZ’ is much harder when your in the moment, in the hustle of the city with music, lights, people all gorging themselves.

nope, today i’m gonna have a few poached eggs again like yesterday (i did have beans with them and some toast!) and a nice big cup of coffee and get cracking, i can feel the temperature coming in so i’m gonna have a few run throughs and takes on this to see how it comes out and then i’ll be ready to roll for the day - let’s get this tuesday crushed huh?

what would you say is the hardest thing for you as a freelancer you deal with on a daily basis? clients? transport? life admin?