Finding the Right Mix 💿
Right now, I feel I'm in a third season of self-employment.
The first phase was February to May, when I was mostly decompressing from a long three years of work and visiting family.
The second phase was from the beginning of May until last week or so. My wife and I relocated for the summer as we typically do for her job, and the majority of my time was spent on my main freelance client, the first of the year.
Now, I'm starting with a new freelance client, and in a couple weeks I'm rolling off the first project. I enjoyed the first client, but the one downside was that they more or less expected me to be available full-time, even though I theoretically had flexibility on the number of hours I worked. There's a part-time expectation with the new client, so I'm thinking this situation will be a somewhat better fit for my preferences.
I feel I'm basically in the process of trying to figure out my ideal mix of activities. Phase 1 was great, but it wasn't financially sustainable. Phase 2 was good in terms of revenue but didn't leave enough time for my own projects. I'm hopeful about Phase 3, but I also don't think there are any silver bullets. I'm okay with continuing to figure out what I want as I move along on this self-employment journey.
Speaking of my projects, here are my updates on that front:
New Course
Inspired by Hasan Osman, I decided to try publishing a course on Udemy. Junior to Senior is my best attempt at distilling all of the things I felt went into the promotions I got over my years of full-time development work. If that sounds like it could be helpful, the link has a coupon code embedded in it which will get you the course for free. I'm considering the course a decent "small bet" - I capped the time invested in the project, and now it can exist on the internet forever and pick up sales, even if there aren't very many.
5,000 YouTube subscribers
Not a whole lot to report here other than that the channel is very close to becoming self-sustaining (paying my editor's salary). That's pretty exciting to me, as it means we can continue to make videos at this pace indefinitely, at least in theory. I'm feeling more inspired about YouTube right now and look forward to publishing a few ideas I've been excited about.
(P.S. I skipped last month's update because I was a bit swamped. Committing now to get these updates out no matter what.)
Pete's Picks ✅
- What I'm Reading: I'm trying to get into science fiction and heard The Expanse series recommended on a podcast. I picked up the first book in the series and have been enjoying it for the most part.
- What I'm Watching: I just finished The Bear on Hulu and absolutely loved it. It's about a fine-dining chef who moves home to Chicago to take over his family's restaurant. Plus it has Matty Matheson in it, so what's not to like?
- What I'm Listening To: Andre 3000 on the Broken Record podcast. An introspective talk about creativity and a must-listen in my book.
Some Recent Videos 🎥
How to Negotiate a Software Engineer Salary
Cheers,
Peter