Tag: Philip Dodson

10pm and here I am

Posted on by philipdodson

For the first time since starting this 750 words I nearly forgot to do it, so here I am at 10pm on Friday, sitting to write.

This will not be a pretty one to be honest, I was just having a late Friday shot up on GTA5 and while waiting my turn, I was quickly flicking through Facebook. I had my usual daily fix of Disney Florida courtesy of Brad Burton’s Instagram, then some mad cat posts (Dee, Nikki or Nick), a couple of mentions of shit/sausages from Neil Sayer and then I saw my mate Bernie Mitchell in his usual 5.15 daily pic. Then bingo!!!

The light bulb went on – shit haven’t done my 750 words today, as it was Bernie who introduced me to it.

So thanks Bernie, otherwise my charge to become a Phoenix (100 days in a row) would have been re-set to zero. Phew.

OK so that’s 148 words used up, now what?

Cat pictures, funny photo galleries of people doing stupid things, maybe a quiz to see which fish you are like, if only I was having to update my Facebook status instead of writing.

187 words done………uh oh could this be the first time that I am going to draw a blank and get writes block.

Nah, I am a pro now, I can type pages of shit and at a rapid rate now. Although, I have learnt that my spelling is so bad that I struggle to get a sentence down without any words being underlined in red.

However, spelling really doesn’t matter so much anymore, as people realise that we type stuff on the go, on screens the size of a small thing, that’s not very big for typing, well smart phones. It is difficult to type properly too with the tiny keyboards.

So just hit 300 words.

I am really going to struggle now to be honest with 450 more words. Shit, that does seem a lot when I already feel that I have been typing away for ages.

This evening I watched Kill Bill 2 with my son, while Mrs D and Emma watched films that had Abba as a soundtrack, steer clear of those sort of films is my recommendation. I just checked to see what they are watching, it is a programme on Abba – LOL.

I always had a soft spot for the blonde one when I was a kid.

Well, that’s used up another 100 words.

This week has been a real winner in many ways, one of my big goals that I set myself for the end of the year is looking well on the way to being job done, which is a great feeling, especially as it is the result of many, many months of hard work. But I know that if you keep going on these things, good things will eventually come.

Another project, that I started just over a year ago, is now entering a new phase now and about to move forward big time. I have got a really important meeting lined up for it and that again has come about by consistently getting out there and building my network.

People often look at others who achieve things and they conclude, as they haven’t seen or appreciated all the hard work that goes on, that they were lucky or just happened to be in the right place.

Well that can happen sometimes, but rarely, it’s more likely to be because you make the effort to turn up regularly that things happen.

OK 170 words to go…….do I know any jokes? film quotes? poems? Blank.

Anyway back to my great week, Abba Dancing Queen is playing the background, it has been just one of those few days where things have fallen into place and you get on a roll, as your confidence and buzz goes sky high.

The thing is, when you keep doing the daily things over time you get momentum and then that’s when you just have to focus on not easing off. This is something I have been guilty off in the past, things go well, get some results, then ease up, put my feet up and enjoy the success.

However, this is when complacency can set in and then, without you realising it, over a period of time as you do less and less of the daily things that brought you that success, things all of sudden dry up. Then building up the momentum is hard – stop 750 words.

To home work or not to?

Posted on by philipdodson

This is an interesting dilemma for millions of freelancers. There are obvious attractions to working from home when you are a freelancer, especially in the early days of setting up, as costs are often an issue.

Home worker

People see the costs savings of not having to commute, not having to buy lunches, not paying for space and generally the time savings too.

They initially view working from home to be distraction free, especially attractive if you’ve just left the open plan office of your previous paid employment job.

You also feel that you will be happier at home, as you can enjoy a work/life balance, that previously you could only dream of with the ‘7am to 7pm’ life of working for someone else.

However, after a while, what happens is, you realise that you get increasingly lonely working at home, you start to crave those ‘distractions’ of others. You come to the conclusion that some of those distractions were in fact valuable interactions.

You miss the knowledge sharing, the boost to morale of having someone to share things with, especially important when things are going less well. After all, we are all going to have crap days.

The next thing, you find is that the motivation starts to drop, as you ease into a blurred work/life environment. There are often distractions in an office, but there are different ones at home.

Like partners, children, pets, Jeremy Kyle, Playstation (maybe this just me), shops, washing to hang out, dinner to put on, ironing etc etc. OK, so we will have varying degrees of self-discipline, but you will get distracted.

Cabin fever sets in and that’s when it is time to get out the house and seek people. Although often people think that the solution is to head to a coffee shop.

The challenge with working in a coffee shop is that they are noisy and the wrong sort of nosiy – music, kids etc. Then typically the Wi-Fi is poor, you feel guilty that you haven’t bought a coffee for at least an hour, there is still no chance of any meaningful conversation and of course you will have to take your laptop to the toilet. When you come back your seat will be gone.

Until more recently the next option was very often a serviced office, which for most freelancers was a cost and commitment too far.

Now there are options – coworking spaces have sprung up all over world and are opening at a rapid rate as the rise globally in self-employment continues to grow off the charts.

What coworking offers, if you find the right one, is a flexible workspace, so you can still enjoy the good elements of home working. It will provide you with a community, something to belong to and that for me is the biggest benefit of coworking over full time home working.

As a freelancer, who has left the world of paid employment for the freedom of self-employment, you have closed the door on your support system, the community of colleagues and that leaves you on your own, no longer belonging.

What coworking provides is others to share ideas, share knowledge, help you and to do business with. It is the serendipity of those chance meetings, that will lead eventually to opportunity to grow your business, that you will never get being at home.

The other advantages of coworking spaces is they often run workshops, events, business networking groups. They can provide you access to mastermind groups and mentoring. So a chance to grow your network beyond the coworking space regulars and get invaluable advice for you and your business.

At the end of the day businesses, especially solo-preneurs, are all better of working and collaborating with others than they are trying to ‘row their own boat’.

Human beings are designed to be social and to work together and not be on their own.

This is what is critical in coworking – collaboration. Your products/service etc will be greatly enhanced by working with others. You will also increase your reach and customer base by sharing and working with others.

So the answer to the question ‘To home work or not to?’ is – not to home work all day every day, as you risk isolation and missing opportunities to grow you and your business.