Leaving Solo
Unlike many of my peers, I’ve made the decision to leave the world of freelancing to focus my attention on my day job at the Notre Dame Web Group. Now to be honest, I never relied on freelancing for my full-time income, but I did do quite a bit of supplemental outside work.
I enjoyed freelancing in general, but the opportunities offered at Notre Dame as well as family responsibilities now and in the future deserve more attention than I had been able to provide.
A few months ago I just had too many irons in the fire, and I hate that feeling. It was time to refocus some priorities, and doing other peoples work by myself just didn’t make the cut. To be clear, this will not stop me from working on an upcoming product release which I will be announcing in the next month or so.
As a related side note, much like Mr. Inman I’m also in the process of moving to Rails as my primary development platform, so that is also taking some time. I should have plenty of tutorials and tips to present as that migration takes place. I’ve been very impressed by the thought that has gone into this incredible framework and the ruby language in itself.
My decision to step away from freelancing was made at the beginning of the year, and I’m already feeling the relief. I really enjoy not having to work on client sites in the evenings and feeling refreshed and ready to start at ND the next day. I feel more creative, inspired, and focused. Freelancing has its benefits, but at this point in my life, it’s just not the right thing for me.
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Published February 06, 2006 by:
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So far there are 27 comments.
Kudos to you. Stable paycheque from a job you enjoy is always nice. :) Ack, what was I thinking?!
February 6th, 2006
Hey mate! Good luck with all your endeavours. Does this mean you’ll no longer be blogging at OL? Surely not.
February 6th, 2006
Ross: Of course I’ll still be blogging here. If anything I’ll have more time to get some quality articles around. (Imagine that!)
February 6th, 2006
I can totally understand where you’re coming from Steve. Many years ago I had a choice to make between continuing to run a web design business or take a stable job with great benefits. I took the latter, and while I’m trying to get caught back up on web technologies so I can do development again, I think having stability is most important. At least to me it is.
It’s the reason why I left the radio business. :)
February 6th, 2006
Steve: I too made the same decision about a year ago and have not regretted my choice at all. I’ve built some small websites for the local competitive snowboard team and cycling club, but even those wear me out now!
I’d much rather spend time with my family, on my bike or best yet, in the summer out on a river fly-fishing. The change in attitude and energy at work is phenomenal and very much worth the decrease in extra income.
February 6th, 2006
Congrats on making that decision. I’m right there with you, and am currently waiting for a client to wrap stuff up (doing the work for free – charity related). I’m of the opinion that finding “smart” clients is getting tougher, and it sure is a lot more refreshing to work with a focused team at a day job.
February 6th, 2006
That’s always good. :D
February 6th, 2006
Moving to Rails may help you in your personal development, but you sure won’t find it useful for enterprise solutions.
Other than that, I guess I’ll hold off on featuring you as an “open freenlancer.” Have fun with the web group, it already sounds like you’re having fun with it :)
February 6th, 2006
Dustin: On the contrary, I think I’ll find Rails quite useful for enterprise solutions. Time will sortly tell.
February 6th, 2006
Just yesterday I was thinking about how all tose “tech-bloggers” like you made a living with all your fancy geek dinners and CSS-testcases. 9 to 5, so it seems ;)
There goes another dream.
February 6th, 2006
Methinks the title for this post should have been “So Lo(ng).”
February 6th, 2006
Josh: Very nice.
February 7th, 2006
That’s such an unfair and invalid blanket statement, Not even worth arguing, just sufficive to say: you’re completely wrong.
Congrats Steve, I understand your feelings here. I don’t do Freelance because of many of the same reasons; enjoying my job, being able to work on personal projects, and the sense of freedom. Ya know, sometimes it’s nice to go home and just go home.
February 7th, 2006
Speaking as Steve’s wife, he will never ever be the kind of person who just comes home!
February 7th, 2006
We need you. Hell, I need you. I’m a mess without ya. I miss you so damn much. I miss being with you. I miss being near you! I miss your laugh! I miss – I miss your scent. I miss your musk. When this all gets sorted out, I think you and me should get an apartment together.
February 7th, 2006
Carrie: And of course that’s a good thing, right?
Bob: Take it easy, Bob. Why don’t you stop talking for a while.
February 7th, 2006
Good luck. It is hard balancing a full time job with freelancing. I’m trying to limit the amount of freelancing work I do so I’m not working two full-time jobs.
February 8th, 2006
I can completely understand your decision. I’m doing my full time thing at Harvard and some freelancing on the side, and it’s consuming a large portion of my life right now. Plus I plan on going to school part time in the fall.
Oh, and I don’t have family to take care of. I can only imagine how much you’ve got going on, not to mention how much sleep you’ve probably been missing. And I like my sleep.
Anyway, good luck with transition. Hopefully this doesn’t mean you’ll be abandoning one of my favorite sites on the web.
Patrick
February 8th, 2006
Out of curiousity, what does ND use for a content management system?
February 9th, 2006
Quite interesting, as you said its usuall to do it the other way.
Enjoy :)
February 12th, 2006
Good on ya for prioritizing. Family is so important. I made the same decision about 6 months ago and informally announced my ‘retirement’. However, I was recently approached by three new clients that were just too interesting to pass up. Once I finish those up I will make my official exit. I’ve never been too good at the freelance thing, my fluctuating threshold for stress and tendancy to procrastinate sometimes get the best of me. 9 to 5 is more than enough for me these days.
February 12th, 2006
God, I soooo understand this move, I myself am rounding up 4 years of full-time studying while working weekends and building websites to pay for all of it… I understand it must be great to focus on 1 thing and then go home and like another commenter said just go home :-)
February 13th, 2006
I couldn’t even imagine working freelance at this point in my life. There’s really something to be said to have the comfort of not having to hustle on a daily basis. Best of luck man.
February 13th, 2006
How does your TINYe project management tool compare that that of BaseCamp. I ask because the greatly like the interface of TINYe as seen in the screenshots.
February 13th, 2006
Good decision, Steve, especially in light of the coming changes that are coming to your lives in a few months. I was also intrigued by Carrie’s comment about you, above. :) By the way, does this mean that I will now be busier than you are? :) I do love the job at CU as well as the work at FHBC, though. I think I have a pretty high level of energy or a guy who recently turned 50! Take care of yourselves – you guys (all 3 of you!) are literally in ouor prayers every day.
Dad
February 17th, 2006
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April 29th, 2006
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April 29th, 2006