It’s 7:11am on Friday and I am sitting with a cup of tea and my laptop in my little garden writing this letter. It’s quiet. The birds are gently trilling, the neighbour’s builders haven’t arrived yet, my husband is sleeping and the scent of honeysuckle is sweet in the air. I adore this time of day. Especially when I don’t have to leave to go to my teaching job.
I woke up compelled to reflect upon the first week of my new work model because it has felt like a huge shift and so many thoughts and feelings and realisations have been unearthed along the way.
To recap, I left my full-time, high pressured teaching job as head of a large department in July in order to launch my interior design business (read more here). The plan was a gradual approach; initially taking a part-time teaching job for three days per week, leaving two days for freelance work and building my business.
This week was the first week of that plan being put into action. I was in school on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and have had Wednesday and Friday for my other projects.
Here are some of my initial reflections and realisations from this week.
Being Available
I’m currently filling my freelance days with finishing projects for my design course, working on my website, advertising and networking. I have two clients that I’ve been working with which has proved to me that there are people out there willing to pay for my services (phew!). I also do a little A-Level tutoring and piano teaching, which I really enjoy.
What I love the most is knowing that on Wednesdays and Fridays, I can be available. I recently joined the innovative British Institure of Interior Designers as an associate member. They support designers at all stages of their career and offer many fantastic CPD sessions both in person and online. I’ve attended several online sessions so far, but now that I have flexibility, I have been able to book onto a few of their in person workshops. I was delighted to discover that lots of them take place on Wednesdays, which means I can sign up. These are great networking and learning events and I plan to make the most of every single one!
On Thursday morning, the wonderful Emma Gannon announced that she was hosting a creativity retreat in November run by the also wonderful Tanya Lynch. I saw the email at about 6:10am, excitedly reading though. The email simply said that it was taking place on ‘17th November’. I had no idea what day of the week that was, so the first thing I did was check the calendar app on my phone (whilst crossing everything) to see which day it fell on.