Going Solo

I’m always glad to learn that Going Solo inspired others to put something together to help local freelancers learn from each other. Flying Solo (in addition to being a book on going solo which the authors kindly sent to me to read) is a one-day unconference for solo entrepreneurs and freelancers which is taking place in South Africa.

• Cape Town: Saturday 26 July 2008, 9.30am – 5pm at the Wild Fig restaurant, Observatory
• Johannesburg: Saturday 2 August 2008, 9.30am – 5pm, venue TBA

If you’re in that part of the world, visit the Flying Solo SA wiki and take part! There is also an online community on Ning.

A quick quote sent to me by my friend Kevin Marks. To be honest, I’m too knackered right now to read the whole article, but it looks interesting:

The most compelling statistic of all? Half of all new college graduates now believe that self-employment is more secure than a full-time job. Today, 80% of the colleges and universities in the U.S. now offer courses on entrepreneurship; 60% of Gen Y business owners consider themselves to be serial entrepreneurs, according to Inc. magazine. Tellingly, 18 to 24-year-olds are starting companies at a faster rate than 35 to 44-year-olds. And 70% of today’s high schoolers intend to start their own companies, according to a Gallup poll.

An upcoming wave of new workers in our society will never work for an established company if they can help it. To them, having a traditional job is one of the biggest career failures they can imagine.

Much of childhood today is spent, not in organized sports or organizations, but in ad hoc teams playing online games such as Half Life, or competing in robotics tournaments, or in constructing and decorating MySpace pages. Without knowing it, we have been training a whole generation of young entrepreneurs.

And who is going to dissuade them? Mom, who is a self-employed consultant working out of the spare bedroom? Or Dad, who is at Starbuck’s working on the spreadsheet of his new business plan?

The Next American Frontier

Quick news: the main session videos are up; help us tag the photos on Flickr; a survey has been sent out to participants (let me know if you didn’t get it) — thanks for filling it in as soon as possible; if you wrote about Going Solo and it’s not in the coverage list, let me know (e-mail or Twitter message); make sure you’ve signed up for the newsletter if you want to be sure not to miss news about the upcoming Going Solo Leeds (and elsewhere!) and the online community developments we’re planning (I’ll blog about it too, but right now I really need a nap… tiredness of these last months is really kicking in!).

Imran (thanks again!) pointed me to 16 Ways to Keep A Razor- Sharp Focus at Work, a post by Glen Stansberry on how to remain focused while working on your computer all day.

Though I personally don’t agree with everything in the article (it has a tad too much bias towards neatness and control for my taste), it’s well worth a read, and here are some of the tips I found most useful for myself:

• 2. Take more breaks. More breaks = More productivity. It may sound wrong, but it’s true. Breaks allow us to re-group our thoughts and focus for the task at hand. They also keep us fresh so that we don’t end up burning out after only a few hours work.
• 5. Keep a daily “purpose” card. It’s pretty easy to get lost staring at the computer all day long. We’ll find rabbit holes to wonder down (ie. Youtube, Myspace, etc.) if we’re not careful. Having your daily purpose card gives you clarity and a reminder as to what you’re doing today.
• 8. Notice your lazy routines. Everyone has recurring lazy spots throughout the day. Plan to have your breaks for those times. You’re going to be lazy then anyway, right?
• 12. Keep a journal of what you did throughout the day. I like to use a moleskine notebook for my lists just so I can go back and review it every now and again, to see what I’ve done. Knowing how far you’ve come can keep you sharp and motivated to finish.
• 13. Use programs to track where you spend your time. This is a real eye-opener. Knowing just how much time you spend every day/week/month on a certain site or with a certain program can quickly show you where your priorities lie. I recommend Rescue Time, but there are many others.
• 15. Start the day right. Starting the day with a good breakfast, some quiet time and/or exercise is a great way to set your day up for success. Sounds like a cliche, but it really works.
• 16. Clean yourself up. It’s why my track coach in high school made us dress up for big races: you perform the way you feel. And if you feel polished, groomed and ready, you’ll be more likely to be productive. For me this is just taking a shower, brushing my teeth and putting on casual clothing. I used to work all day without taking a shower in my PJ’s, but I never got much stuff done. Let’s be honest here… if you’re dressed really casually, odds are you’ll be working really casually. Just taking the time to clean up a bit before you buckle down for the day is never a bad idea.

I often use FTDB to remember what I want to accomplish in the day. I’ve downloaded Rescue Time and love it already. I still need to take more breaks, and I understood many years ago that keeping track of the things you’ve done during the day helps prevent this feeling that you “spent a whole day doing nothing”. As for getting a good start in the morning, here’s what I was writing a few months ago:

Let me tell you, there is something to be said for taking a shower first thing in the morning to wake up. And using that woozy wake-up time in the bathroom rather than in front of the computer.

Having been freed of the “wake up, shower, get dressed, breakfast, brush teeth” morning ritual since I became self-employed over 18 months ago, I think I’m on the verge of reclaiming that ritual for myself. I’d already noticed a few months back that it made a real difference, and then I slipped out of it again.

What are the tips you find most helpful to stay focused and productive when you’re working home at the computer, day after day?

And if you come upon an article that would be worth mentioning in the Going Solo blog, feel free to send me a tweet or an e-mail about it.

Imran pointed me this morning to this article on Salon, titled What every freelancer should know, by Catherine Price. Cathering is a freelance writer, and the article is well worth the read (I could definitely take some of her advice right now).

I could never be happy in a traditional job. I hate fluorescent lights. I detest working in groups. While I can get interested in just about anything, nothing interests me enough for it to be a full-time career. Also — and, to me, this is no small thing — the smell of office carpet makes me existentially depressed.

So I became a freelancer — thus joining the growing armada of the self-employed who sit at the same cafe table every day and thrust their business cards in your face during casual conversation. For the most part, it is a satisfying existence, a life of freedom and flexibility and almost no personal connection to “the office.” Then there are days when the clock slips past noon, but I haven’t been outside, I haven’t spoken to another human being, and I start to wonder if I’m going to wake up one morning when I’m 70 and regret never having owned a pantsuit.

Read the rest while I go and swap my dressing-gown for proper clothes and have some breakfast.